the Congo and Angola — hidden there. Some time later, the apartment was searched again, presumably by his killers or by someone who knew of and wanted the diamonds. Two days before the murder, an African tried to sell a large number of diamonds to a merchant here, who refused to buy them.’
Brunetti stopped, curious to see how the Count would respond to this. The man’s face was impassive. As Brunetti’s silence lengthened, the Count said, ‘I’m waiting for you to ask me for information. With this little, Guido, I can’t tell you anything. I’m waiting for the plot to grow more complicated.’
‘It does,’ Brunetti said. ‘Since the investigation was opened, both the Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry have displayed interest in the case.’
‘Together?’ the Count asked with open surprise.
‘I think not. They appear to be working separately. The Ministry of the Interior has taken over the case officially, with a request to Patta. The Foreign Ministry broke into the computer where the records were kept and erased them.’
‘I will not ask how you found that out,’ the Count remarked.
‘Better not,’ Brunetti said.
The Count crossed his legs and pressed both palms on to the seat to push himself upright. He turned to look out of the window. Brunetti’s eyes followed his, and through the water-speckled glass he saw the metal light stanchions of the stadium and the odd collection of decommissioned vaporetti stations that the ACTV stored down here at the end of Sant’Elena.
The heat, the dampness of his clothing, the constant thud of the motors, all lulled him into dullness. Still the Count said nothing. Suddenly the boat lurched to one side as the open waters of the
‘Six million Euros is a relative sum,’ the Count said. Brunetti turned his attention to him. ‘That is, to most people it is a fortune, undreamed-of wealth. But to many others it is a relatively insignificant sum.’ Brunetti wondered where the Count stood on this spectrum.
‘To an African, well, to most people in Africa, the sum is even more monumentally grand, perhaps so grand as to lose all meaning and be nothing more than a sum.’ He paused again, and Brunetti could almost hear the Count’s brain humming as it worked through this problem.
‘Then we must consider what an African would want to do with the money to be had from selling diamonds. If it were for his own use, he would be likely to try to sell them one at a time, perhaps going to private jewellers, perhaps even to their shops, to try to sell a stone or two, though few jewellers would be interested in uncut gems, I suspect. If he did succeed in selling them separately, he would have a steady source of money, at least until the diamonds were gone, but it would leave him with the problem of having to find a safe place where he could keep the diamonds.’ The Count glanced in Brunetti’s direction to see if he was following. ‘But you say this man tried to sell many of them at one time?’
Brunetti nodded.
The Count rested his head on the cushions behind him and closed his eyes. ‘If he tried to sell them all, then there was something he needed a lot of money in order to buy.’ He opened his eyes, turned his head, and gave Brunetti a sharp look. ‘You’ve got this far already?’ he asked.
‘To arms and guns, yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘I wanted to ask you who the likely seller would be so I can begin to have some idea of what’s been going on.’
The Count closed his eyes again. ‘Ah, you never disappoint me, Guido.’ He smiled and shook his head in amused distress. ‘But, in future, I would be very grateful if you would not indulge me by letting me show off how clever I am when you’ve already reached the conclusion.’
‘Of course,’ Brunetti said.
Both men gazed out of the windows, watching the wooden channel markers march past them. ‘Once he, or they, arrange to buy the weapons,’ the Count said, ‘which I think would be the easy part, they would have to transport them. That’s where things would become complicated.’
Brunetti had no idea what sort of weapons, or how many, could be bought for six million Euros, assuming this to be the minimum raised by the sale of the diamonds. Television movies had, over the years, turned Uzi and Kalashnikov into household words; Brunetti tried to calculate the volume of the disassembled machine-guns that could be bought for that sum, but he made a hopeless muddle of it.
The Count continued, ‘They would have to get to a port: easily enough done in trucks. Then there would be the false bills of lading, the Customs inspectors to be paid, the shipping company persuaded to be accommodating. And then the unloading at whatever port of entry was used, where it would all be put on trucks.’ He paused to give Brunetti an idea of the possible complications here. ‘So whoever was arranging this would need a great deal more money for these — what shall I call them? — incidental expenses, and then he would need someone at the other end to collect and, er, distribute whatever weapons he managed to acquire.’ He placed a hand on Brunetti’s arm and said, ‘It would require an efficient organization, at least there. Here, you’d need someone to sell the diamonds and buy the arms. Presumably your dead man.’ The Count raised a hand and wiped at the condensation on the window, then took out a handkerchief and dried his hand. The clean window showed them little more than the wet one had.
‘What I don’t understand,’ the Count said, ‘is the attempt to sell the diamonds privately. These things are generally taken care of beforehand.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti said.
‘Usually, the deal is arranged before the diamonds are brought here, to Europe, and often at the governmental level. Very often it’s a simple barter arrangement: stones for guns, so the complication of moving large amounts of money is avoided,’ the Count said, increasing Brunetti’s uneasiness by saying, ‘and the transport can usually be arranged by the addition of a percentage charge.’
Brunetti wondered what the phrase ‘governmental level’ might mean, but before he could ask, he felt the slowing of the engine as the boat approached the narrow channel leading to the airport dock. He looked at his watch. ‘What time does your plane leave?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry,’ the Count said. ‘It will wait.’ The boat pulled up to a dock and Massimo glanced into the cabin, but when he saw that the Count did not get to his feet, he backed out into the channel and set the motor to idling. Brunetti glanced outside, at the abandoned airport terminal, and saw that it had stopped raining.
‘The question you haven’t asked, Guido, is why someone would kill him.’
‘To steal the diamonds?’
‘Possibly,’ the Count answered. ‘But I doubt that either one of us believes that.’
‘Then to prevent their sale,’ Brunetti countered.
‘Their sale or the purchases that would be made with the money?’
‘That, I think,’ Brunetti agreed.
‘And that’s why you want to know who the likely arms seller would be? To lead you to your dead black man?’ the Count asked, bringing the conversation back to its point of origin.
‘Yes. It’s the only place I can think of to start at.’
‘If I might comment on this, Guido,’ the Count said deferentially, ‘it sounds as if the arms dealer would be the least likely to kill him. It would stop the sale, and the people who sell weapons aren’t usually in the business of killing.’
Brunetti let that one lie.
‘It is the involvement of those two agencies of our government,’ the Count said, ‘that puzzles me.’ He looked down and flicked a speck of dust from his trousers, then back at Brunetti. ‘It is not unusual for sales of weapons — after all, they are one of our most successful industries — to be, well, to be accommodated by the government. But they usually do that when the purchaser is known to them.’
‘You mean another government?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes. Or, just as easily, some group eager to replace an existing government.’ His smile was wolfish. ‘The Americans are not the only people who welcome the removal of inconvenient politicians and their replacement by those better disposed towards their business methods.’ Again, that smile. ‘Even better, at least from an economic point of view, is to see that hostilities continue more or less indefinitely so that the process of replacement can be prolonged for as long as there are natural resources that can be sold to pay for new weapons. Ideally, by both sides.’
The Count gave Brunetti a long look, raised a hand as if to reach across and touch his shoulder, but did not;
