Through a glass, darkly

'At the end of it, all of the particles have settled to the bottom of the tanks, and the water that flows out of the last one’ he said, trailing the pencil along the diagonal line that flowed off the page, 'goes into the drain.'

'Clean water?' Brunetti asked.

'Clean enough.'

Brunetti studied the drawing for a moment and then asked, 'What happens to the sediment in the tanks?'

'That's the second part of what we do,' Repeta said, pushing the paper away from him and returning his attention to Brunetti. 'They call us when they've drained the tanks and we go out and take the sediment away.'

'And?'

'And deliver it—well, it's really a kind of heavy sludge—we deliver it to the company that disposes of it.'

'How?'

'They fuse it, melt the glass particles and the minerals get fused into the glass’

'What minerals are there?' Brunetti asked, interested now.

'As many as are used in making glass’ answered Repeta. 'Cadmium, cobalt, manganese, arsenic, potassium.'

'How do they get into the water?'

'Because they're in the glass. When it's ground, the particles are carried away by the water and out into the tanks.' He put the paper back in front of him and pointed with the pencil to the first rectangle, then tapped it all along the row. 'The water also keeps the powder from getting into the lungs of the men doing the grinding.'

'How many vetrerie do you do this for?'

'More than thirty, I'd say, but I'd have to look at my client list.'

'And how often do you make pick-ups?'

'That depends on how much work they have. Maybe every three months, maybe six. We go out whenever they call us. It depends.'

'Does that mean the same day?' Brunetti asked, thinking of a plugged sink in the kitchen, running over.

'No,' Repeta said and laughed. 'They usually call us and make an appointment a week before they need us. That also gives us the chance to schedule five or six pick-ups in one day.' Repeta glanced across to see that Brunetti was following and added, 'Saves us money, doing it that way. The charge for the trip is standard, no matter how much we pick up. I mean, we charge according to the weight of what we take away, but the charge for the pick-up is always the same, so it's best for them to have us come only when their tanks are full.'

'One of the men I spoke to said he saw one of your boats out at the Vetreria Regini two months ago,' Brunetti said. 'Was it a pick-up?'

Repeta shook his head at that. 'I don't know,' he said, shoving his chair back and moving around the desk. 'Let me ask Floridana.' He was gone before Brunetti could say anything.

While he waited for Repeta, Brunetti looked around the office: travel posters, no doubt from an agency; a window so dusty it allowed only minimal light and sound to filter in; and three metal filing cabinets. No computer and no phone, which surprised Brunetti.

Repeta came in, a sheet of paper in his hand. 'No’ he said as he approached Brunetti. It seems they needed someone to fix a leak.'

'What sort of leak?'

He passed the paper to Brunetti. 'One of the tanks. That's why they called us.' The words on the paper meant little to Brunetti, and he handed it back.

Repeta went back behind his desk. He closed his eyes, saying, 'Let me think about the way their tanks are.' His face became completely expressionless and remained that way for some time, and then he opened his eyes. 'Yes, I remember. The tanks are raised up on metal feet, about five centimetres from the ground, but they're flush against the wall at the back.' He looked at the receipt again. 'From this, I'd guess that a seam, probably at one of the angles, came loose or corroded.' He showed Brunetti the paper again, saying, 'See? It says they had to solder a leak in the back of the third tank. That's probably what it was.'

'Does your invoice say who did the work?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes. Biaggi. He's one of our best.' Brunetti, who had once paid a plumber one hundred and sixty Euros to replace a faucet, was unsure what that might mean.

'Would it be possible for you to ask him exactly what he did?' Brunetti asked, remembering Tassini's coordinates.

Repeta gave him a strange look but got to his feet again and went to the outer office. Brunetti returned to the study of the travel posters, aware of how little desire he had to spend time on a tropical beach.

After a few minutes, Repeta was back, saying, 'He's out in the shop. Be here in a minute.'

While they waited, Brunetti asked about the disposal of other substances from the vetrerie, asking if Repeta also disposed of the acids. Those, he learned, were handled by an even more specialized firm, one that transferred the liquid to tanker trucks for delivery to facilities in Marghera that saw to the disposal of toxic substances.

Before Brunetti could learn any more, he heard a voice from behind him.

'You wanted me, Luca?'

Say 'plumber', and this was the man who would appear on the inner eye. Not particularly tall, but thick from shoulder to hip—thick of nose as well; slightly balding, rough skinned, with enormous hands and forearms, Biaggi stood at the door. He smiled at Repeta, as though amiability were his usual condition.

'Come in, Pietro’ Repeta said. 'This man wants to know what you did out at Fasano's place last time you went.'

Biaggi took a few steps into the room and nodded to Brunetti. He tilted his chin and studied the ceiling, as if searching there for a copy of the invoice. He pursed his lips in a surprisingly feminine gesture, brought his chin back down and said, 'The third tank had a leak, and his manager needed us to solder it. His boss was on vacation or something. Anyway, he couldn't be reached, so the manager called us. Good thing he did, too, because they could have had a real problem if they'd waited a couple more days.'

'Why is that?' Brunetti inquired.

'Water was already leaking all over the floor: grey stuff, so it was coining from the sediment, or at least from the new water coming into the tank that still had sediment in it.'

'What did you do?' Repeta asked.

'Usual stuff: turn off the water of the molatura. We sent the guys out for a coffee and told them to come back in an hour. No use having them standing around doing nothing or trying to help.'

'Who was with you?' Repeta asked.

'Dondini.'

'What did you have to do?' Brunetti interrupted to ask. Before Biaggi could begin to explain, Repeta told him to come and sit down, which he did, spreading himself into a chair and seeming even larger once he was seated.

'First thing I saw was that it was going to take a long time, more than an hour.' He looked at Brunetti, smiled, and said, 'Before you start thinking this is the way plumbers think, Signore, let me tell you it was true. Those tanks are too close to the ground, so you can't get under them, and they're fixed to the walls, so you can't get behind them to have a look. Only way to work on them is to drain them and see what's going on.'

'Even with all the sludge in them?' Brunetti asked, pleased with himself for sounding in command of the subject.

Biaggi smiled. 'We had to drain it first. Luckily, it had only been a month or so since we were out there, so the sediment wasn't very high. Most of what was in it was water, so we turned it off in the grinding shop; then we bailed it into the next tank until we got down about forty centimetres. That's where the leak was.'

'In the soldering on the angles?' Repeta asked.

'No,' Biaggi answered. 'It looks like they used to drain the tank out of the back, straight through the wall. Or else it was used for something else before they put it there to filter the water from the molatura. I figure that's why they had to change the position of the pipes.' Biaggi dismissed the subject. 'None of my business, is it?' he asked Brunetti, who shook his head in agreement.

'I don't know who did the job, but it was a mess,' Biaggi continued. 'Someone had cut a round plate out of tin