9
They made their way through the increasing rain back toward the boat, glad that Bonsuan had insisted on waiting for them. When they climbed on board, Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was well after five, which meant it was high time to go back to the Questura. They emerged into the Grand Canal; Bonsuan turned right and into the long S that would take them up past the Basilica and Bell Tower, down toward the Ponte della Pieta and the Questura.
Down in the cabin, Brunetti pulled his handkerchief and the wallet it contained from his pocket and handed them to Vianello. ‘When we get back, could you take this to the lab and have it dusted for prints?’ As Vianello took them, Brunetti added, ‘Any prints on the plastic bag will be Franchi’s, I’d guess, so they can exclude those. And you better send someone over to the hospital to get a set of Rossi’s.’
‘Anything else, sir?’
‘When they’ve finished, send the wallet up to me. I’d like to have a look at what’s in it.’
‘And could you tell them it’s urgent,’ he said.
Vianello looked across at him and asked, ‘And when isn’t it, sir?’
‘Well, tell Bocchese that there’s a dead person involved. That might make him work a little faster.’
‘Bocchese would be the first person to say that’s proof there’s no need for hurry,’ remarked Vianello.
Brunetti chose to ignore this.
Vianello slipped the handkerchief into the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and asked, ‘What else, sir?’
‘I want Signorina Elettra to check the records to see if there’s anything about Rossi.’ He doubted that there would be, couldn’t conceive of Rossi as ever having been involved in anything criminal, but life had given him larger surprises than that, so it would be best to check.
Vianello raised the fingers of one hand. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but does this mean we’re going to treat it as a murder investigation?’
Both of them knew the difficulty of this. Until a magistrate had been assigned, neither of them could begin an official investigation, but before a magistrate would take it on and begin to treat it as a case of murder, there had to be persuasive evidence of a crime. Brunetti doubted that his impression of Rossi as a man terrified of heights would count as persuasive evidence of anything: not crime and certainly not murder.
‘I’ll have to try to persuade the Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said.
‘Yes,’ Vianello answered.
‘You sound sceptical.’
Vianello raised an eyebrow. It sufficed.
‘He won’t like this, will he?’ Brunetti volunteered. Again, Vianello didn’t respond. Patta allowed the police to accept crime when it was, in a sense, thrust upon them and could not be ignored. There was little chance that he would permit an investigation of something that so clearly appeared to be an accident. Until such time as it could not be ignored, until such time as evidence could be presented that would convince even the most sceptical that Rossi had not fallen to his death, it was destined to remain an accident in the eyes of the authorities.
Brunetti was blessed, or cursed, with a psychological double vision that forced him to see at least two points of view in any situation, and so he knew how absurd his suspicions must seem and could be made to seem by someone who did not share them. Good sense declared that he abandon all of this and accept the obvious: Franco Rossi had died after an accidental fall from scaffolding. ‘Tomorrow morning, get his keys from the hospital and have a look at his apartment.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘I have no idea,’ Brunetti answered. ‘See if you can find an address book, letters, names of friends or relatives.’
Brunetti had been so immersed in his speculations that he had not noticed them turning into the canal, and it was only the gentle thump of the boat against the Questura landing that told him they had arrived.
Together, they climbed up to the deck. Brunetti waved his thanks to Bonsuan, who was busy mooring the ropes that held the boat to the quay. He and Vianello walked through the rain to the front door of the Questura, which was pulled open before them by a uniformed officer. Before Brunetti could thank him, the young man said, ‘The Vice-Questore wants to see you, Commissario.’
‘He’s still here?’ He sounded surprised.
‘Yes, sir. He said I was to tell you as soon as you got here.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, and to Vianello, ‘I better go up, then.’
They went up the first flight of stairs together, neither willing to speculate on what Patta might want. At the first floor, Vianello headed down the corridor that led to the back stairs to the laboratory where Bocchese, the technician, reigned, unquestioned, unhurried, and unwilling to defer to rank.
Brunetti made his silent way toward Patta’s office. Signorina Elettra sat at her desk and looked up when he came in. She waved him toward her at the same time as she picked up her phone and pressed a button. After a moment she said, ‘Commissario Brunetti’s here, Dottore.’ She listened to Patta, replied, ‘Of course, Dottore,’ and replaced the receiver.
‘He must want to ask you a favour. It’s the only reason he hasn’t been screaming for your blood all afternoon,’ she had time to say before the door opened and Patta appeared.
His grey suit, Brunetti observed, had to be cashmere, and the tie was what passed in Italy for an English club tie. Though it had been a rainy, cool spring, Patta’s handsome face was taut and tanned. He wore a pair of thin- rimmed oval glasses. This was the fifth pair of glasses Brunetti had seen Patta wear in the years he’d been at the Questura, the style always a few months ahead of what everyone else would soon be wearing. Brunetti had once, caught without his own reading glasses, picked up Patta’s from his desk and held them up to take a closer look at a photograph, only to discover that the lenses were clear glass.
‘I was just telling the Commissario to go in, Vice-Questore,’ Signorina Elettra said. Brunetti noticed that there were two files and three pieces of paper on her desk that he was sure had not been there a moment ago.
‘Yes, do come in, Dottor Brunetti,’ Patta said, extending a hand in a gesture that Brunetti found unsettlingly similar to that with which he imagined Clytemnestra had lured Agamemnon down from his chariot. He had time only to cast one last glance at Signorina Elettra before his arm was taken by Patta and he was pulled gently into the office.
Patta closed the door and walked across the room towards the two armchairs he’d had placed in front of the windows. He waited for Brunetti to join him. When he did, Patta gestured him to sit, then himself sat down; an interior decorator would have called the placement of the chairs a ‘conversation angle’.
‘I’m glad you could spare me the time, Commissario,’ Patta said. Hearing the tinge of angry sarcasm in the words, Brunetti felt himself on easier ground.
‘I had to go out,’ he explained.
‘I thought that was this morning,’ Patta said but then remembered to smile.
‘Yes, but then I had to go out this afternoon, too. It was so sudden I didn’t have time to get word to you.’
‘Don’t you have a
Brunetti, who loathed them and refused to carry one out of what he realized was stupid, Luddite prejudice, said only, ‘I didn’t have it with me, sir.’
He wanted to ask Patta why he was there, but Signorina Elettra’s warning was enough to keep him silent, a neutral expression on his face, as though they were two strangers waiting for the same train.
‘I wanted to talk to you, Commissario,’ Patta began. He cleared his throat and continued, ‘It’s about something… well, it’s about something personal.’
Brunetti worked hard to keep his face motionless, with an expression of passive interest in what he was hearing.
Patta sat back in his chair, stretched his feet out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. For a moment, he contemplated the gleaming shine on his wingtips; then he uncrossed his feet, pulled them back, and leaned forward. In the few seconds it took him to do this, Brunetti was astonished to realize, Patta seemed to have aged years.
