'And the next month, when it came again?'
'I put that in the garbage, too, and the next one. And then they stopped coming, so I guess he knew what I was doing.'
'Was there only the one magazine, Signorina?'
'Yes, but there were envelopes, too. The kind with 'Photo' on the outside, telling you not to bend them.'
'What did you do with them?'
'After I saw the magazine, I always bent them before I pushed them into the letterbox’ she said, anger mingled with pride.
He could think of no more questions, but she said, Then he died, and after a while the mail stopped coming.'
Brunetti put out his hand. She took it. He said, speaking as a policeman, 'Thank you for talking to me, Signorina’ and then couldn't help but add, ‘I understand.'
She smiled nervously, and again her face grew red.
At the Questura, he left a note on Vianello's desk, asking him to come up as soon as he got in. It was Wednesday, and Signorina Elettra seldom reached the office before noon on Wednesdays during the summer, a fact which the entire Questura had come to accept without ' expression of curiosity or disapproval. During the summer, her skin grew no darker, so she was not on the beach; she sent no postcards, so she was not away from the city. No one had ever come across her in the city on Wednesday morning; had this happened, the entire Questura would certainly have heard. Perhaps she simply stayed at home and ironed her linen shirts, Brunetti decided.
His thoughts kept returning to Signora Battestini's son. Even though he knew the man's name was Paolo, Brunetti kept thinking of him as Signora Battestini's son. He had been forty when he died, had worked for a city office for more than a decade, yet everyone Brunetti spoke to referred to him as his mother's son, as if his only existence were through her or by means of her. Brunetti disliked psychobabble and the quick, easy solutions it tried to provide to complex human tangles, but here he thought he detected a pattern so obvious it had to be mistaken: take a domineering mother, put her in a closed and conservative society, and then add a father who liked to spend his time in the bar with the guys, having a drink, and homosexuality in the only son is not the most unlikely result. Instantly Brunetti thought of gay friends of his who had had mothers so passive as almost to be invisible, married to men capable of eating a lion for lunch, and he blushed almost as red as had the woman from the post office.
Wishing to learn if Paolo Battestini had indeed been gay, Brunetti dialled the office number of Domenico Lalli, owner of one of the chemical companies currently under investigation by Judge Galvani. He gave his name, and when Lalli's secretary proved reluctant to pass on the call, said it was a police matter and suggested she ask Lalli if he wanted to speak to him.
A minute later he was put through. 'What now, Guido?' Lalli asked, having served Brunetti in the past as a source of information about the gay population of Mestre and Venice. There was no anger in the voice, simply the impatience of a man who had a large company to run.
'Paolo Battestini, worked for the school board until five years ago, when he died of AIDS.'
'All right,' Lalli said. 'What, specifically, do you want to know?'
'Whether he was gay, whether he liked adolescent boys, and whether there was anyone else he might have shared this taste with.'
Lalli made a disapproving noise and then asked, 'He the one whose mother was murdered a few weeks ago?'
'Yes.'
'These things connected?' 'Maybe. That's why I'm asking you to see what you can find out.' 'Five years ago?'
'Yes. It seems he subscribed to a magazine that had photos of boys in it.'
'Unpleasant,' came Lalli's unsolicited comment. 'And stupid. They can get all they want on the Internet now, though they still all ought to be locked up.'
Lalli, Brunetti knew, had been married as a young man and now had three grandchildren in whom he took inordinate pride. Fearing that he would now have to listen to an account of their latest triumphs, Brunetti said, 'I'd be grateful for anything you could tell me.'
'Hummm. I'll ask around. The school board, huh?'
'Yes. You know someone there.'
‘I know someone everywhere, Guido,' Lalli said tersely and without the least hint of boasting. 'I'll call you if I learn anything,' he said and, not bothering to say goodbye, hung up.
Brunetti tried to think of anyone else he could ask about this, but the two men who might have been able to help were on vacation, he knew. He decided to wait to see what information Lalli could provide before trying to get in touch with the others. That decision made, he went downstairs to see if there were any sign of Vianello.
15
Vianello had not yet come in. And as he was leaving the officers' room, Brunetti found himself face to face with Lieutenant Scarpa. After a significant pause, during which his body effectively blocked the doorway, the lieutenant stepped back and said, ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you, Commissario.'
'Of course’ Brunetti said.
'Perhaps in my office?' Scarpa suggested.
'I have to get back to my own office, I'm afraid’ Brunetti said, unwilling to concede the territorial advantage.
‘I think it's important, sir. It's about the Battestini murder.'
Brunetti manufactured a noncommittal expression and asked, 'Really? What about it?'
The Gismondi woman’ the lieutenant said and then refused to say more.
Though the mention of her name stirred Brunetti's curiosity, he said nothing. After a long time, his silence won, and Scarpa went on, 'I've checked the recordings of phone calls made to us, and I've found two calls in which she threatens her’
'Who threatens whom, Lieutenant?' inquired Brunetti.
'Signora Gismondi threatens Signora Battestini.'
'In a phone call to the police, Lieutenant? Wouldn't you say that was a bit rash of her?'
He watched Scarpa maintain control of himself, saw the way his mouth tightened at the corners and how he rose a few millimetres on the balls of his feet. He thought of what it would be like to be the weaker person in any exchange with Scarpa and didn't like the thought.
'If you could spare the time to listen to the tapes, sir, you might understand what I mean’ Scarpa said.
'Can't this wait?' Brunetti asked, making no attempt to disguise his own irritation.
As if the sight of Brunetti's impatience were enough to satisfy him, a more relaxed Scarpa said, 'If you'd prefer not to listen to the person who admits that she was probably the last one to see the victim alive threaten her, sir, that is entirely your own affair. I had, however, thought it would warrant closer attention.'
'Where are they?' Brunetti asked.
Feigning incomprehension, Scarpa asked, 'Where are what, sir?'
As he resisted the impulse to hit Scarpa, Brunetti realized how frequently this desire overtook him. He considered Patta a complacent time-server, a man capable of almost anything to protect his job. But it was the existence of the human weakness implicit in that 'almost' that kept Brunetti from disliking Patta in any but a superficial sense. But he hated Scarpa, shied away from him as he would from entering a dark room from which emerged a strange smell. Most rooms had lights, but he feared there existed no way to illuminate the interior of Scarpa, nor any certainty that what lay inside, if it could be seen, would provoke anything other than fear.
Brunetti's unwillingness to respond was so evident that Scarpa turned, muttering, 'In the lab,' and started towards the back stairway.
Bocchese was nowhere evident in the laboratory, though the prevailing odour of cigarette smoke suggested
