She nodded at this, to acknowledge either that she had heard him or that even this detail was now known to the people of Pellestrina.
'And so we need to learn as much about them as possible so that we can begin to get an idea of who would want to do this.' When she didn't respond, he asked, 'Do you understand, Signora?'
She looked up and met his eyes. Her mouth remained frozen in the smile the surgeons had given her, but Brunetti could not mistake the sadness in her eyes. 'No one would want to do Marco any harm. He was a good boy.'
She stopped here and glanced away from him, towards the empty back of the store.
'And his father?' Brunetti asked.
'I can't tell you anything,' she said in a tight voice. 'Nothing.'
Something in Brunetti responded to the nervousness in her voice. 'Nothing you tell me will be repeated, Signora.'
The immobility of her features made her expression impossible to read, but he thought he sensed her relax.
'They couldn't have wanted to kill Marco,' she said.
'They?' he asked.
The nervousness swept back. 'Whoever it was,' she said.
'What sort of man was he, Giulio?' Brunetti asked.
Her sculpted chin moved back and forth in absolute denial of any further information.
'But, Signora . . .' Brunetti began but was interrupted by the sound of the bell. He saw her eyes shoot in the direction of the door. She stepped back from the counter and said, 'As I've told you, Signore, you'll have to buy matches at the tobacco shop. I don't sell them.'
'Sorry, Signora. When I saw the candles you sold the old lady, I thought you'd be selling them, too,' he answered seamlessly, paying no attention to the sound of footsteps behind him.
Brunetti turned away from the woman and moved towards the door. As is the custom in small villages, he nodded in acknowledgement of the presence of the two men who stood there and, while paying no evident attention to them, registered every detail of their appearance. As he approached the door, they stepped to either side of it, a motion that filled Brunetti with a vague sense of menace, though the men made it clear that they took as little interest in him as he did in them.
The little bell tinkled as he opened the door, and when he stepped into the sunlight, his back gave an answering shiver as he heard the door close gently behind him.
He turned to the right, his mind absorbing the faces and forms of the two men. Though he recognized neither, Brunetti knew too well the type of men they were. They might have been related, so similar were the red, roughened complexions of their faces and so similar their thick, hardened bodies. But both of these things might just as easily have come from years of heavy work outside. The younger man had a narrow face, and dark hair slicked back with some sort of oily pomade. The older wore his in the same fashion, but as it was much thinner, it ended up looking as if it had been painted on to his skull, though a few greasy locks managed to dangle limply on the collar of his shirt. Both wore jeans that gave signs of heavy wear and the thick boots common to men who did heavy work.
The men had studied Brunetti with eyes framed by a multitude of small lines, the lines that came with years of life in the sun, and both had given him the sort of attention that is usually given to prey: motionless, watchful, eager to make a move. It was this sense of contained aggression that had set off alarms in Brunetti's body, regardless of the fact that the Signora was there as a witness, regardless of the fact that the men probably knew he was a policeman.
He walked down the narrow street and into the tobacco shop. It was as dim and grimy as Signora Follini's store, another place where failure had come to nest.
The man behind the counter raised his attention from the magazine he was reading and looked at him from behind thick glasses. 'Yes?' he asked.
'I'd like some matches,' Brunetti said, maintaining Signora Follini's story.
The man pulled open a drawer beneath the counter and asked, 'Box or booklet?'
'Box, please,' Brunetti said, reaching into his pocket for some small change.
The man set a small box of matches in front of Brunetti and asked for two hundred lire. As Brunetti placed the coins on the counter, the man asked, 'Cigarettes?'
'No,' Brunetti answered. 'I'm trying to stop. But I like to have matches in case I can't stand it any more and ask someone to give me one.'
The man smiled at that. 'Lot of people trying to stop,' he said. 'They don't want to, not really, most of them, but they think it's good for them, so they try.'
'And do they succeed?'
'Beh,' the man exclaimed in disgust. 'They manage it for a week or two, or a month, but sooner or later they're all back in here, buying cigarettes.'
'Doesn't say much for people's willpower, does it?' Brunetti asked.
The man picked up the coins and dropped them one by one into the wooden cash drawer. 'People are going to do what they want to do, no matter what you tell them and no matter how bad they know it is for them to do it. Nothing can stop them; not fear or law or promises.' He saw Brunetti's expression and added, 'You spend a lifetime selling cigarettes, and that's one thing you learn. Nothing will ever stop them, not if they want to badly enough.'
11
The tobacconist's words lingered with Brunetti as he walked towards the restaurant: he wondered if they would some day apply to Vianello and the clams or whether the sergeant would turn out to be one of those rare men who have the strength of character to stop themselves from doing what they want to do. As for himself, Brunetti believed he was not particularly strong-willed and knew he often manipulated situations so that he could avoid having to make the decision to do something he didn't want to do.
Two years ago, when Paola had finally nagged him into having a complete physical exam, he had told the doctor not to bother with the tests for cholesterol and diabetes, leaving it to the doctor to infer that the tests were not necessary because he'd recently had them done. In truth, Brunetti had not wanted to know the results because he had not wanted to have to do whatever he would have to do if the results were bad. Whenever he thought of his deceit and the possible consequences to his family, he told himself he had never felt healthier in his life and to stop worrying about it.
And three years ago, when an Albanian suspect had been arrested for having beaten the two eleven-year-old prostitutes who helped to support him, Brunetti had done nothing to prevent his being assigned for questioning to a detective who had a daughter the same age and another whose fifteen-year-old daughter had been assaulted by another Albanian. Nor had he ever enquired as to just what happened during the examination, though the suspect had quickly confessed to the crimes.
Before he could examine his conscience further, he reached the restaurant and went in. From behind the counter, where he was making coffee for a few men standing at the bar, the owner acknowledged his arrival with a nod. 'Your officer is in the back,' he said. All of the men at the counter turned to look at Brunetti, and he felt the same intense stare he'd been given by the two men in the store. Ignoring it, he moved to the curtained doorway, pushed aside the strips of plastic, and went into the dining room.
Vianello sat at the same table, a bottle of mineral water and a half-litre of white wine in front of him. As Brunetti pulled out the chair opposite him, Vianello leaned forward and poured some water, then some wine, into the glasses at Brunetti's place.
Brunetti drank down the glass of water, surprised at how thirsty he was, curious as to whether it could be a delayed response to the fear - he admitted that it was fear - he had felt when he turned his back on the two men. Looking across at Vianello, he asked, 'Well?'
'The waiter, Lorenzo Scarpa, hasn't been back to work since we were here. The boss says he called and said he had to go and take care of a friend, but he didn't say where the friend lived, and he didn't give any idea of how long he'd be gone.' Brunetti asked nothing about this, so Vianello continued. ‘I went to his place - the boss gave me his address - but his neighbours can't remember seeing him for a few days, say they don't have any idea where he is.'
