Friends in High Places

added, ‘They’re pests when they’re outside. That’s what his father said.’

Brunetti said, ‘I see.’

Silence fell but he waited. Then she said, as if no mention had been made of the rabbits, ‘I know who they are.’ Her hands tortured one another in her lap, but her voice remained calm, almost seductive. It occurred to him that she had no idea of its power or its beauty.

Brunetti nodded to encourage her, and she continued, ‘Well, that is, I know the name of one of them, the one who sold it to Marco. I don’t know the name of the people he gets it from, but I think he’d tell you if you frightened him enough.’

‘I’m afraid we’re not in the business of frightening people,’ Brunetti said, smiling, wishing it were true.

‘I mean frightening him so that he’d come and tell you what he knows. He’d do that if he thought you knew who he is and were going to get him.’

‘If you give me his name, Signorina, we can bring him in and question him.’

‘But wouldn’t it be better if he came in by himself and told you what he knows, told you voluntarily?’

‘Yes, it certainly would…’

She interrupted him. ‘I don’t have any proof, you know. It’s not like I can testify that I saw him sell it to Marco or Marco told me that he did.’ She moved around uneasily in her chair, then put her folded hands back in her lap. ‘But I know he’d come in if he didn’t have any other choice, and then it wouldn’t be so bad for him, would it?’

This intense concern could be directed only at family, Brunetti realized. ‘I’m afraid you haven’t told me your name, Signorina.’

‘I don’t want to tell you my name,’ she answered, some of the sweetness gone from her voice.

Brunetti opened his hands, spreading his fingers wide in symbol of the liberty he extended, ‘That’s entirely your right, Signorina. In that case, the only thing I suggest to you is that you tell this person that he should come in.’

‘He won’t listen to me. He never has,’ she said, adamant.

Brunetti considered his options. He studied his wedding band, saw that it was thinner than it was when he had studied it last, worn away by the years. He looked up and across at her. ‘Does he read the newspaper?’

Surprised, her answer was instant, ‘Yes.’

‘The Gazzettino?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you see that he reads it tomorrow?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘Good. I hope it will be enough to make him talk to us. Will you encourage him to come?’

She looked down after he said this, and again he thought she was going to begin to cry. Instead, she said, ‘I’ve been trying to do that since Marco died.’ Her voice broke, and her hands balled themselves into tight fists again. She shook her head. ‘He’s afraid.’ Again, a long pause. ‘I can’t do anything to make him. My par… ‘ she broke off before finishing the word, confirming what he already knew. She shifted her weight forward, and he saw that, message delivered, she was ready to escape.

Brunetti got slowly to his feet and came around the desk. She stood and turned towards the door.

Brunetti opened it for her. He thanked her for having come to talk to him. As she started down the stairs, he closed the door, ran back to the phone, and dialled the number of the guard desk at the front door. He recognized the voice of the young man who had brought her up.

‘Masi, say nothing. When that girl comes down, take her into your office and see that she stays there at least a few minutes. Tell her you have to record in your ledger what time she left, make up some sort of story, but keep her there. Then let her leave.’

Giving him no chance to answer, Brunetti replaced the phone and walked to the large wooden closet that stood against the wall by the door. He yanked the door open, letting it slam back against the wall. Inside, he saw an old tweed jacket he had left there more than a year ago and ripped it from the hanger. Clutching it in one hand, he moved to the door of his office, opened it, looked down the stairs and took them two at a time down to the officers’ room on the floor below.

Panting at the effort, he ran into the room and gave a sigh of silent thanks when he saw Pucetti at his desk. ‘Pucetti,’ he said, ‘get up and take off your jacket.’

Instantly, the young officer was on his feet and his jacket flung on the desk in front of him. Brunetti handed him the woollen jacket, saying, ‘There’s a girl downstairs near the entrance. Masi’s holding her for a few minutes in his office. When she leaves, I want you to follow her. Follow her all day if you have to, but I want to know where she goes, and I want to know who she is.’

Pucetti was already moving towards the door. The jacket hung loosely on him, so he flipped over the cuffs then pushed them up his forearms; he ripped off his tie and tossed it in the general direction of his desk. When he left the office, asking Brunetti for no explanation, he looked like a casually dressed young man who had chosen to wear a white shirt and dark blue trousers that day but had offset the military cut of the trousers by wearing an overlarge Harris tweed jacket with the sleeves pushed up in quite a dashing manner.

Brunetti went back to his office, dialled the news office of Il Gazzettino and identified himself. The story he gave them explained how the police investigating the drug-related death of a young student had discovered the identity of the young man believed to have been responsible for selling the drugs that had caused his death. An arrest was imminent, and it was hoped that this would lead to the arrest of even more people involved in the drug traffic in the Veneto area. When he put the phone down, he hoped only that this would be enough to force the young girl’s relative, whoever he was, to find the courage to come into the Questura so that something positive could come of the stupid waste of Marco Landi’s life.

* * * *

He and Vianello presented themselves at the Ufficio Catasto at eleven. Brunetti gave his name and rank to the secretary on the first floor, and she told him that Ingeniere dal Carlo’s office was on the third floor and she’d be glad to call ahead and tell him that Commissario Brunetti was on the way up. Brunetti, a uniformed Vianello silent in his wake, walked up to the third floor, amazed at the number of people, almost all of them men, who flowed up and down the stairs in two opposing streams. On each landing, they milled outside the doors of offices, rolls of blueprints and heavy folders of papers held to their chests.

Ingeniere dal Carlo’s was the last office on the left. The door was open, so they went in. A small woman who looked old enough to be Vianello’s mother sat at a desk facing them, next to the immense screen of a computer. She glanced at them over the thick lenses of her half-frame reading glasses. Her hair, heavily streaked with grey, was pulled back in a tight bun that forced Brunetti to think of Signora Landi, and her narrow shoulders were hunched forward as if with the beginning of osteoporosis. She wore no makeup, as if she’d long ago abandoned the idea of its possible utility.

‘Commissario Brunetti?’ she asked, remaining in her seat.

‘Yes. I’d like to speak to Ingeniere dal Carlo.’

‘May I ask what this is in aid of?’ she asked, speaking precise Italian and using a phrase he hadn’t heard in decades.

‘I’d like to ask some questions about a former employee.’

‘Former?’

‘Yes. Franco Rossi,’ he said.

‘Ah yes,’ she said, raising a hand to her forehead and shielding her eyes. She lowered her hand and removed her glasses, then looked up. ‘The poor young man. He’d worked here for years. It was terrible. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’ There was a crucifix on the wall above her desk, and she turned her eyes to it, her lips moving in a prayer for the dead young man.

‘Did you know Signor Rossi?’ Brunetti asked, then continued, as if he hadn’t quite caught her name, ‘Signora…?’

‘Dolfin, Signorina,’ she answered briefly and paused, almost as if waiting to see how he responded to the name. She continued, ‘His office was just across the hall. He was always a polite young man, always very respectful to Dottor dal Carlo.’ From the sound of it, Signorina Dolfin could think of no higher praise.