Blood from a stone

windows, and above them they saw the terracotta tiles of the roof set on a lattice-work of beams. No insulation shielded the room from the outside: both Brunetti and Vianello saw their breath turn to vapour as they stepped inside.

A single bed piled with shabby woollen blankets stood against the far wall. There was room only for a small table on which was a single electric hot plate, its wire running to the light switch beside the door, where someone had attached it with a great deal of tape and very little skill. Next to the hotplate were a metal cup and a box of tea bags; under the table stood a metal bucket, covered with a towel. A single step took Brunetti to the table. He lifted the towel and saw that the top of the water was covered with a thin sheet of ice.

He had only to lean towards the door to be near enough to shove it closed. On the back, a pair of jeans and a red sweater hung from two nails. Almost without thinking, Brunetti slipped his hand into the pockets of the jeans. He felt something hard at the bottom of the right pocket and pulled it out. The object, about the size of an egg, was wrapped in a clean white cloth. He set it on the table and unwrapped it.

He exposed a wooden carving of a human head, an object that Brunetti could easily have cradled in his hand were it not for the jagged pieces of wood sticking out from the bottom, suggesting that it had been broken off from the rest of the statue.

‘What’s that?’ Vianello asked, coming over and standing beside him.

‘I don’t know. A woman, I think.’ Brunetti picked it up to bring it closer to both of them. The woman’s nose was a pinched triangle, her eyes narrow slits carved within perfect ovals. The workmanship of the hair was particularly fine and suggested tight braiding arranged in elaborate, symmetrical patterns. In the centre of her forehead was carved an odd geometric pattern, four triangles arranged around and pointing towards a central diamond, all of it carved in one continuous line.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Vianello asked.

‘Yes, wonderful,’ Brunetti agreed. He turned it upside down, exposing the rough edges of wood on the bottom.

‘Snapped off at the neck, I’d say,’ Brunetti said. He rewrapped the head and slipped it into his own pocket.

Vianello went over to the bed and knelt down to push aside the edges of the blankets. He pulled out a cardboard box, got to his feet, and set it on the bed.

There was nothing else in the room: no toilet, no source of water, no cabinet or wardrobe of any sort. Brunetti pointed to the metal cup. Turning to Vianello, he said, ‘He must have heated water in this.’

Vianello gave no sign that he thought this worthy of comment. He looked down at the box, pushed the contents around with his forefinger, and said, ‘Nothing here.’ He knelt beside the bed again and reached for the box.

‘What’s in it, Vianello?’

‘Just some food.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Brunetti said. Vianello sat back on his heels.

Brunetti bent over the box and saw a packet of plain biscuits, a bag of shelled peanuts, an open box of rough cooking salt, four tea bags, a piece of cheese he thought might be Asiago, two oranges, and a transparent bag filled with the paper envelopes of sugar that bars served with coffee.

‘Why salt?’ he asked.

‘Excuse me?’

Brunetti used the same hand to gesture around the room. ‘Why would he have a box of salt? There are no pans. He doesn’t cook. So why does he have salt?’

Vianello said, ‘Maybe he uses it to brush his teeth,’ then stuck his forefinger in his mouth and made a scrubbing motion to show how it could be done.

Brunetti leaned forward and picked up the box of salt. ‘No, look at it. It’s sale grosso, for cooking. You can’t brush your teeth with this: the pieces are too big.’ The top of the box had been sliced open on three sides and the top partly pulled back to allow easy pouring. Brunetti saw the clumsy grains, the size of lentils, on the top. He licked his finger and stuck it into the salt, pulled it out and tasted it. Saltiness filled his mouth.

Brunetti set the box on the bed, pulled out his handkerchief and spread it smooth on top of the blanket. Then he poured the salt slowly out on to his handkerchief. Towards the middle of the box, the size and colour of the grains began to change: they lost the dull opacity of salt and, as if the subject of some beneficent transformation, grew in clarity and size until they fell from the box absolutely clear, some of them almost the size of peas.

‘Dio mio,’ Vianello said involuntarily.

Brunetti looked at the pile on the handkerchief, silenced by possibility. In the dull light from the single bulb, the stones lay there, inert and clear. Perhaps sunlight would bring them to life: he had no idea. He was not even certain what they were: no facets had been cut or ground into them to give them recognizable shape or lustre as gemstones. For all he knew, they could have been the castoffs of some Murano glass-blower, little chunks of clarity meant to form, say, the ears of glass bears or the noses of transparent bunnies.

But if that was all these glassy things were, they were unlikely to be hidden in the room of a murdered man.

Vianello got to his feet. ‘What do we do with them?’ he asked. Brunetti thought of some of his colleagues at the Questura and how, were one of them to ask the question, he would interpret it as an inquiry into the best way of pocketing the stones. From Vianello, however, the question was no more than an echo of his own concern about how to keep them from falling into those other hands. How many villas had sprung from police evidence rooms? How many vacations had been paid for by sequestered drugs and money?

‘Give me your mittens,’ Brunetti said.

‘What?’ asked a startled Vianello.

‘Your mittens. We can put them in there to carry them out of here.’

‘We’re going to take them?’

‘Would you leave them here?’ Brunetti asked. ‘When the men downstairs know we’re interested in him, and when Cuzzoni knows?’

‘You said you trusted him.’

Brunetti pointed at the squat pyramid on the bed. ‘Until I know if these are real, I don’t trust anyone.’

‘And when you do know? Who will you trust then?’ Vianello asked, pulling his mittens from the pockets of his jacket.

Ignoring the question, Brunetti picked up the handkerchief by the four corners and jiggled it until he created a chute that would allow it to pour easily. The salt and stones hung heavily, a fat lump at the bottom of a not entirely clean white handkerchief. Vianello held the first mitten under it, and Brunetti poured until they came within a few centimetres of the top. Vianello shook the stones until the thumb stood out rigid from the side. He set it on the bed while he slipped his watch off and tried to wrap the expandable band around the stuffed mitten, but it did not work, so he replaced the watch and contented himself with giving the mitten a few more shakes. He slipped it into the right pocket of his jacket and zipped the pocket closed.

They did the same with the second mitten, which went into Vianello’s left hand pocket. That left Brunetti with a pile the size of an orange at the bottom of his handkerchief. He tied the corners together, then slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket and buttoned the pocket.

Careful of the box now that it might carry fingerprints, he used the keys to slit open the bottom flap, then pressed the box flat and slid it into the outside pocket of his jacket. When that was done, he took out his telefonino and called the number of the technical squad at the Questura. He told them where the apartment was, said it might be the home of the man who was murdered, and asked them to send someone over to fingerprint the room. He was not to be in uniform and was to ring the top bell in front of the house. Yes, he and Vianello would wait.

When he hung up, Vianello said, ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘Which one?’ asked a distracted Brunetti.

‘Who you’ll trust, once you find out if they’re real?’

For the first time since they had entered the building, Brunetti smiled. ‘No one.’

The technician took almost an hour to get there, which left Brunetti and Vianello to sit side by side on the bed in the freezing room and discuss possibilities. When the cold became too intense, they went down one floor to the