Through a glass, darkly

with it alone in a factory at night.'

Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was after nine; he took out his telefonino and dialled the hospital number of Dottor Rizzardi. He recognized the doctor's voice when he answered.

'It's me, Ettore. I'm out on Murano. Yes, a dead man.' He listened for a while and then said, 'Venturi.' There was an even longer silence, this time on both sides. Finally Brunetti said, 'I'd appreciate it if you could arrange to do it.'

Vianello and Bocchese heard the murmur of Rizzardi's voice, but all they could distinguish clearly was that of Brunetti, who said, 'In a glass factory. He was in front of one of the furnaces.' Another silence, and then Brunetti said, 'I don't know. Maybe all night.'

Brunetti glanced at the posters at the end of the bar, fixing his attention on the Costiera Amal-fitana to keep it away from the words he had just spoken. Houses pitty-patted down the cliffs, holding on to whatever they could, and colours did whatever they pleased, never giving a thought to harmony. The sun glistened on the sea, and sailboats swept away to what the viewer knew were even more beautiful places.

'Thanks, Ettore,' Brunetti said and ended the call. He got to his feet, went over and put a ten-Euro bill on the counter, and the three men left.

When they got back to the factory, the ambulance boat from the hospital was just pulling away from the dock. There was no sign of De Cal, though three or four workmen stood outside the door, smoking and talking in low voices. Inside the building, the paper-clad technicians were busy packing up their equipment. Brunetti noticed that one of the long iron rods stood against the wall, its surface covered with grey powder. The floor was very clean: had Tassini swept it before he died?

Bocchese spoke to two of his men, then came back to Vianello and Brunetti. 'Some prints on that rod,' he said, 'and lots of smudges.' He allowed a moment to pass and added, 'Means he could have fallen on it.'

'On anything else?' Brunetti asked.

Before Bocchese could answer, one of his men pulled something out of his bag and walked over to the rod. The object he held proved to be a long, thin plastic bag, much like one used to wrap a baguette, though it was considerably longer. He slipped it over the top of the rod and pulled it down to the ground. He went back to his bag and got a roll of tape and used it to seal the bottom of what now looked like a plastic sheath. He twisted the tape to create handles on either end, turning it into a package that could be carried by two men without disturbing the surface where the fingerprints were.

'Might as well take a closer look,' Bocchese said, and Brunetti thought of the mark on Tassini's forehead.

As the technician turned away, Brunetti said, 'Let me know, will you?'

Bocchese answered with a noise and a sideways motion of his hand, and then he and the technicians filed out. A few minutes later, two of them came back and used the handles to take the iron rod out of the factory.

'Let's have a look around,' Brunetti said. Knowing the technicians had checked the floor and surfaces, Brunetti walked towards the back of the factory and a table with its surface covered with glass pieces.

They saw the lines of porpoises and the toreador in his shiny black pants and red jacket.

'De gustibus,' Vianello said, moving along the line of objects. A door led to a cell- like room in which stood a chair and a camp-bed. A copy of the previous day's Gazzettino lay open, spread across the chair, as though it had been placed there in haste. At the head of the bed a pillow stood propped against the wall, what looked like the indentation made by a head visible in it.

Brunetti took the newspaper by the two upper corners and lifted the pages onto the bed. Below it on the chair lay two books: Industrial Illness, the Curse of Our Millennium and Dante's Inferno, a paper-covered school edition whose worn look suggested it had been often read. Ignoring the first, Brunetti picked up the second book. The corners of many pages were torn and darkened with frequent handling; as he flipped through the pages, he found copious notes in the margins. Tassini had signed the book in red ink on the inside of the front cover, a mannered signature with unnecessary horizontal lines trailing around and away from the dot on the final i. The edition had been published more than twenty years before. Brunetti flipped through the pages again and noticed that there were notes in red and black but that the black handwriting appeared to have grown smaller and less attention-grabbing.

Vianello had moved over to look through a small window that stood behind the head of the bed. It gave a clear view back towards the glaring flames of the open furnaces. 'What is it?' he asked, nodding at the book in Brunetti's hands.

'Inferno.'

'Perfect place for it, I'd say’ the Inspector replied.

16

Brunetti took Tassini's books; he and Vianello left the little bedroom and walked back through the factory. Since one book was a paperback edition and the other a small schoolbook, he slipped them easily into the pockets of his jacket. He had just done this when De Cal catapulted himself through the main doors and directly towards them.

'I spend two thousand Euros a week on gas for the furnaces, for God's sake’ he began, quite as if he were reaching the end of a long explanation they had been resisting. 'Two thousand Euros. If I lose a day of production, who's going to pay me for the gas? It's not like these furnaces can be turned on and off like a radio, you know’ he said, waving distractedly towards the three furnaces, all of them open now.

'And I still have to pay the workers. I'm paying for them now. Your men are gone, and all you're doing is standing around, doing nothing. Which is exactly what the workers are doing, only I'm paying them to do it.'

Vianello and Brunetti approached him and stopped. De Cal continued. 'I saw them leave,' he said, pointing in the direction of the canal. 'I saw their boat go back to the city. I want to open my factory and get my men back to work. I don't want to pay them to stand around and talk while the gas burns and I have nothing to show for it.'

Brunetti could not prevent himself from saying, 'A man died here this morning.'

With apparent difficulty, De Cal prevented himself from spitting. 'He died this morning. He died yesterday. He died two days ago. What difference does it make? He's not here any more.' As he spoke, De Cal's voice grew increasingly out of control. 'It costs me money,' he shouted, the emphasis heavy on the last word, 'to keep my furnaces burning, and I pay my workers whether they're in here, working, or whether they're standing outside, convincing themselves what a nice fellow Tassini really was, after all.' He moved closer and stared up at Brunetti's face, then at Vianello's, as if searching for the reason they could not understand something so simple. 'I'm losing money.'

Neither Vianello nor Brunetti looked at the other. Finally Brunetti said, 'Your workers can come back in, Signor De Cal.'

Without bothering to thank him, De Cal wheeled around and went out the door. From inside, they could hear him calling to the workers, telling one of them to go and summon some others. Time to go back to work. Business as usual. Life goes on.

Suddenly Brunetti realized what he would have to do now, and was taken aback to think that he had so successfully ignored it. Tassini's wife, Tassini's family: someone had to go and tell them that things would never be the same again. Someone would have to go and tell them that their life, as they knew it, was over, that an event had come hurtling at them and destroyed it. He fought the urge to call the Questura and ask them to send a woman officer. He did not know the widow, had spoken only once with the mother-in-law, and his meeting with Tassini had lasted no more than a quarter of an hour, yet there was nothing for it but for him to go.

He turned to Vianello and explained what he was going to do and asked him to stay and talk to the workers and, if he could manage it, to De Cal. Had Tassini any enemies? Who else might have come to the factory at night? Was Tassini as clumsy as Grassi said?

Saying that he would see Vianello back at the Questura, Brunetti went out to the riva and headed for the police launch. Foa was in the cabin, one of the wooden doors to the control panel open as he wrapped electrical tape around a wire. When he heard Brunetti's steps on the dock, the pilot looked up