A Sea of Troubles

prompted them was the same and no less pathetic.

He made a noncommittal noise and asked, 'What did the people you spoke to tell you? Anything about her?'

'No, sir. You know how it is in places like this: no one is willing to say anything that might be repeated to the person they said it about.'

'So much for police secrecy,' Brunetti said with a wry shake of his head.

'But you can understand it, can't you, sir? If it ever gets to trial, we have to say how we got a name in the first place or why we began to investigate a particular person. The trial goes on and what happens, happens. But they still have to live here, among people who see them as informers.'

Brunetti knew better than to give Vianello his standard lecture about civic duty and the responsibility of the citizen to help the authorities in their investigation of crime. The fact that this was a murder, a double murder, would make not the least bit of difference to anyone who lived here: the highest civic duty was to live in peace and not be harassed by the state. A person was much safer trusting family and neighbours. Beyond that ring of safety lay the dangers of bureaucracy and officialdom and the inevitable consequences of being embroiled with either.

Leaving Vianello to his own reflections, Brunetti stood a while longer, looking out at the sea. The ships were a bit further along in their journeys towards their destinations. They were alone in that, it seemed to him.

6

Reflecting that his distaste for what Vianello had just told him in no way altered its truth, Brunetti decided there was little purpose in their remaining in Pellestrina any longer, so he suggested they start back to Venice. Vianello displayed no surprise at this and they turned back down the steps, across the road, and through the narrow village until they were once again on the side facing Venice, where the police boat awaited them. On the trip across the laguna, Vianello gave him the names of the people he had questioned and a quick summary of the banalities they had given him. Bottin's brother, he had learned, lived in Murano, where he worked in a glass factory; the only other people related to him, the family of his late wife, lived on that island as well, though no one had seemed able to tell him what they did there.

The people to whom Vianello had spoken had not been uncooperative in any way: they had all answered whatever questions he put to them. But no one had volunteered any information beyond that contained in the simplest, most direct response. There had been no extraneous detail, no release of the tide of gossip in which all social life swims. They had been clever enough not to answer in bare monosyllables and managed to suggest that they were doing everything they could to recall whatever might be of use to the police. And all the while, Vianello had known what they were doing, and it was likely that they knew he knew.

The launch turned left into the main canal leading back towards San Marco just as Vianello finished giving his account, and spread before them was the sight that had welcomed most arriving eyes ever since the great centuries of the Serenissima. Bell towers, domes, cupolas - all disported themselves for the eyes of the passengers and crew of the arriving boat, each one seeming to jostle the others aside, in the manner of small children, the better to catch the attention of the approaching visitors. The only difference between what the two policemen saw and what would have been visible to those who followed the same channel five hundred years ago was the flock of construction cranes which loomed above the city and, on top of every building, television antennae of every height and configuration.

Seeing the cranes, stark and angular,, Brunetti was struck by how seldom he ever saw them in motion. Two of them still towered above the hollow shell of the opera theatre, as motionless as all attempts to rebuild it. Thinking of the proud boast blazoned across the front page of II Gazzettmo the day after the fire, that the theatre would be rebuilt where it was and as it was, within two years, Brunetti didn't know whether to laugh or weep, a decision he had had far more than two years to consider. Popular belief, itself interchangeable with truth, had it that the motionless cranes cost the city ten million lire a day, and popular imagination had long since abandoned any attempt to calculate the final cost of restoration. Years passed, the money seeped away, and yet the cranes stood motionless, rising silently above the endless yammering and legal squabbling about who would get to perform the reconstruction.

Both of them stopped talking and watched the city draw near. No city is more self-regarding than Venice: cheap and vulgar self-portraits lined the sides of many streets; almost every kiosk peddled garish plastic gondolas; hacks whose berets falsely proclaimed them to be artists sold horrible pastels at every turn. At every step she pandered to the worst and flashed out the meretricious. Added to this was the terrible aftermath of all of these dry weeks: narrow calli that stank of urine, both dog and human; a thin layer of dust that was forever underfoot, no matter how many times the streets were swept. And yet her beauty remained unblemished, just as it remained supreme.

The pilot cut to the right and drew up in front of the Questura. Brunetti waved his thanks and jumped on to the embankment, quickly followed by Vianello.

'And now, sir?' the sergeant asked as they passed through the tall glass doors.

'Call the hospital and check when they're going to do the autopsies. I'll set Signorina Elettra to work on the Bottins.' Before Vianello could ask, he added, 'And on Sandro Scarpa, and while she's at it, Signora Follini.'

At the top of the first flight of steps, Brunetti turned off towards Patta's office, and Vianello went down to the uniformed men's office.

'Still thrashing it out with Veblen?' Brunetti asked as he came into Signorina Elettra's small office.

She picked up an envelope and used it to mark her place, then set the book aside. 'It's not easy reading. But I couldn't find it in translation.'

‘I could have lent you mine,' Brunetti offered.

'Thank you, sir. If I had known you had it...' she began, then let the sentence drop. She wouldn't have asked her superior to bring her a book to read at work.

'Has the Vice-Questore come in yet?'

'He was here for a half-hour after lunch, but then he said he had to go to a meeting.'

One of the things Brunetti liked about Signorina Elettra was the merciless accuracy of her speech. Not, 'had to go to a meeting', but the more precise, 'said he had to go to a meeting'.

'Are you free, then?'

'As the air itself, sir,' she said, folding her hands in front of her like a diligent pupil and sitting up very straight in her chair.

'The murdered men were Giulio Bottin and his son, Marco. Both are from Pellestrina and both are fishermen. I'd like you to find whatever you can about them.'

'Everywhere, sir?'

Assuming this to mean everywhere she had access to with her computer or through her network of friends and connections, he nodded. 'And Sandro Scarpa, also of Pellestrina and probably a fisherman. See if the name Giacomini comes up in anything about them; I don't have a first name. And a Signora Follini, who runs the store there.'

At the name, Signorina Elettra raised her eyebrows in an open avowal of interest.

'You know her?' Brunetti asked.

'No, not really, no more than to say hello to.'

Brunetti waited for her to add something to this but when she did not, he went on, 'I don't know if it's a married name or not.' Signorina Elettra shook her head to indicate she had no clearer idea. 'I guess she's about fifty,' Brunetti offered, then couldn't resist adding, 'Though you'd probably have to drive bamboo shoots under her fingernails to get her to admit it.'

She looked up, startled, and said, 'That's a very unkind thing to say.'

‘Is it any less unkind if it's true?' he asked.

She considered for a moment and then answered, 'No, probably more so.'

In defence of his remark, he said, 'She flirted with me,' putting ironic emphasis on 'me' to suggest the absurdity of the woman's behaviour.

Signorina Elettra glanced at him quickly. 'Ah,' was the only thing she allowed herself to say and then just as quickly asked, 'Any other names, sir?'

'No, but see if you can find if they owned the boat free and clear.' He thought for a moment, exploring possibilities. 'And see if any sort of insurance claim was ever made on it.'