The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17 (30 page)

Brunetti walked along the Riva degli Schiavoni, filtering through the people walking in his direction or coming towards him, and as he walked, he had the sensation of being observed. He paused occasionally to study the wares on offer in the ever-increasing number of waterside stalls: football-team flags,
gondolieri
boaters, thick velvet court jester hats, ashtrays - one from Capri - and the omnipresent plastic gondolas. He stood in front of each horror in turn, his attention radiating out to both sides. He replaced the gondola on the counter and swung around, studying the people behind him, but he saw no sudden motion. He thought for a moment of taking a vaporetto: this would force anyone who was following him to abandon the pursuit. But curiosity overcame him and he continued to walk, even slowing his pace to allow whoever it was, if anyone, to keep up with him.

He continued across the Piazza and down Via XXII Marzo, then turned right and past Antico Martini and in front of the Fenice. The sensation of being watched kept pace with him, though the one time he stopped and turned to study the facade of the theatre he saw no one he had seen behind him before. He walked in front of the Ateneo and down towards the Fornari house.

He rang, gave his name, and was told to come up. When Brunetti reached the top floor, Orsola Vivarini stood at the open door, and as he drew closer he thought for a moment that she had sent an older version of herself to speak to him.

'Good morning, Signora
’
he said. ‘I’
ve come back to ask you a few more things. If you don't mind, that is.'

'Of course not
’
she said, voice too loud.

Brunetti's easy smile gave no indication that he had noticed the change in her appearance. He followed her into the apartment. The flowers that had stood on a table to the right of the door were still there, but the water had evaporated, and Brunetti could smell the first faint scent of rot.

'Is your husband back from his trip?' he asked, following her into the room where they had spoken the last time.

'Yes. He got home yesterday,' she said and, turning to him, asked, 'Can I offer you anything, Commissario?'

'No, Signora, you're too kind. I just had a coffee. But thank you for asking.' She waved him to a chair. He crossed the room to it, but when she remained standing, Brunetti did as well.

'Please sit down, Commissario,' she said. 'I'll call my husband.'

He gave a low half-bow and rested one hand on the back of the chair. And thought again of his mother and her rule that a man did not sit when a woman was standing.

She turned away and left the room. Brunetti went to the far wall to look at a painting. Primo Potenza, he thought, one of that crop of fine painters who had flourished in the city in the fifties. Where had all the painters gone? he wondered. All he seemed to see in the galleries were video installations and political stat
ements expressed in papier maché
. Two large groupings of what must be family photos flanked the painting; Brunetti studied them. The star of the photos was the daughter. There she was with far shorter hair, on a horse, on water skis, then standing in front of a Christmas tree next to her mother. Years passed and summer returned in the next photo. Her hair had grown to the length it was now, and she stood on a dock, her arm around a tall, gangly boy, both of them wearing bathing suits and enormous smiles. The boy had thick hair almost as blond as hers, though with a decidedly reddish cast. In the fashion of the day, he had tattoos of what looked like South Sea Island tribal patterns encircling biceps and calves. He looked vaguely familiar to Brunetti, who assumed it was her brother and what he saw was a family resemblance. The girl was absent from the next two: in one, a photo taken from the back, Signora Vivarini stood in front of an enormous abstract painting that Brunetti did not recognize, her back to the camera, her arm draped over the shoulder of what might have been the same boy. In the last photo, she faced the camera with a full smile, her hand in that of a man with kind eyes and a soft mouth.

'Buon giorno.'
Brunetti straightened up, backed away from the photos, and turned towards the voice. Dressed in a suit and tie both of which looked as though they were being worn for the first time, the man - the same one in the photo - managed to look faintly rumpled. As he approached, Brunetti studied him and realized the cause lay in his eyes, darkly circled underneath, and in his chin, on the underside of which he saw a small patch of white bristles the man had overlooked while shaving. His hair, too, though it was well cut and clean, managed to look tired, as if all it had the strength to do was hang limply across his head.

The man smiled and extended his hand: the grip was firmer than the smile. They exchanged names.

Fornari led Brunetti over to the same chair, and this time Brunetti lowered himself into it. 'My wife tells me
’
he said when he was sitting opposite Brunetti, 'that you'd like to speak to me about this robbery.' His eyes were the same clear blue as his daughter's, and Brunetti saw in his face the source of her beauty. The straight, thin nose was the same, as were the perfect teeth and dark lips. The angles of her jaw were softer, but their strength came from his.

'Yes,' Brunetti said. 'Your wife has identified the objects.'

The man nodded.

'We're curious about the circumstances of the theft,' Brunetti said. 'And about any information you or your wife might be able to give us.'

Fornari gave a small smile that remained on his lips without reaching his eyes. 'I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about it, Commissario.' Before Brunetti could question him, Fornari said,
‘I
know only what my wife has told me, that someone managed to get into the apartment and take those things.' He smiled again, this time a bit more warmly. 'You've returned what was of greatest value to us,' he said with a gracious nod in Brunetti's direction. 'The other things, the ones still missing, they really don't matter.' In response to Brunetti's reaction, he clarified this by adding, 'They have no sentimental value, that is. And not much material value, either.' He smiled again and added,
‘I
say that to try to explain our response to the robbery. Or lack of response.'

It seemed to Brunetti, as he listened to Fornari and watched the man exercise control over his features, that he was working very hard to make it appear that he had little interest in the crime. Brunetti had no idea how he himself would respond to the theft, however temporary, of his wedding ring: he doubted that he would accept it with lofty philosophical tranquillity, as Fornari seemed to do. The cost of the man's attempt to remain calm was increasingly evident to Brunetti in the rhythmic motion of his right forefinger on the velvet fabric of the arm of his chair. Back and forth, back and forth, and then a sudden rectangle, and then quickly back and forth again.

‘I
can certainly understand that
’
Brunetti said easily. 'Unless something really important is taken, most people

well
’
he said with a nervous smile to suggest that he really ought not to be telling t
his sort of thing to a civilian
'they won't even bother to report a break-in.' He shrugged at this evidence of human behaviour as if to demonstrate sympathy with it.

‘I
think you're right, Commissario
’
Fornari said, as if the idea were a new one to him. 'In our case, we never even noticed the things were missing, so I can't say what we would have done had we realized a robbery had taken place.'

‘I
see
’
Brunetti said and smiled. Then he said, 'Your wife told me that your daughter was here that night.' Fornari's finger stopped moving, and Brunetti watched it join the others in a tight grip on the arm of the chair.

After a long pause, he said, 'Yes, that's what Orsola told me. She said she checked on her before she went to bed.' Fornari smiled tightly at Brunetti and asked, 'Do you have children, Commissario?'

'Yes. Two teenagers. A boy and a girl.'

'Then you know how hard it is to break the habit of checking on them at night, I suppose.' Fornari's tactic, however obvious, was clever, one Brunetti had often employed: find common ground with your subject and use it to lead the conversation where you want it to go.

More importantly, use it to lead a conversation away from where you do not want it to go.

While Fornari continued speaking, Brunetti considered the possibility that Fornari's daughter knew something her father did not want Brunetti to know. He nodded towards Fornari, not really listening, though he thought he heard the man begin a sentence with, 'Once, when Matteo was a child
...'

Suddenly Brunetti was overcome by the temptation to do something he would despise himself for doing, something, in fact, that he had promised himself he would never do and then, after those times when he had done it, had promised himself he would never do again. Informers were everywhere: the police had them inside the Mafia; the Mafia had them even at the highest level of the
m
agistratura;
the military was full of them, as no doubt was industry. But no one had so far bothered to penetrate the world of teenagers and bring from it reliable information. He foresaw no danger to his own children in asking them to supply information about Fornari's, but the essence of danger was that it was unforeseen, wasn't it?

When he tuned back in, Fornari was coming to the end of a story about one of his children: Brunetti did not know which one. Brunetti smiled, then got to his feet and extended his hand to Fornari.
‘I
suppose they're all much the same,' he said. 'They just don't pay attention to the same things we do.' He hoped it was an appropriate response to whatever story Fornari had been telling, and from the man's reaction it appeared that it was.

They shook hands, Brunetti thanked him for taking the time to speak to him, asked him to extend the same thanks to his wife, and left the apartment. On the way downstairs, he wondered which of his children he was willing to turn into a spy and how he would deal with Paola when she found out.

27

When he reached the
calle,
Brunetti turned to the right and, more from habit than conscious thought, started back the way he had come. He
was halfway down Calle degli Avv
ocati when he changed his mind and decided to take the vaporetto back to the Questura. He turned abruptly, and when he did he noticed a sudden motion on the left about ten metres away as something slipped back around the corner of Calle Pesaro. Reminded of the sensation that he had been followed from the Questura, Brunetti decided to abandon caution and took off at a fast run towards the corner.

When he wheeled around it, he saw motion ahead as someone, perhaps a woman, ran down the other side of the bridge
and to the right into Calle dell’
Albero. Brunetti followed over the bridge, down the
riva
and left at the end. He paused only long enough to look down the
calle
at the right, which he knew to be a dead end.

And heard retreating footsteps. He followed them: the walls of the buildings on either side grew closer together as the
calk
narrowed, and then ahead of him he saw the tall metal doors of a
palazzo.
For a moment, he wondered if he had been imagining it all, but then he heard a sound on the left. He moved forward slowly, and as he walked he unbuttoned his jacket to put his pistol within reach.

He saw it then, in a doorway on the left, and at first it looked to him like a discarded overcoat or a garbage bag over which someone had tossed an old sweater. He approached, and the object moved, backed up somehow to get closer to the door, then slid silently to the right and pressed up against the wall.

Brunetti was still not sure what sort of creature he had cornered. He bent down to take a closer look, and it erupted in his direction, crashing against his legs. Instinctively, Brunetti grabbed at it, but it was like holding an eel or some sort of wild animal. It thrashed, and then two skinny legs began to kick at him.

Knowing then at least what manner of being he was dealing with, Brunetti lifted it from the ground and turned it so that the feet were facing away from him and would perhaps do less damage. Then he wrapped his arms around the upper part and pulled it to his chest, muttering the sort of things he had said to their dogs when he was a boy.

It's all right. It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you.' It kicked a few more times. Brunetti heard gasps, but gradually they subsided and the kicking stopped. It hung limp in his arms. 'I'm going to put you down now,' Brunetti said. 'Be careful where you put your feet, and don't fall.' The creature remained limp and unresponsive.

'Do you understand?'

Something under the hood of a dirty sports jacket nodded, and Brunetti lowered it to the ground. He felt the feet touch the ground one after the other, and, his hands still on the arms, he felt the entire body grow tense and prepare to flee. Effortlessly, he picked the child up again and said, 'Don't try to run away again. I'm much faster than you are.'

The tension relaxed and Brunetti lowered the child once more. The top of the hood came a few centimetres above Brunetti's belt. 'I'm going to let go and move away from you.' He did just that and then spoke to the back of the jacket. 'When you want, you can talk to me.'