A Sea of Troubles

Rizzardi's answer took a moment to come. 'Possibly. All they'd have to do is push her in from a boat or take her into the water and hold her down. There were no recent signs that she had been tied up.'

Before Brunetti could ask about that, the pathologist added, 'From a gynaecological point of view, she was interesting.'

'Why?'

'There are signs that, at one time or another, she'd had most of the major venereal diseases, and there are signs of at least one abortion.'

'She was an addict for years,' Brunetti said. Rizzardi grunted, as though that fact were so obvious as barely to merit mention. 'And, it seems, a prostitute.'

'That's what I would have guessed,' Rizzardi observed with a neutrality that reminded Brunetti of how much he liked the doctor, and why.

Brunetti went back to the question he had not been able to ask. 'You said there were no recent signs that she had been tied up. What does that mean?'

There was a long hesitation but at last the pathologist said, 'There are signs of binding on the upper arms and ankles. So I'd guess that whoever she was with most recently, if she had a steady man, was interested in rough stuff.'

'What do you mean, 'rough stuff?' Rape?'

'No,' Rizzardi's answer was immediate.

'Then what else? What else can it be?'

'If sex is rough, it's not necessarily rape,' Rizzardi said with sufficient asperity to leave Brunetti waiting for a terse, 'Commissario' at the end of the sentence.

'Then what's rape?' Brunetti asked.

'If either partner is unwilling, then it's rape.'

'Either?'

Rizzardi's voice softened, 'We live in different times, Guido. The days are gone when rape was something that happened only between a violent man and an innocent woman.'

Brunetti, father of a teenage daughter, was curious to hear what Dottor Rizzardi had to say on the subject, but he couldn't see how this would advance his investigation and so he let it go and asked, 'When did it happen?'

'I'd guess it was two days ago, some time Friday night.'

'Why?'

'Just believe me, Guido. This isn't television, where I have to talk about the contents of her stomach or the amount of oxygen in her blood. Two days ago,' he repeated, 'probably in the evening, after ten or so. Just believe me and believe it will stand up in court.'

'If it ever gets to court,' Brunetti said absently, a remark not necessarily intended for the pathologist.

'Well, that's your job. I just tell you what the physical evidence tells me. You've got to figure out why and how and who.'

'Would that it were so easy,' Brunetti said.

Rizzardi chose not to discuss the relative demands of their separate professions and ended the call, leaving Brunetti to go out to Pellestrina to begin to try to answer those questions.

18

Even though it was Sunday, Brunetti saw no reason why he and Vianello should not go out to Pellestrina in the hope of discovering something that might contribute to an understanding of Signora Follini's death. Bonsuan was not at all unwilling to take them out, insisting that the news in the paper bored him; since he didn't like soccer much he would just as soon not waste his time reading about the day's matches.

As they stood on the deck of the launch at the Giardini stop, motor idling, waiting for Vianello to show up, Brunetti returned to Bonsuan's remark and asked, 'What sports do you like, then?'

'Me?' Bonsuan asked, a delaying tactic Brunetti recognized from long familiarity with witnesses who found a question uncomfortable. 'Yes.'

'Do you mean to play or to watch, sir?' Bonsuan asked evasively.

By now more curious about the reason for Bonsuan's reluctance than to know the answer to the question, Brunetti said, 'Either.'

'Well, I don't play sports, not at my age,' Bonsuan said in a manner that suggested no further information would be forthcoming.

'But to watch?' Brunetti asked.

Bonsuan looked off down the long, tree-lined viale that led to Corso Garibaldi, eager for a sign of Vianello. Brunetti watched the people walking by. After a long time, Bonsuan said, 'Well, sir, it's not like I know anything about it or I go to any special trouble to watch it, but I like to look at the sheepdog trials, on television. From Scotland, you know.' When Brunetti said nothing, Bonsuan added, 'And New Zealand.'

'Not much coverage in the Gazzettino, I'd imagine,' Brunetti observed.

'No,' the pilot answered, then, looking off towards the arch at the end of the viale, said, 'There's Vianello,' relief audible in his voice.

The sergeant, today in uniform, waved as he approached and then jumped on deck. Bonsuan pulled away from the riva and headed towards the now familiar canal that led towards Pellestrina's peaceful observance of the Lord's Day.

The fact that religion is a thing of the past and no longer exerts any real influence on the behaviour of the people of Italy has in no way affected their churchgoing habits, especially in the smaller villages. In fact, some sort of algebraic equation might well be made to connect the smallness of a parish and the proportion of people who attend Mass. It is those gross heathens, the Romans and the Milanese, who do not attend, the millions among whom they live keeping them safe from the eye and tongue of local comment. The Pellestrinotti, however, are conscientious in their attendance at Mass, regular attendance allowing them to keep track of the doings of their neighbours without seeming to pry, for anything that has happened, especially anything that could call into question either virtue or honesty, is sure to be discussed on the steps of the church on Sunday morning.

It was there that Brunetti and Vianello awaited them, and awaited events, just before twelve, as the eleven o'clock Mass was ending and the villagers of Pellestrina were enjoined one final time to 'go in peace'.

Religion, Brunetti reflected, as he stood on the steps, though he had never realized this until Paola had pointed it out to him, always made him uncomfortable. Paola had had what he considered the good fortune to be raised, more or less, entirely free of religion, as neither of her parents had ever bothered attending church functions, at least not those where religious observance of any sort was the reason for attendance. Their social position often required them to attend ceremonies such as the investiture of bishops or cardinals, even the coronation, if that is the proper noun, of the current Pope. But these were ceremonies which had to do not with faith but with power, which quality Paola had always insisted was the real business of the Church.

Because she was as devoid of faith as she was of the habit of religious observance, she had no grudge against religion, not at all, and viewed the peculiar ways in which people chose to observe its rules with anthropological distance. Brunetti, on the other hand, had been raised by a mother who believed, and though he had ceased to do so well before his adolescence, he nonetheless carried within him the memory of faith, though faith deceived. He knew his attitude to religion was adversarial, if not antagonistic; however much he tried to fight this, he could not escape it or the guilt it caused him. As Paola never ceased to remind him, 'I'd rather be a pagan suckled on a creed outworn...'

All of this crowded into his head as he stood on the steps of the church, waiting to see who would emerge and what new information they would bring him. An organ pealed out, the purity of its tone speaking more to the quality of the sound system inside the church than to the talent of the organist. The doors swung open, the music swelled and cascaded down the steps, quickly followed by the first members of the congregation. Seeing them, Brunetti was struck, not for the first time, by how haunted the faces of people emerging from church were.

Had they been a herd of animals, a flock of sheep jumping over a low stile into a new field, their sudden apprehension of a foreign presence could not have been more evident, nor could the wave of uneasiness that rippled from the front to the back of the group as each new member became aware of the potential threat that awaited them on the steps. Had Vianello not been in uniform, Brunetti had no doubt that many of them would have pretended not to have seen the two men. As it was, some of them still made a great business of not noticing them,