Through a glass, darkly

'I work in the factory, and sometimes, if there's a problem, I have to go in at night. Marco goes to the terra firma a few times a week for his work, but he can get to Piazzale Roma easily enough from there, so we decided to stay on Mu-

rano. Besides,' she added, 'his cousin has been in the house a long time.'

Brunetti realized that this was a coded way of explaining that the cousin either would not get out of the house without a court order forcing her to do so or that Ribetti was unwilling to ask her to leave. It was not important to Brunetti which of these was true, so he abandoned the subject and asked, searching for the proper way to refer to future inheritance, 'Do you have prospects?'

'You mean the fornace? When my father dies?' she asked: so much for Brunetti's attempts at delicacy.

'Yes.'

'I think I'll inherit it. My father has never said anything, and I've never asked. But what else would he do with it?'

'Have you any idea what a fornace like your father's would be worth?'

He watched her calculate, and then she said, 'I'd guess somewhere around a million Euros.'

'Are you sure of that sum?' he asked.

'Not exactly, no, but it's a good estimate, I think. You see, I've kept the accounts for years, and I listen to what the other owners say, so I know what the other fornaci are worth, or at least what their owners think they're worth’ She looked at him, then away for an instant and then back, and Brunetti sensed that he was finally getting close to what she had come to talk about. 'But that's another thing that bothers me.'

'What?'

'I think my father might be trying to sell it.'

'Why do you say that?'

She looked away for a long time, perhaps formulating an answer, then back at him before she said, 'It's nothing, really. Well, nothing I can describe or be sure of. It's the way he acts, and some of the things he says.'

'What sort of things?'

'Once, I told one of the men to do something, and he—my father, that is—asked me what it would be like if I couldn't order men around any more.' She paused to see how Brunetti reacted to this and then went on. 'And another time, when we were ordering sand, I told him we should double the order so we could save on the transport, and he said it would be best to order enough only for the next six months. But the way he said it was strange, as if he thought. . . oh, I don't know, as if we weren't going to be there in six months. Something like that.'

'How long ago was this?'

'About six weeks, maybe less.'

Brunetti thought about asking her if she would like something to drink, but he knew better than to break the rhythm into which their conversation had fallen. 'I'd like to go back to the things your father has said about Marco. Has he ever talked about wanting to do anything to him?' Obviously, she must realize that Paola would have repeated to him what she had said but perhaps it helped her to pretend she had not revealed family secrets and let him coax the story out of her.

'You mean threaten him?'

'Yes.'

She considered this for some time, perhaps trying to find a way to continue denying it. Finally she said, 'I've heard him say what he hopes will happen to him.' It was an evasive answer, Brunetti knew, but at least she had begun to talk.

'But that's not exactly a threat, is it?' Brunetti asked.

'No, not really,' she surprised him by agreeing. 1 know how men talk, especially men who work in the fornaci. They're always saying that they'll break someone's head or break his leg. It's just the way they talk.'

'Do you think that's the case with your father?' Brunetti asked.

1 wouldn't be here if I thought that’ she said in a voice that had suddenly grown serious, almost reproving him that he could ask such a thing or treat her visit so lightly.

'Of course’ Brunetti agreed. 'Then has your father made real threats?' When she made no move to answer, he asked, 'Did Marco tell you?' He thought it would be best to speak of Marco familiarly and thus make the atmosphere more friendly again, if only to induce her to speak more openly.

'No, he'd never repeat things like that.'

'Then how did you learn about it?'

'Men at the fornace’ she said. 'They heard him—my father—talking.'

'Who?'

'Workers.'

'And they told you?'

'Yes. And another man I know.'

'Would you tell me their names?'

This time she did put a hand on his arm and asked, her concern audible, 'Is this going to get them into trouble?'

'If you tell me their names or if I talk to them?'

'Both.'

'I don't see any way that it could. As you said, men talk like this, and most often it's nothing, just talk. But before I can know if that's all it is, I need to talk to the men who heard your father say these things. That is,' he added, 'if they'll talk to me.'

'I don't know that they will’ she said.

'Neither do I’ Brunetti said with a small, resigned grin. 'Not until I ask them.' He waited for her to volunteer the names; when she didn't, he asked, 'What did they tell you?'

'He told one of them that he'd like to kill Marco’ she said, her voice unsteady.

Brunetti did not waste time trying to explain that a remark like this depended on context and tone for its meaning. He hardly wanted to begin to sound like an apologist for De Cal, but the little he had seen of the man led him to suspect that he would be prone to say such things without any serious intent.

'What else?'

'That he'd see him dead before he'd let him have the fornace. The man who told me this said my father was drunk when he said it and was talking about the history of the family and not wanting it to be destroyed by some outsider.' She looked at Brunetti and tried to smile but didn't make a very good job of it. 'Anyone who's not from Murano is an outsider for him.'

Trying to lighten the mood, Brunetti said, 'My father felt that way about anyone who wasn't from Castello.'

She smiled at this but returned immediately to what she had been saying. 'It doesn't make any sense for him to say that, no sense at all. The last thing in the world Marco wants is to have anything to do with the fornace. He listens to me when I talk about work, but that's politeness. He has no interest in it.'

'Then why would your father think he did?'

She shook her head. 'I don't know. Believe me, I don't know.'

He waited a while and then said, 'Assunta, I'd like to tell you that people who talk about violence never do it, but that's not true. Usually they don't. But sometimes they do. Often all they want to do is complain and get people to listen to them. But I don't know your father well enough to be able to tell if that's true about him.'

He spoke slowly and without judgement or criticism. 'I'd like very much to speak to these men and get a clearer idea of what he said and how he said it.' She started to ask a question but he went on, 'I'm not asking you as a policeman, because there's no question of a crime here, nothing at all. I'd simply like to go and talk to these people and settle this, if I can.'

'And to my father?' she said fearfully.