Blood from a stone

coded messages, policemen shedding their uniforms in order to do their jobs. ‘We’re all mad, we’re all mad,’ he caught himself muttering as he climbed the steps. Next thing he knew, he’d be wearing a disguise to come to work and setting up bank accounts in the Channel Islands. It helped, he realized, to expand it all to the reductio ad absurdum, for to consider their behaviour objectively would be to summon despair.

Vianello came in, saying as he entered, ‘She said someone managed to get into her computer and destroy things.’ Before Brunetti could ask, he said, ‘No, not her physical computer, but into her files. She said whoever did it was very sophisticated.’

‘What was destroyed?’ Brunetti asked.

‘The autopsy report that was attached to the email. And the original report of the crime.’

‘And the other things? The addresses of Bertolli and Cuzzoni?’ Brunetti asked, alarmed that whoever had destroyed the other files would have found these and known where their investigation was heading. Which, he reflected with sudden cynicism, was considerably more than he knew.

Vianello shook his head in what Brunetti interpreted as a gesture of relief. ‘She said she had it all hidden, not only the addresses, but copies of the original report and the one from the pathologist — God knows where: in a folder of recipes, for all I know. She said the autopsy report and the original crime report were the only things on her computer that anyone could find.’

Brunetti had no option but to believe her and hope that she was right.

‘Can she find out who did it?’ he asked.

‘I think that’s what she’s trying to do now.’

Brunetti went around his desk and sat down. ‘I think the only thing to do now is to make it look like we’ve stopped,’ he said.

‘Patta will never believe it,’ Vianello objected.

‘If there’s no sign that we’re doing anything, then he’ll have to believe it.’

Vianello’s glance displayed his scepticism, but he said nothing.

‘I called Rizzardi,’ Brunetti said. ‘He said he found something.’

‘What?’

‘He didn’t say. Only that it was interesting and I ought to see it. So I sent Pucetti over.’ Brunetti translated the rather childish code of his conversation with the pathologist.

‘You called him from here?’ Vianello asked, unable to disguise his astonishment.

Brunetti explained about Signor Rossi’s telefonino and gave the number to Vianello.

‘So this is what we’re reduced to?’ Vianello asked, just as Pucetti came in, wearing Doc Marten boots and a long leather coat.

Neither man commented on Pucetti’s attire. The young officer placed an envelope on Brunetti’s desk then stood there, looking uncertain what to do with himself. Brunetti waved him to a chair.

From the envelope Brunetti pulled out a sheet of paper folded around a few photos and one other sheet of paper, which, when opened, was revealed to be the form the police used to take a set of fingerprints. On the paper around the photos he recognized Rizzardi’s handwriting. ‘When I got to the operating theatre, I was told the autopsy had already been performed, but the report was not available. So I took some photos of the dead man’s body: my comments on the back of each. The fingerprints on the enclosed form are his: I took them. I suggest you compare them with the ones taken during the autopsy to see if they are the same.’

A thick horizontal line served as signature. And below this was written, ‘Dottor Venturi did the autopsy.’

Brunetti took the photos and dealt them out in a row on his desk. In the first of them, Brunetti recognized the man’s face, eyes closed, features relaxed in what, to those who have not seen the faces of the dead, appeared to be sleep.

The next photo took a moment to interpret, for initially it looked like two speckled sculptures wearing oddly symmetrical headdresses. As Brunetti looked, the image revealed itself as the soles of the dead man’s feet, the headdresses his toes. He bent nearer to examine the speckles, each of them circular and about the size of the tip of his finger and all of them pink in contrast to the pale soles of the man’s feet. He turned the photo over and read, ‘These are cigarette burns. They are fully healed, but my guess is that they are not much older than a year or two.’ Brunetti flipped the photo back; knowing now, they all saw it.

The next was of the inside of the man’s right thigh, where the same circular pattern ran from the knee to the point where the leg joined the trunk. There might have been twenty of them. ‘Oddio,’ Pucetti whispered in horror at the terrible vulnerability revealed by the photo.

The next photo was a mirror image, this time of the inside of the left thigh. The three men stood in a silent line in front of the photos, each reluctant to speak.

The last photo showed what appeared to be another scar; the neat hole beneath it placed it at the centre of the man’s stomach. Brunetti recognized the pattern: the same four triangles of the Maltese cross that was carved on the forehead of the wooden head from the man’s jeans. The thin lines of the raised flesh were darker than the skin that served as smooth background to the pattern, yet the scar was utterly without menace and spoke of ritual, not pain. He turned the photo over and read, ‘This scar is considerably older. Tribal scarification of some sort.’

Brunetti leaned forward and slipped the photos back into a pile. He took the fingerprint form and handed it to Pucetti, saying, ‘Take this down to the lab and give it to Bocchese — but only if he’s alone — and ask him to compare it to the set in the autopsy report.’ He remembered the missing files and added, ‘If he’s still got them.’

‘Do we know he was given a set of prints?’ Vianello interrupted.

Brunetti, who should have checked, had not. He nodded in acknowledgement of Vianello’s remark and added to Pucetti, ‘Ask him. If he never received any, then ask him to see if he can get an identification.’ As the young man turned away, Brunetti added, ‘Discreetly.’

When Pucetti was gone, Vianello looked at the photos Brunetti still held, and asked, ‘Torture?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? The diamonds?’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti agreed, then added, ‘Or whatever he was going to buy with them.’

17

Brunetti and Vianello knew that they needed to find out who the man was or at least where he came from before they could have any idea of what he was likely to have done with the money he made from the diamonds. Instinctively, they shied away from reference to the marks of torture on the man’s body.

After almost twenty minutes had elapsed, Brunetti called down to the lab and asked to speak to Pucetti. ‘And?’ he asked when Pucetti picked up the phone.

‘There was nothing to compare that sample to, sir,’ Pucetti began. ‘Bocchese said he was never sent anything.’

A soft ‘Ah’ was all Brunetti would allow himself, and then he said, ‘If you’ve spoken to Bocchese, you can return to your normal duties.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Pucetti said and hung up.

Brunetti told Vianello what Pucetti had said; the inspector echoed Brunetti’s soft exclamation of surprise.

‘We have to go and talk to them again,’ Brunetti said without preamble, getting to his feet. Neither of them wanted to bother with the launch and thus call attention to their arrival in the neighbourhood, nor did they want there to be any possible record at the Questura of their destination. They walked quickly, unconsciously choosing the same streets and shortcuts on their way to Castello.

Brunetti let himself into the building with the keys Cuzzoni had given him. The two men paused just inside the door, listening for sounds from the apartments above. It was not yet noon, so the men were likely still to be there, waiting for the shops to close and thus signal them to set up their own transient workplaces. Together they climbed the steps and stood on either side of the door to the apartment on the first floor, silent and listening.