Through a glass, darkly

picked up the vase and turned it around twice, studying the surface. Brunetti noticed that it had the faintest cast of amethyst, so light as to be almost invisible in bright light.

Still turning the vase and keeping his eyes on it, Fasano said finally, as though he had been thinking about it since Brunetti had first posed the question, 'He had to believe himself. Everyone here knows what happened when the little girl was born. I think that's why everyone was usually so patient with him. He had to blame something, well, something other than himself, so he ended up blaming De Cal.' He set the vase down on his desk again. 'But he never did anyone any harm.'

Brunetti stopped himself from suggesting that Tassini had done his daughter more than enough harm and said only, 'Did Signor De Cal ever have any trouble with him?'

He watched Fasano consider how to answer this. Finally the man said, 'I've never heard that he did.'

'Do you know Signor De Cal?'

Fasano smiled and said, 'Our families have had factories side by side for more than a hundred years, Commissario.'

'Yes, of course,' answered a chastened Brunetti. 'Did he ever say anything about Tassini or about having trouble with him?'

'You've met Signor De Cal?' Fasano asked.

'Yes.'

'Then can you imagine the workman who would give him any real trouble?'

'No.'

'De Cal would probably have eaten him alive if Tassini had so much as suggested he was responsible for the little girl.' Fasano leaned back against his desk, bracing his hands on either side of him. 'That's another reason why Tassini had to keep telling other people, I think. He couldn't say anything to De Cal. He must have been afraid to.'

'It sounds as if you've given his accusations some thought, Signore,' Brunetti said.

Fasano shrugged. 'I suppose I have. After all, we work around these materials all the time, and the idea that they might be harmful to me, or to us, is one I don't like.'

'You don't sound like you believe they are, if I might say so’ Brunetti observed.

'No, I don't’ Fasano said. 'I've read the scientific papers and the reports, Commissario. The danger, I repeat, is over there.' Half turning, he pointed to the north-west.

'One of my inspectors believes it's killing us’ Brunetti said.

'He's right’ Fasano said forcefully. But he said no more, for which Brunetti was almost thankful.

Fasano pushed himself away from his desk, 'I'm afraid I have to go back to work’ he said.

Brunetti expected him to walk around and sit at the desk, but Fasano picked up the vase and went and stood by the door to his office. 'I want to grind off a few imperfections’ he said, making it clear that Brunetti was not invited to join him.

Brunetti thanked him for his time and left the factory, heading back towards the pier.

24

Brunetti took the 42 back to Fondamenta Nuove and then, because it was near, walked towards the Fondamenta della Misericordia. He stopped for a coffee and asked where Adil-San was, learning not only where to find them but that they were honest and busy and that the owner's son had recently married a girl from Denmark he had met at university, and it wasn't expected to last. No, not because of the girl, even if she was a foreigner, but because Roberto was a donnaiolo, and they never change, do they, they never stop chasing women? Nodding his head in acknowledgement or appreciation of this information, Brunetti left the bar and took the first right, following the canal until he saw the sign on the opposite side. Up and down a bridge and then back and into the plumbers' office, where he found a young woman sitting behind a computer.

She looked up and smiled when he came in, asking what she could do for him. Her mouth was perhaps too big, or her lipstick too dark, but she was lovely, and Brunetti found himself flattered by her attention. 'I'd like to speak to the manager, please’ he said.

'Is this about an estimate, sir?' she asked, her smile growing warmer and suggesting to Brunetti that perhaps her mouth was really just the right size.

'No. I'd like to ask him about a client,' he said taking his warrant card from his wallet.

She looked at it, at him, then back at the photo. 'I've never seen one of these before,' she said. 'It's just like on television, isn't it?'

'A bit, I suppose. But not as interesting,' Brunetti said.

She looked at the card again, then handed it back to him. 'I'll go and tell him, all right, Commissario?' she asked and got to her feet. Thicker in the waist than he had expected, she was still pleasant to watch as she crossed the room and pushed open a door without bothering to knock.

In a moment she was back at the door. 'Signor Repeta can see you now, Commissario,' she said.

When Brunetti entered, a man about his own age was just getting to his feet behind his desk. He came towards Brunetti. Like the girl in the outer office, he had a large mouth; her dark eyes, as well.

'Your daughter?' Brunetti asked, waving towards the door, which was now shut.

The man smiled. Is it that obvious?' he asked. Like her, his entire face softened when he smiled, and he had the same thickness of build.

'The mouth and eyes’ Brunetti said.

' 'Signor Repeta,' she always calls me when we're working,' the man said with a smile. He wore a pair of black woollen trousers and a pink shirt with sleeves rolled back to the elbows, exposing the thick forearms of a worker. He motioned Brunetti to a chair, retreated behind his desk and asked, 'What can I do for you, Commissario?'

'I'd like to know what sort of work you do for the Vetreria Regini,' Brunetti said.

It was obvious that the question puzzled Repeta. After a moment, he answered, 'What I do for all of the vetrerie I have a contract with,' he said.

'Which is?'

'Oh, of course,' Repeta said. 'There's no way you'd know that, is there? Sorry.' He brushed his right hand through his greying hair, leaving part of it standing up in spikes. 'We service their water systems and dispose of the waste from the grinding room.'

Brunetti gave a layman's smile and held up his palms, men asked, 'What does that mean to someone like me, Signore?'

Like many men wrapped up in their work, Repeta struggled to find the words with which to make things clear. 'I suppose all the service part means is that we make sure they can turn the water in the factory on and off and adjust the rate of flow in the grinding shop.'

'Doesn't sound very complicated’ Brunetti said, but he said it gently, as though both of them took the same delight in its simplicity.

'No,' Repeta admitted with a smile, 'it's not complicated, not at all. But the tanks are.'

'Why?'

'We've got to see that the water flows from one to the next slowly enough to allow for sedimentation.' He saw the look on Brunetti's face and picked up a letter lying on his desk. He glanced at it, flipped it over, and picked up a pencil. 'Here, look’ he said, and Brunetti moved his chair over next to the desk.

Quickly, with the ease of familiarity, Repeta drew a row of four equally sized rectangles. A line, presumably meant to indicate a pipe, led from a point near the top of one to the next, and then another led to the third; after the last one, it slanted down and disappeared off the bottom of the drawing.

Pointing to the first rectangle, Repeta said, 'Look, the water from the molatura flows out of the grinding shop and into the first tank, carrying away everything that's been ground off. The heavy particles begin to sink to the bottom, while the water flows to the next one, where more of it drops down and is deposited. And so on and so on’ he said, tapping the point of the pencil against the third and fourth rectangles.