A Sea of Troubles

Brunetti considered this. Life had taught him to be profoundly suspicious of coincidence, and it had similarly taught him to view any seemingly random conjunction of events or persons as coincidence and thus be suspicious of that, as well. 'Pucetti?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello shook his head. 'I asked him, sir, but he knows nothing at all about Targhetta, just saw him a few times in the bar.'

'With Elettra?'

'He didn't say, sir.' Brunetti didn't notice how evasive Vianello's answer was.

Brunetti considered various possibilities, including going out to Pellestrina himself. After a time he asked Vianello, 'Do you think Bonsuan's friend would tell him anything if he called?'

'Only way to know is to ask Bonsuan,' Vianello said with a smile. 'He's off duty today. You could call him at home.'

This was quickly done, and Bonsuan agreed to speak to his friend. He called back ten minutes later to say his friend wasn't home and wouldn't be back until that evening.

That left Brunetti and Vianello nothing to do but stew and worry. The sergeant, preferring to worry in his own office, went downstairs.

Brunetti thought of the favours he owed and was owed in return as a pack of playing cards grown greasy and torn with much use. You tell me this, and I'll tell you that; you give me this, and I'll pay you back with that. You write a letter of recommendation for my cousin, and I'll see that your application for a mooring for your boat is put on the pile for consideration this week. Sitting at his desk, staring off into space, he mentally pulled out the deck and began to rifle through the cards. He found one, set it aside, and went on. He shuffled through some more, considered selecting another one, but put it back and continued through till the end. Then he went back to the original card and contemplated it, trying to remember when he had last touched it. He hadn't, but Paola had, devoting a few days to coaching the man's daughter before her final literature exams at the university. The girl had passed, with honours, certainly more than enough justification for Brunetti to play the card.

Her father, Aurelio Costantini, had been quietly retired from the Guardia di Finanza a decade ago after being acquitted of charges of association with the Mafia. The charges were true, but the proofs were inadequate, and so the General had quietly been put out to pasture on full pension, there to reap the benefit of his many years of dutiful - and double - service.

Brunetti called him at home and explained the situation. In a manner graceful yet direct, he added that it had nothing to do with the Mafia. The General, mindful perhaps that his daughter had applied to Ca' Foscari for a teaching position, could not have been more eager to help and said he'd call Brunetti before lunch.

A man of his word, the General called back well before noon, saying that he was on his way to meet a friend who still worked for the Finanza, and if Brunetti would meet him for a drink in about an hour, he'd give him a copy of Targhetta's entire internal dossier.

Brunetti dialled his home number and, relieved to be able to speak to the answering machine, left a message saying he wouldn't be home for lunch but would return at the normal time that evening. The General was a courtly, white-haired man with the upright carriage of a cavalry officer and the elided R so common to the upper classes and those who aspired to them. He sipped at a prosecco while Brunetti, who had seen the size of the folder the General laid on the counter in front of them, quickly ate two sandwiches by way of lunch. They discussed, as people in the city had for the last three months, the weather, both expressing intense hope for rain; nothing else would dean the Augean stables that the narrowest calli had become.

On his way back to the Questura, Brunetti mused upon the oddness of his own behaviour regarding the two men who had supplied him with the evidence he carried under his arm: Galardi had done nothing but behave in the way drunks are in the habit of behaving, and Brunetti would have nothing to do with him; General Costantini, about whose guilt no doubt existed, had corrupted the state by selling its secrets to the Mafia, yet Brunetti would meet him in public, smile, ask him for favours, and never think of questioning him about the ties he might still have to the Guardia di Finanza.

The instant he was back in his office, opening the file, all such Jesuitical thoughts disappeared as he dedicated himself to an examination of the personnel file of Carlo Targhetta. Thirty-two, Targhetta had been a member of the Finanza for ten years before 'deciding to leave', as the file put it. Venetian.by birth, he had done service in Catania, Bari and Genoa before being stationed in Venice three years ago, a year before the incident that led to his departure. His file was full of praise from all of his commanding officers, who spoke of his 'devotion to duty' and 'intense loyalty'.

From what Brunetti could make of the euphemistic language in the file, at the time of his resignation,Targhetta had been serving as an operator assigned to answering anonymous calls that came in to report cases of tax evasion. He had made an error in reporting one of the calls: the Finanza maintained it was one of commission, while Targhetta insisted it had been one of omission. The Guardia di Finanza had eliminated the necessity of deciding which by offering Targhetta the opportunity to leave the service, an offer he had accepted, though he left without a pension.

Enclosed was a cassette tape, labelled with a date that Brunetti took to be the day of the call that had precipitated events. Stapled to the inside of the folder was a pile of papers headed with the same date: a glance suggested it was a transcript of the calls. He took the tape down to one of the rooms where recordings were made of interrogations. He slipped the tape into the recorder and pushed 'Play'. He opened the file.

There followed a long call, transcribed on the first page, in which a woman said she wanted to report her husband, a butcher, for not fully declaring his income. Her accent was pure Giudecca, and the way she spoke of her husband suggested decades of resentment. All doubt of her motivation disappeared when she lost control and began screaming that this would settle him and 'quella puttana di Lucia Mazotti'. Some of her wilder accusations were noted only by a modest line of asterisks.

The next calls were from old women who said they had not been given ricevute fiscali by their newsagents, only to be told, with great patience on Targhetta's part, Brunetti had to admit, that newsagents didn't have to give receipts. Targhetta was careful to thank both of them for doing their civic duty, though the weariness with which he did so was clear, at least to Brunetti.

'Guardia di Finanza,' Brunetti listened to Targhetta's by now familiar voice say.

'Is this the right number to call?' a man's voice asked in heavy Veneziano.

Brunetti had noticed, in the previous calls, that Targhetta always answered in Italian, but if his caller spoke in Veneziano, he slipped into dialect to make them feel more comfortable. He did so now, asking, 'What did you want to call about, sir?'

'About someone who isn't paying taxes.'

'Yes, this is the right number.'

'Good, then I want you to take his name.'

'Yes, sir?' Targetta asked and paused for the response.

'Spadini, Vittorio Spadini. From Burano.'

There was a longer pause, then Targhetta said, without any trace of a Venetian accent, his voice far more formal and official, 'Could you tell me more about this, sir?'

'That bastard Spadini's fishing up millions every day’ the man said, voice tight with malice or anger. 'And he never pays a lira in taxes. It's all black, so it's never taxed. Everything he earns is black.'

In the past, Targhetta had asked for more information about the person being accused: where they lived, what sort of business they had. This time, instead, he asked, 'Could you give me your name, sir?' He had never done that before.

‘I thought this line was supposed to be anonymous?' the caller said, immediately suspicious.

'It usually is, sir, but in a case of something like this - you did talk of millions, didn't you? -we prefer to be a bit more certain about just who is making the denuncia.'

'Well, I'm not going to give you my name,' the man said hotly. 'But you better take down that bastard's name. All you've got to do is go to the fish warehouse in Chioggia when he unloads, and you'll see how much he's caught, and you'll see who's buying it.'

'I'm afraid we can't do that unless I have your name, sir.'

'You don't need my name, you bastard. It's Spadini you should be after.' With that, the man slammed down the phone.

There was a brief silence, and then he heard Targhetta say, 'Guardia di Finanza'.