Through a glass, darkly

'Why did you come inside?' Brunetti asked.

Grassi moved the empty cup to the side and said, 'When I got back and you weren't there, I thought something might have happened to you, so I went in to see if you were all right. But I didn't look at him.' He paused for some time. 'Giuliano told me about it, when I was taking him home, so I didn't want to see.' He shoved the cup to the other side of the counter and said, 'Poor stupid devil.'

Brunetti's attention was arrested by the second word: he was not certain whom the other man was talking about. 'Tassini?'

'Yes,' he said, his tone a mixture of dismay and affection. 'He was always falling over things, getting in the way, tripping over his feet. He told De Cal once that he wanted to work the glass, but none of us would have him. We'd seen him drop things for years: imagine what he'd do if he tried to work with us.' Grassi seemed to realize he had switched into the present tense and stopped. 'I mean, he was a good man: honest. And he did his job. But he's not a glassmaker, never could be one.'

'What did he do, exactly?' Brunetti asked, picking up his water and risking another small sip.

'He had to keep the places clean and take care of the fornaci at night.'

Brunetti waved a hand and said, 'I'm not sure I understand what that means, Signore. Aside from sweeping the floors, that is.'

Grassi smiled in return and said, 'That was part of it: sweeping, both our place and Fasano's.

Well, after he started working for him, as well, that is. And making sure that the bags of sand didn't leak after they were opened.' He paused, as if he had never considered what the duties of l’uomo di notte might be.

'And he had to keep an eye on the temperature and the miscela during the night’ he continued. 'But he also had to see that the bags didn't tip over and get mixed up.' Grassi asked the barman for another coffee, and while he waited for it, he asked, 'You know about the miscela, don't you?'

Brunetti certainly remembered the word, but little more than that. 'Only that it's made of sand and other things,' he said.

The coffee came and Grassi stirred in three more sugars. 'Sand, yes’ he said, 'then the minerals for the right miscela. If the colour we want is amethyst, then we mix in manganese, or cadmium for red. Some of the bags look alike, so they have to be kept separate and upright. The stuff can't spill on the floor or we have an awful mess and have to throw it all away.' He looked at Brunetti, who nodded to show he was following.

'Starting when the rest of us get off work, l’uomo di notte shovels the miscela into the crogiolo, adding it according to the formula and stirring it, and then it heats all night long, so it's ready and we can start working at seven, when we come in.'

'What else did he have to do?'

Again, Grassi paused to try to remember what the dead man's duties would have been. 'Check the filters and maybe shift the barrels around.'

'What filters?' Brunetti asked.

'From the grinding wheels. It all gets filtered, the water they use when they're grinding, and then the gunk that's collected gets put in barrels. It's filtered a couple of times’ Grassi said without interest. 'I don't know about that stuff, really, only about glass.'

Grassi gave Brunetti a speculative look, as if weighing his audience, and then said, 'It's crazy, isn't it? They let Marghera pump any crap it wants to into the air or the laguna: cadmium, dioxin, petro this and petro that, and no one says a word about it. But if we let a cupful of powdered glass drain into the laguna, they're all over us with inspectors and fines. Some of them are so big it would put you out of business.' He considered what he had said and then added, 'No wonder De Cal's thinking about selling the place.'

Brunetti set this remark aside for future reference and returned to Tassini. 'Were these the sort of things Tassini said? About the environment?'

Grassi rolled his eyes. 'It's all he'd talk about. All you had to do was start him talking about these things and he was off, sometimes until we had to tell him to shut up. Poison this and poison that, and not only at Marghera. Even here, and it was poisoning us all.' He delved into memory, then said, 'I tried to talk to him a couple of times. But he wouldn't listen.' He leaned towards Brunetti and put a hand on his arm. 'I've seen the numbers, and I know we don't die the way they do in Marghera: they die like flies over there.' He moved back and removed his hand.

'Maybe it's the currents: maybe they take things away from here. I don't know. I tried to tell Giorgio this, but he wouldn't listen. He had his mind made up that we were all being poisoned, and that's what he was going to believe, no matter what anyone said.'

Grassi stopped talking for a moment, then added, with a note of real sadness in his voice. 'He had to believe it, didn't he? Because of the little girl.' He shook his head, at the thought of the child or at the thought of human frailty, Brunetti had no idea. Grassi spoke with a complete absence of disapproval; in fact, Brunetti could hear little but affection in his voice, the sort one has for a person who always manages to get everything wrong yet who never manages to alienate anyone in the process.

‘I think your boat's coming,' Grassi said.

Brunetti's question was no more than a tilting of his head.

'I don't recognize the engine, and it's coming fast, out from the city,' the maestro said. He pulled some money from his pocket and left it on the counter; Brunetti thanked him and they headed for the door.

When they reached the canal, Grassi was right: the police boat was pulling up to the ACTV embarcadero. On board were Bocchese and the crime team.

15

Brunetti waved to them from his side of the canal and crossed the bridge to meet them. Apart from Bocchese, there were two photographers and two technicians, all with the usual amount of equipment, which the men were busy unloading from the boat.

Brunetti introduced Bocchese to Grassi and explained to the technician that Grassi was one of the maestri who worked at the fornace where the dead man was. Bocchese and Grassi shook hands and then Bocchese turned and said something to one of his crew, who waved a lazy hand in acknowledgement. Boxes and bags piled up on the dock; Brunetti waited until it seemed everything had been unloaded and then led them down the dirt path towards the metal doors of the factory. He was surprised to see two men standing outside, one of them a man in police uniform—he recognized Lazzari from the Murano squad—and the other De Cal, who was waving his arms and speaking loudly.

De Cal saw Brunetti and stormed towards him, shouting, 'What the hell is it now? First you let that bastard out of jail, and now I can't even go into my own factory.'

More familiar with De Cal than the others, Grassi stepped forward and, gesturing at the technicians, who were now struggling into their disposable scene-of-crime suits, said, 'I think they want to go in there alone, sir.'

'Remember who you work for, Grassi,' De Cal spat with effulgent rage. 'For me. Not for the police. I give the orders here, not the police.' He put his face close to Grassi's. Brunetti could see that the tendons of his neck were swollen. 'You understand that?'

Brunetti moved up beside Grassi. 'Your factory is the scene of a death, Signor De Cal,' he said, noticing that Lazzari seemed relieved by his having taken over. 'The technical crew will be here for a few hours, and then the scene will be opened and your men can go back to work.'

De Cal came suddenly closer, forcing Brunetti to move back one step. 'I can't afford a few hours.' De Cal