'Specifically?' 1
'Those
‘I doubt that any ancestor of mine ever ate such a thing,' he confessed.
'There's polenta to go with them. To preserve historical truth.'
Both children were present at lunch, but they were curiously subdued, concerned with the last weeks of school and the final exams of the year. Raffi, who hoped to begin university in the autumn, had become something of a phantom during the last months, emerging from his room only for meals or to ask his mother's help with a difficult translation from the Greek. His romance with Sara Paganuzzi was kept alive, it seemed, only by means of late night phone calls and occasional before-dinner meetings in Campo San Bortolo. Chiara, who was coming into the full inheritance of her mother's beauty more with every passing month, was still so caught up in the mysteries of mathematics and celestial navigation that she remained ignorant of the power her beauty was likely to give her.
When lunch was finished, Paola moved out on to the terrace, taking their coffee and luring her husband along with her. The early afternoon sun was so hot that Brunetti removed his tie before he joined her, the first sure sign that summer was on the way.
They sat in easy silence. Voices drifted towards them from a terrace to their left; occasionally one of the sheets hung to dry from the window of the apartment beneath them snapped in the freshening breeze which, alas, held no promise of rain.
'I'm probably going to spend a fair amount of time out in Pellestrina’ Brunetti said.
'When?'
'Starting this week, even as early as tomorrow.'
'To keep an eye on her?' Paola asked, without renewing her objections to Signorina Elettra's decision to go out to Pellestrina.
'Partly, though I'm not sure when she plans to get there.'
'What else?'
'To talk to people and see what they say.'
'Will they talk to you if they know you're a policeman?'
'Well, they can't refuse to talk to me, not really, though they can refuse to tell me the truth, or say they can't remember anything about the Bottins. That's the usual technique.'
'Then why talk to them?' Paola asked.
'Because of what they don't tell me or what they lie to me about.' He closed his eyes and lay back in the sun, letting it beat down on his face for the first time that year. After a long time, he said, 'I guess it makes me like one of those historians or forces me to behave the way they do.' He waited for Paola to ask for clarification, and when she did not, he glanced at her to see if she'd fallen asleep. But she had not. She sat beside him, attentive, waiting for him to continue.
'I've got to listen to all of the variant accounts, weigh the evidence, adjusting my response according to who profits from the different versions.'
'And keeping in mind that everyone is lying to you?'
'Or is likely to be lying to me’ he agreed. 'And then?'
'And then I see what Signorina Elettra has been told.'
'And then?' she repeated. 'I've no idea.'
'And you'll be back at night?' 'I should be. Why?'
She gave him a long look then, surprised at his question. 'In case I finally decide to run off with the postman. I'd like to know you'll still be here to feed the kids.'
Late in the afternoon, Signorina Elettra called up to Brunetti and told him that Vice-Questore Patta wanted to see him in his office. Brunetti seldom greeted such a summons with pleasure, but he was so bored with the reading and initialling of reports that he welcomed even this opportunity to escape. Quickly he went downstairs and into Signorina Elettra's office.
She greeted him with a smile. 'He wants to tell you who will be in charge while he's away.'
'Not me, I hope’ Brunetti said; it would complicate his plans to spend time in Pellestrina.
'No, he's already spoken to Marotta’ she said, naming a commissario from Turin who had been assigned to the Venice Questura earlier in the year.
'Am I meant to be offended?' Brunetti asked. Marotta was by far his junior and a non-Venetian, so his appointment could be intended as nothing but a calculated insult.
'Probably. Or at least I think he'd like you to be.'
'Then I'll do my best to appear so’ Brunetti said. 'I'd hate to disappoint him just as he's going off on vacation.'
'It's not a vacation, sir’ she said in a voice laden with reprimand. 'It's a conference about new methods of crime prevention’ she insisted, making no mention of the details of the invitation.
'In London’ Brunetti added.
'In London’ she confirmed.
'In English’ Brunetti said.
'Yes’ she agreed in that language.
'Which the Vice-Questore speaks as well as he speaks Finnish.'
'Probably better than Finnish. He can say, 'Bond Street', 'Oxford Street', and 'The Dorchester'.'
'And 'The Ritz'‘ Brunetti suggested. 'Don't forget that.'
'You've discussed this with him?' she asked.
'Which, the conference or his English?'
'The conference and who should go.'
‘I didn't want to waste the time. He told me a few weeks ago that he was going, and before I could raise the question of the language, he told me that his wife had agreed to go along as interpreter.'
'He never told me that’ Signorina.. Elettra said, barely disguising her surprise and, he thought, irritation. 'Does she speak English?'
'As well as he’ Brunetti said and turned to knock at Patta's door.
The Vice-Questore, as always when in the act of mistreating Brunetti - to whom the invitation had been addressed - cast himself in the role of the injured party. To create the proper visual setting for this, he chose to remain seated at his desk, putting himself lower than Brunetti.
'Where have you been for the last few days?' he asked as soon as he saw Brunetti, who recognized the technique of the pre-emptive strike. Patta himself, wearing a grey suit Brunetti had never seen before, looked as though he'd been spending the last few days getting ready for his trip to London. His greying hair was freshly cut, and his face wore the early summer glow that comes from the careful attention of tanning lamps. As ever, Brunetti was struck by how absolutely right Patta looked for the job of senior police official; senior anything, for that matter.
'We had a call from Pellestrina, sir. Two men were murdered on their boat.' Brunetti tried his best to sound uninterested. 'The call came to us, so I had no choice but to go out and have a look.'
'That's out of our jurisdiction,' Patta said, though they both knew this was not true.
'The Carabinieri were also called,' Brunetti said with a small smile meant to display both relief and agreement with Patta's objection. 'So it's entirely likely that the case will be given to them.'
Something about the way Brunetti spoke made Patta suspicious, the way a dog is when he hears an unfamiliar tone in a familiar voice. 'Does it look like a simple case?'
'I've no idea, sir. Things like this usually turn out to be the result of either jealousy or greed.'
'If that's the case, then it might be a simple thing to solve. Perhaps we could keep it.'
'Oh, I've no doubt that it will be a simple case, sir. In fact, some of the people out there have already given us the name of a man who had trouble with one of the victims.'
'And?' Patta demanded, eager now that it sounded easy. The quick solution of a murder would be a coup for the Questura of Venice. Brunetti could almost see him writing the headline:
'QUICK ACTION BY VICE-QUESTORE SOLVES MURDER CASE.'
'Well, sir, with you away next week, I thought it might be better if the Carabinieri handled it.' Brunetti
