is. And some of the stuff for diabetes, or at least I think it’s that. So to cut costs they use the placebos. Ask him about it,’ he said, pointing in the direction where he had left Bonaventura.
‘And at the airport?’
‘Nothing. Everything’s just as it should be. We put it on planes and it gets delivered at the other end. There’s never any trouble there. Everything’s been taken care of.’
‘Is all this commercial?’ Brunetti asked, possessed of a new idea. ‘Or is some of it given away?’
‘We sell a lot of it to the charity agencies, if that’s what you’re asking. The UN, things like that. We give them a discount and take the rest off taxes. As charity.’
Brunetti stopped himself from showing any reaction to what he was hearing. It sounded as though Sandi knew far more than how to drive a truck to the airport. ‘Does anyone from the UN check the contents?’
Sandi gave a snort of disbelief. ‘All they care about is getting their picture taken when they deliver the stuff to the refugee camps.’
‘Do you send the same things to the camps that you send in the regular shipments?’
‘No, most of that’s for diarrhoea and amoebic dysentery. And a lot of cough syrup. When they’re so thin, that’s what they have to worry about, those things.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti ventured. ‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘A year.’
‘In what capacity?’
‘Foreman. I used to work for Mitri, in his factory. But then I came up here.’ He grimaced at this, as if the memory caused him pain or regret.
‘Did Mitri do the same thing?’
Sandi nodded. ‘He did until he sold his factory.’
‘Why would he sell it?’
Sandi shrugged. ‘I heard that he had an offer he couldn’t refuse. That is, that wasn’t safe to refuse. That some big people wanted to buy it.’
Brunetti understood perfectly what he meant and was surprised to see that, even here, Sandi was afraid to name directly the organization these ‘big people’ represented. ‘So he sold it?’
Sandi nodded. ‘But he recommended me to his brother-in-law.’ Mention of Bonaventura called him back from the realms of memory. ‘And I damn the day I started to work for him.’
‘Because of this?’ Brunetti asked, waving a hand at the bleak sterility of the room in which they sat and all it represented.
Sandi nodded.
‘What about Mitri?’ Brunetti asked.
Sandi contracted his eyebrows in an expression of feigned confusion.
‘Was he involved in the factory?’
‘Which one?’
Brunetti raised his hand and brought his fist smashing down on the table just in front of Sandi, who jumped as if Brunetti had struck him. ‘Don’t waste my time, Signor Sandi,’ Brunetti shouted. ‘Don’t waste my time with stupid questions.’ When Sandi didn’t answer, he leaned towards him and demanded, ‘Do you understand me?’
Sandi nodded.
‘Good,’ Brunetti said. ‘What about the factory? Did Mitri have a part in it?’
‘He must have.’
‘Why?’
‘He came up here sometimes to prepare a formula or to tell his brother-in-law how something had to look. He’d have to make sure that what went into the packages looked right.’ He glanced up at Brunetti and added, ‘I didn’t understand all of that, but I think that’s why he came.’
‘How often?’
‘Maybe once a month, sometimes more often than that.’
‘How did they get on?’ Brunetti asked, then, to prevent Sandi from asking who, he added, ‘Bonaventura and Mitri?’
Sandi considered this for a while before he answered, ‘Not well. Mitri was married to his sister, so they had to get along somehow, but I don’t think either of them liked it.’
‘What about Mitri’s murder? What do you know?’
Sandi shook his head repeatedly. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
Brunetti let a long moment pass before he asked, ‘And here at the factory, was there any talk?’
‘There’s always talk.’
‘About the murder, Signor Sandi. Was there talk about the murder?’
Sandi remained silent, either trying to remember or weighing possibilities. Finally he mumbled, ‘There was talk that Mitri wanted to buy the factory.’
‘Why?’
‘Why was there talk or why did he want to buy it?’
Brunetti took a deep breath and spoke calmly. ‘Why did he want to buy it?’
‘Because he was much better at it than Bonaventura. It was a mess with him running it. No one ever got paid on time. The records were hopeless. I never knew when the shipments were going to be ready to go out.’ As Brunetti watched him, Sandi shook his head in tight-lipped disapproval, the perfect picture of a conscientious accountant, pushed beyond all patience by fiscal irresponsibility.
‘You say you’re foreman of the factory, Signor Sandi.’ Sandi nodded. ‘It sounds like you knew more about the running of it than the owner did.’
Sandi nodded again, as if not at all displeased to hear that someone would recognize this.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door and when it opened a crack Brunetti saw della Corte in the hall, signalling to him to come outside. As he stepped into the corridor, della Corte said, ‘His wife’s here.’
‘Bonaventura’s?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No, Mitri’s.’
25
‘How did she get here?’ Brunetti asked. Seeing the confusion his question caused della Corte, he explained, ‘I mean, how did she know to come here?’
‘She said she was staying with his wife – Bonaventura’s – and came up here when she heard he had been arrested.’
Brunetti’s sense of time had been distorted by the events of the morning, and he was surprised when he glanced down at his watch and saw that it was almost two o’clock in the afternoon; hours had passed since they’d brought the two men to the police station, but he’d been too intent to notice. Suddenly he was overcome with hunger and felt a faint ringing through his entire body, as though he had been plugged into a mild electric current.
His impulse was to go and talk to her immediately, but he knew nothing good would come of it until he had eaten something or somehow stopped the tremors in his body. Was it age or stress that was doing this to him and should he be alarmed at the possibility that it might mean something else, some sickness that was looming over him? ‘I have to eat something,’ he said to della Corte, who was too surprised at what he heard to hide it.
‘There’s a bar on the corner. You can get a sandwich there.’ He led Brunetti to the door of the building and pointed it out, then, saying he had to call Padova, he went back inside. Brunetti walked the half-block to the bar, where he had a sandwich he didn’t taste and two glasses of mineral water that left him still feeling thirsty. At least it put an end to the tremors and he felt more in control of himself, but still worried that his physical response to the morning should have been so strong.
He walked back to the Questura, where he asked to be given the number of Palmieri’s
