Fatal Remedies

‘The airport was closed yesterday. The air-traffic controllers were on strike,’ Brunetti told him, but from his expression he could tell Bonaventura already knew. ‘What instructions did he have if he couldn’t deliver?’

‘It’s the same for all the drivers: bring the truck back here and put it in the garage.’

‘Could he have put it in his own garage?’

‘How do I know what he could have done?’ Bonaventura exploded. ‘The truck’s gone and, from what you tell me, the driver’s dead.’

‘The truck’s not gone,’ Brunetti said softly and watched Bonaventura’s face as he heard the statement. He saw him attempt to hide his shock, then as quickly try to change his expression, but all he achieved was a grotesque parody of relief.

‘Where is it?’ Bonaventura asked.

‘By now, in the police garage.’ He waited to see what Bonaventura would ask and, when he remained silent, added,

‘The boxes were in the back.’

Bonaventura tried to disguise his shock, tried and failed.

‘Not sent to Sri Lanka, either,’ Brunetti said, then added, ‘Do you think you could help me find those shipping invoices now, Signor Bonaventura?’

‘Certainly.’ Bonaventura bowed his head to the task. Idly, aimlessly, he moved papers from one side of his desk to the other, then stacked them all in a pile and went through them one by one. ‘That’s strange,’ he said, looking up at Brunetti after he had gone through the lot, ‘I can’t find them here,’ He got to his feet. If you’ll wait, I’ll ask my secretary to get them for me.’

Before he could take his first step towards the door, Brunetti got to his feet. ‘Perhaps you could call her,’ he suggested.

Bonaventura turned his mouth up in a smile. ‘It’s really the foreman who has them, and he’s back at the loading dock.’

He started to move past Brunetti, who put out a hand and placed it on his arm. ‘I’ll come with you, Signor Bonaventura.’

‘That’s really not necessary,’ he said with another motion of his mouth.

‘I think it is,’ was all Brunetti answered. He had no idea what his legal rights were here, how much authority he had to detain or follow Bonaventura. He was outside Venice, even beyond the borders of the province of Venezia, and no charges had been contemplated, much less brought, against Bonaventura. But none of that mattered to him. He stepped aside and let Bonaventura open the door of his office, then followed him down the corridor, away from the front of the building.

At the back, a door opened out on to a long cement loading dock. Two large trucks were backed up to it, rear doors open, and four men were wheeling dollies filled with cartons from doors further down the dock into the open backs of the trucks. They looked up when they saw the two men emerge from the door but then went back to their work. Below them, between the trucks, two men stood and talked, hands in the pockets of their jackets.

Bonaventura walked over to the edge of the loading dock. When they looked up at him, he called down to one of them, ‘De Luca’s truck’s been found. The shipment’s still in it. This policeman wants to see the shipping invoices.’

He had barely finished the word ‘policeman’, when the taller of the two men sprang away from the other and reached inside his jacket. His hand came out carrying a pistol, but the instant Brunetti saw him move, he ducked back inside the still-open door and pulled his own pistol from its holster.

Nothing happened. There was no noise, no shot, no shouting. He heard footsteps, the slamming of what sounded like a car door and another; then a large motor spring into life. Instead of going out on to the dock again to see what was happening, Brunetti ran back through the corridor and out of the front door of the building, where his driver was waiting, motor running to keep the car warm, while he read Il Gazzettino dello Sport.

Brunetti pulled open the passenger door and leaped into the car, seeing the driver’s panic disappear when he recognized him. ‘A truck, going out of the far gate. Swing round and follow it.’ Even before Brunetti’s hand reached the car phone, the driver had tossed his paper into the back seat and had the car in gear and spinning round towards the back of the building. As they rounded the corner, the driver pulled the wheel sharply to the left, trying not to hit one of the boxes that had fallen from the open doors of the truck. But he couldn’t avoid the next one and their left wheels passed over it, splattering it open and spewing small bottles in a wide wake behind them. Just beyond the gates Brunetti could see the truck moving off down the highway in the direction of Padova, its rear doors flapping open.

The rest was as predictable as it was tragic. Just beyond Resana, two Carabinieri vehicles were drawn up across the road, blocking traffic. In an attempt to get past them, the driver of the truck swerved to the right and on to the high shoulder of the road. Just as he did, a small Fiat, driven by a woman on the way to pick up her daughter at the local asilo, slowed at the sight of the police block. The truck, as it came back on to the road, swung into the other lane and slammed into her car broadside, killing her instantly. Both men, Bonaventura and the driver, had been wearing their seat-belts, so neither was hurt, though they were severely shaken by the crash.

Before they could free themselves from their seat-belts, they were surrounded by Carabinieri, who pulled them down from the truck and flung them face forward against its doors. They were quickly surrounded by four Carabinieri carrying machine-guns. Two others ran to the Fiat but saw there was nothing to be done.

Brunetti’s car pulled up and he got out. The scene was absolutely silent, unnaturally so. He heard his own footsteps approaching the two men, both of whom were breathing heavily. Something metal clanged to the ground from the direction of the truck.

He turned to the sergeant. ‘Put them in the car,’ was all he said.

* * * *

24

There was some discussion about where the men should be taken for questioning, whether back to Castelfranco, which had territorial jurisdiction over the scene of their capture, or back to Venice, from which city the investigation had begun. Brunetti listened to the police discuss this for a few moments, then cut into the conversation with a voice of iron: ‘I said put them in the car. We’re taking them back to Castelfranco.’ The other policemen exchanged glances, but no one contradicted him and it was done.

Standing in Bonino’s office, Bonaventura was told he could call his lawyer, and when the other identified himself as Roberto Sandi, the foreman of the factory, he was told the same. Bonaventura named a lawyer in Venice with a large criminal practice and asked that he be allowed to call him. He ignored Sandi.

‘And what about me?’ Sandi asked, turning to Bonaventura.

Bonaventura refused to answer him.

‘What about me?’ Sandi said again.

Still, Bonaventura remained silent.

Sandi, who spoke with a pronounced Piedmontese accent, turned to the uniformed officer next to him and demanded, ‘Where’s your boss? I want to talk to your boss.’

Before the officer could respond, Brunetti stepped forward and said, I’ll be in charge of this,’ even though he wasn’t sure of that at all.

‘Then it’s you I want to talk to,’ Sandi stated, looking at him with eyes that glimmered with malice.

‘Come now, Roberto,’ Bonaventura suddenly broke in, placing his hand on Sandi’s arm. ‘You know you can use my lawyer. As soon as he gets here we can talk to him.’

Sandi shook off his hand with a muttered curse. ‘No lawyer. Not yours. I want to talk to the cop.’ He addressed Brunetti: ‘Well? Where can we talk?’

‘Roberto,’ Bonaventura said in a voice he tried to make menacing, ‘you don’t want to talk to him.’