‘Do you have an idea of when you might be here, Signore?’ she inquired. It took Brunetti a moment to recover from the delicacy of the question, and when he glanced at his watch, he was surprised to see that it was after one.
‘I should be there before two.’
‘Good. Anything else, Signore?’
In his mildest voice, Brunetti said, ‘Both of them grew up in the city.’
‘Indeed,’ she answered, accepting his entirely informal, and equally illegal, request that she check and see what might be available in the prohibited records of juvenile offenders about the earlier behaviour of these two young men.
‘Would you tell them both that I’m on my way?’ he asked, knowing it was unnecessary to specify the names of Vianello and Pucetti, ‘and to call me if there’s any trouble.’
‘Of course, Commissario,’ she answered.
Brunetti thanked Signorina Elettra and ended the call. He remembered then that he had failed to phone Paola and tell her he would not be home for lunch. Hoping he had not troubled or upset her by not calling earlier, he put in their home number. Perhaps he could speak to her before she started cooking.
The phone was picked up after four rings and, a moment later, a voice he did not recognize said, ‘Ristorante Falier. I’m sorry to tell you that the restaurant is not open for business today. Please call another time. Thank you for your understanding.’ The phone was replaced.
As a form of penance, Brunetti chose to have two tramezzini in one of the bars lined up on the Riva degli Schiavoni; he could bring himself to eat only a bite of each, and could not drink the wine. Telling himself not to grumble, he turned off the Riva and continued until he reached the bar at the Ponte dei Greci, said hello to Sergio, the owner, and asked for an asparagus and egg and a tuna and tomato. He stood while he ate them, drinking a glass of Pinot Grigio, then had a coffee. Thus lunch for the working man, he told himself as he walked down to the Questura. Next he’d be stopping to eat a slice of pizza or buying a paper box filled with spaghetti to eat while walking. ‘Or while sitting on the Rialto’ he muttered to himself, surprising an elderly woman whom he passed on his way back.
He entered the building, raised a hand in response to the salute of the man at the door, and went up to Signorina Elettra’s office. He had not seen her before he left to go to the Carabinieri station and, when he reached her office, found her at her desk, partially dressed for autumn or dressed for part of autumn. Brown sweater, beige trousers, brown shoes. There was no reference to the red and yellow of autumn leaves, no sign of the glorious orange of ripe persimmons. Nor were there traces of pomegranates dressed in their imperial scarlet. The sight of those three sober colours left Brunetti feeling somehow cheated. Not even the vase of red chrysanthemums sufficed to appease his colour-deprived eyes.
He smiled and asked, ‘Any news?’
When she swivelled on her chair as he approached her desk, Brunetti caught a glimpse of the arm of the jacket hanging from the back: theatre red velvet, the sort of colour one of the wildly mad emperors would have liked: Heliogabalus, perhaps. It cheered him and restored his faith in he wasn’t quite sure what.
‘Foa called to say he’d be back in,’ – she paused and looked at her watch – ‘. . . in about ten minutes.’
‘What rooms are free?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Two and Four,’ she said, naming the least comfortable of the interrogation rooms, both painted an unfriendly green, each with a cheap plastic table and four plastic chairs. Although there were ‘No Smoking’ signs on the outside and inside of the doors, both rooms stank of cigarettes, the floors covered with flicked-away ash that was no sooner removed than again flicked to the floor by the next person to be questioned. People had complained about the smell for years, both among those questioned and those asking the questions, but the fact that granting a suspect the right to smoke sometimes led to a loosening of their resolve not to speak legitimized the custom, and so suspects were sometimes permitted to smoke, and sometimes it soothed them into the truth. And sometimes it did not.
Brunetti took out his telefonino and called Griffoni. When she picked up, he asked, ‘You’ve heard we’ve found them?’
‘Yes.’
‘One of them will be here in ten minutes. Would you like to . . .’
‘Sì,’ she said, so loud as to force him to hold his phone away from his ear. There was noise, then a loud slam, followed by a metallic rattle, after which he heard what must have been footsteps.
He stepped out into the hallway and went down towards the stairwell. Just as he arrived, Griffoni, left hand on the railing, swung herself around into the stairs leading down to the next floor. When she saw him, she raised her hand from the bannister and slowed her pace.
‘They aren’t here yet,’ Brunetti called up to her. Griffoni reached the bottom step and walked towards him. ‘Tell me,’ she said. The flush of colour on her face, left tanned by the summer sun, made the contrast with her blonde hair and green eyes even more startling. It also made it more difficult to believe she was from the South.
‘The Carabinieri on the Giudecca recognized them,’ Brunetti said. ‘Neither of them has a record.’
‘You aren’t bringing the two of them in together, are you?’ she asked.
‘Claudia,’ Brunetti said slowly, nothing more.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ She backed up a step, saying, her voice suddenly tight and nervous, ‘I saw the girl today.’
‘The one in Mestre?’
‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the floor.
Brunetti waited and, in the face of her continued silence, finally asked, ‘And?’
Griffoni raised a hand and brushed at the side of her mouth, something she did when she was nervous. She looked down at her feet again and shook her head. ‘Guido,’ she said, ‘she’s nineteen years old.’ She looked back at him and went on, ‘She hasn’t regained consciousness, and they can’t operate until she does.’
Before she could say anything else, they heard voices from below. There was a man’s voice, loud with fear, and the lower, calm voice of Pucetti. ‘If you’d come with . . .’ Pucetti began, but his voice became inaudible, no doubt as he turned towards the back of the building and the interrogation rooms. The louder voice said, ‘I don’t know what you’re . . .’ but then it too softened and disappeared as the person who must be Vio followed Pucetti.
Knowing he had only moments to explain things to Griffoni, Brunetti said, nodding his chin in the direction of the disappearing footsteps on the floor below, ‘This one works as a boatman, and his friend who was with him is the son of a lawyer and works in his father’s office. All I learned is that the boatman is a “person of interest” to the Carabinieri on the Giudecca. There are rumours that he’s been smuggling cigarettes and clams.’
She made a puffing noise to comment on the irrelevance of this.
‘And perhaps other things,’ Brunetti said.
‘Only rumours?’ she interrupted to ask.
Suddenly Pucetti appeared at the bottom of the steps and called up, ‘Commissari, I put him in Room Four.’
‘Thanks, Pucetti,’ Brunetti said, starting down the stairs towards the young officer. It had been some time since Pucetti had worked with him, so he suggested, ‘Would you like to stand in with us?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Pucetti said, perhaps too enthusiastically.
‘Claudia?’