fishermen at the bar. He wore a pair of dark grey slacks and a pale yellow V-neck sweater over a shirt that went with his slacks perfectly. She was immediately intrigued by the colour of his sweater and by the fact that he appeared to be completely at ease with and accepted by these men. Most of them, she was sure, would die before they would wear yellow on anything other than a rain slicker.
He had dark hair and, from what she could see of his profile, dark eyes and brows. His skin was tanned or naturally bronzed; she couldn't tell which. He was taller than most of the other men, an impression heightened by the grace with which he carried himself. Any traditional idea of masculinity, especially in the company of these wind-hardened fishermen, would have been compromised, if not by the sweater, then by the way he inclined his head to listen to the men around him. In him, however, the total effect was of a masculinity so certain of itself as not to be bothered by such trifles of dress or behaviour.
Elettra consciously returned her eyes to the newspaper and her attention to the man. He was, it turned out, somehow related to one of the fishermen. More drinks were ordered, and Elettra found herself approaching the sports pages, something not even her devotion to duty could cause her to read. She closed the paper and got to her feet. As she walked towards the cash register, one of the men, a relative - she had no idea how - of Bruna's husband, called her over to meet the new arrival.
'Elettra, this is Carlo; he's a fisherman, one of us.' With two thick fingers, the man plucked at the fine wool of Carlo's sweater and asked, 'He doesn't look it, does he?' The general laughter which greeted this was easy and comfortable, and Carlo joined in with good grace.
Carlo turned to her and smiled, held out his hand and took hers.
'Another stranger?' he asked.
She smiled at the idea. 'If you're not born here, I suppose you're always a stranger,' she answered.
His chin tilted to one side and he glanced at her more closely. 'Do I know you?' he asked.
‘I don't think so,' she answered, momentarily confused into thinking that perhaps she knew him, as well. But she was sure she would have remembered him.
'No, I haven't met you,' he said with a smile that was even warmer than the one he'd given on taking her hand. ‘I would have remembered.'
This echo of her own thought disconcerted her. She nodded to him and then to the other men at the bar, muttered something about going back to her cousin's, paid for her coffee, and escaped into the sunlight.
Her doctor had been handsome; as she walked home, she confessed to herself that she had a weakness for male beauty. This Carlo was not only handsome, but, from the little she had seen of him, simpatico as well. She told herself sternly that she was out here on police business. Though he didn't live on Pellestrina, there was nothing that excluded Carlo from possible connection with the murder of Giulio and Marco Bottin. She smiled at that; soon she'd be like the members of the uniformed branch, seeing everyone, everywhere, as a probable suspect, even before there was any evidence that a crime had been committed.
She put all thought of the handsome Carlo behind her and went back towards Bruna's home. On the way, she used her
15
Brunetti, left behind while Signorina Elettra disported herself in the sun and walked on the beach, without learning anything at all about the murders, was having as little success as she. He had called Luisa Follini's number again, but a man answered, and this time it was Brunetti who hung up without speaking. It was instinct that had made him call her, some atavistic response to the menace radiating from the two men who had come into the store, and it was this same instinct that made him decide to send Vianello to stop in and have a word with her after he made another attempt to find Giacomini.
Following Brunetti's orders, Vianello went out to Malamocco again, where he managed to find Enrico Giacomini without difficulty. The fisherman recalled the fight between Scarpa and Bottin and said it had been provoked by Scarpa, who had accused Bottin of having a big mouth. Vianello pressed Giacomini and asked if he knew what Scarpa had been talking about, but the fisherman said he could think of nothing, but he said it in such a way as to give the sergeant, no mean judge of situations for all his apparent stolidity, a sense that here he was treading on some Pellestrina secret. Even as he asked the other man if he were sure he had no idea what Scarpa had intended, Vianello was overcome with a sense of the absurdity of his attempt to unearth information from one fisherman about another. Their definition of loyalty was not one that encompassed the police; in fact, it probably failed to encompass all of humanity aside from the small part of it fishing in the waters of the
Both irritated at Giacomini's obvious evasions and curious to learn more about what had taken place between Bottin and Scarpa, Vianello asked Bonsuan to take him down to Pellestrina. Leaving Bonsuan with the boat, he went first to Signora Follini's shop - but it was lunch time, and the shop was closed. Brunetti had warned him not to call attention to Signora Follini, so Vianello walked past it without paying any apparent attention.
He turned left and towards the address he had been given for Sandro Scarpa, the originator of the remark that had triggered Bottin's anger.
But Scarpa, who was not at all happy to be pulled away from his lunch by the police, said the fight with Bottin had been provoked by the dead man, and anyone who said anything else was lying. No, he couldn't remember exactly what it was Bottin had said, nor could he recall why it had so angered him. Besides, he added, it hadn't been much of a fight, not really. These things happened, he implied, when it was late at night and men had been drinking: they meant nothing, and no one ever thought about them again.
With no warning, Vianello asked him if he knew where his brother was; Scarpa said he thought he'd gone to Vicenza to see a friend about something. He did not ask Vianello to leave, only his lunch was growing cold in the kitchen and there was nothing more to say about Bottin. Vianello saw no reason to prolong this conversation and so went to the restaurant to have a glass of wine in the bar.
When he walked in, he was briefly disoriented and wondered if he was somehow already back at the Questura, for behind the bar he saw Pucetti, and sitting at a table to the left, reading ‘‘
After a long pause, Pucetti drifted over, asked him what he wanted and then was a long time bringing the glass of prosecco. When he did bring it, it was sour and warm. Vianello took a sip, set the glass sharply on the counter, paid, and left.
After another few minutes, seeing the sports page approach once again, Signorina Elettra folded the newspaper, paid for her coffee, nodded to a few of the men at the bar, and went out into the sun. She had gone only a few metres when she heard, from behind her, a voice she recognized instantly. 'Going back to your cousin's house?' he asked.
She turned and saw him, hesitated a moment, then returned the smile he offered her. 'Yes, I suppose so.' When she saw his confusion, she explained, 'She took the kids up to the Lido to buy shoes for the summer, and they won't be back until after lunch.'
'So you have the chance to eat in peace for a change?' he asked with another, broader smile.
'No, they're really very good. And besides, they do have first right to the house and to Bruna.'
'So you're free,' he asked, more interested in that than in discussing the behavior of the children.
'I suppose so,' she answered, then, realizing how very ungracious that sounded, changed it to, 'Yes, I am.'
'Good. I hoped to talk you into a picnic on the beach. There's a place on the jetty where the tide has pulled away some of the boulders, so there's no wind at all.'
'Picnic?' she asked, seeing that his hands were empty.
He raised them and hooked his thumbs into what she had thought were braces. 'In here,' he said, turning halfway round and showing her a small black backpack, just large enough to hold a picnic lunch for two.
Her smile was involuntary. 'Good,' she said. 'What did you pack?'
'Surprises,' he answered, and this time she noticed the way his smile always began at his mouth and then crept up into his eyes.
