A Noble Radiance (20 page)

Neither man spoke as
they moved up the driveway.

From around the curve
ahead of them, a man walked into view. Brunetti recognized him instantly as the
nephew, Maurizio. He was not carrying a gun.

The distance between
the three men closed. 'Why didn't you say anything?' Maurizio called out when
he was still about ten metres from them. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so
stupid. You force open the gate and start up the drive. You're lucky neither of
you got hurt’

Brunetti recognized
bluster when he heard it. 'Do you always greet visitors that way, Signor
Lorenzoni?'

'When they break open
my gates, I do’ the young man answered, corning to a stop directly in front of
them.

'Nothing's broken’
Brunetti said.

'The code is’
Maurizio shot back 'The only people who know the code to the gate are members
of the family. And whoever broke into the villa’

'And the men who took
Roberto’ Brunetti added in an entirely conversational voice.

Maurizio didn't have
time to disguise his astonishment. 'What?' he demanded.

‘I think you heard
me, Signore. The men who kidnapped Roberto’

1 don't understand
what you mean,' Lorenzoni said.

The rock’ Brunetti
explained.

‘I don't know what
you're talking about.'

'The rock that
blocked the gates. It weighed more than ten kilos’

'I still don't
understand you’

Instead of
explaining, Brunetti asked casually, 'Do you have a licence to carry a
revolver, Signor Lorenzoni?'

'Of course not,' he
said, making no attempt to disguise his mounting anger. 'But I do have a hunting
licence.'

That, Brunetti
realized, would explain the thick shower of pebbles that had spurted up at
Vianello's feet. 'And so you used a shotgun? To shoot at people.'

'To shoot
towards
people’
he corrected. "No one was hurt. Besides, a man has a right to defend his
property.'

'And is the villa
your property?' Brunetti asked with bland politeness.

As he watched, he saw
Lorenzoni bite back a sharp response. When he did speak, all he said was, It's
my uncle's property. You know that.'

From back towards the
gates, they heard an engine roar into life and then the sound of a vehicle
driving away, no doubt the
Carabiniere,
tired of waiting to see what
would happen, and happy to leave it to the Venetian police.

The pause served to
give Lorenzoni time to recover his self-possession. 'How did you get in?' he
demanded of Brunetti.

'With the code. It
was in the report of your cousin's kidnapping.'

'You've got no right
to come in here, not without a judge's order.'

That sort of ruling
is usually applied only when the police pursue a suspect illegally, Signor
Lorenzoni. I see no suspect here. Do you?' Brunetti's smile was entirely
natural. ‘I assume your shotgun is registered with the local police and the tax
paid on your hunting licence?'

I'm not sure that's
any of your business,' Lorenzoni shot back.

‘I don't like being
shot at, Signor Lorenzoni.'

‘I told you I wasn't
shooting at you, only towards you, to warn you off.'

During all of this,
Brunetti had been thinking ahead to Patta's inevitable response, should he come
to learn that Brunetti had been caught making an illegal entry onto the
property of a wealthy and influential businessman. ’Perhaps we're bom in the
wrong, Signor Lorenzoni,' he finally said.

It was evident that
Lorenzoni didn't know whether or not to read this as an apology. Brunetti
turned away from him and asked Vianello, 'What do you think, Sergeant? You over
your fright?'

But before the
sergeant could answer, Lorenzoni suddenly stepped forward and put his hand on
Brunetti's forearm. His smile made him look much younger. 'I'm sorry,
Commissario. I was alone here, and it frightened me when the gates opened.'

'Didn't you think it
might be someone in your family?'

It couldn't be my
uncle. I spoke to him in Venice twenty minutes ago. And he's the only one who
knows the code now.' He dropped his hand to his side, stepped back from
Brunetti and added, 'And I kept thinking of what happened to Roberto. I thought
they'd come back, but for me this time.'

Fear has its own
logic, Brunetti knew, and so it was possible the young man was telling the
truth. 'We're sorry to have frightened you, Signor Lorenzoni,' he said. 'We
came out to have a look at the place where the kidnapping happened.' Vianello,
reading Brunetti's mood, added his own encouraging nod to this.

'Why?' Lorenzoni
asked.

'To see if anything's
been overlooked.'

'Like what?'

'Like the fact that
there have been three robberies here’ When Lorenzoni offered no comment,
Brunetti asked, 'When did they happen, before or after the kidnapping?'

'One happened before.
The other two happened after. The last one was only two months ago’

'What was taken?'

'The first time all
they got was some silver from the dining room. One of the gardeners saw a light
and came in to see what was going on. They went over the wall’

'And the other two
times?' Brunetti asked.

'The second happened
during the kidnapping. That is, after Roberto disappeared but before the notes
stopped coming. We were all in Venice. Whoever it was must have come in over
the wall, and this time they got some paintings. There's a safe in the floor of
one of the bedrooms, but they never found it. So I doubt that they were professionals.
Probably drug addicts’

'And the third time?'

That happened two
months ago. We were all out here, my uncle and aunt and I. I woke up in the
middle of the night -1 don't know why, perhaps something I heard. I went to the
top of the steps and could hear someone moving around downstairs. So I went
down to my uncle's study and got the shotgun’

'The same one you
used today?' Brunetti asked.

‘Yes. It wasn't
loaded, but I didn't know it at the time’ Lorenzoni gave an embarrassed smile
at this confession and went on, ‘I went to the top of the stairs, turned on the
downstairs lights, and shouted down to them, to whoever it was. Then I went
down the stairs, holding the gun in front of me’

That was brave of
you,' Brunetti said, meaning it.

‘I thought the gun
was loaded.' 'What happened?' 'Nothing’

'When I got halfway
down the steps, I heard a door slam, then there were noises out in the garden’

'What sort of
noises?'

Lorenzoni started to
answer, paused for a -moment, and then said, I don't know. I was so frightened
I had no idea of what I heard.' When neither Brunetti nor Vianello expressed
surprise at this, he added, 'I had to sit down on the steps, I was so
frightened.'

Brunetti's smile was
gentle. It's a good thing you didn't know the gun wasn't loaded.'

Lorenzoni seemed
uncertain just how to take this until Brunetti put a hand on his shoulder and
said, 'There aren't many people who would have had the courage to come down
those stairs, believe me.'

'My aunt and uncle
have been very good to me,' Lorenzoni said by way of explanation.

'Did you ever find out
who it was?' Brunetti asked.

Lorenzoni shook his
head. 'Never. The
Carabiniere
came out and looked around, even made some plaster casts of
footprints they found under the wall. But you know how it is,' he said with a
sigh. 'Hopeless.' Suddenly realizing who he was talking to, Lorenzoni added, 'I
don't mean that’

Brunetti, who
believed he did, waved the remark away and asked, 'What made you think we might
be the kidnappers? Come back, that is?'

All the time they
were speaking, Lorenzoni had been slowly leading them back towards the villa.
As they rounded the final bend in the driveway, it suddenly came into view, a
central three-storey structure with two lower wings flung but to either side.
The blocks of stone out of which it had been built glowed a soft rose in the
weak sun; the tall windows cast back what little light there was.

Suddenly remembering
his position as host, Lorenzoni said, 'Can I offer you something?'

Out of the corner of
his eye, Brunetti caught Vianello's badly disguised astonishment. First he
tries to kill us, and then he offers us a drink.

'That's very kind of
you, but no. What I would like you to do is tell me anything you can about your
cousin.'

'About Roberto?'

'Yes.'

'What sort of
things?'

'What sort of man he
was. What sort of jokes he liked. What sort of work he did for the company.
Things like that.'

Though it sounded
like an odd list of questions to Brunetti himself, Lorenzoni seemed not at all
surprised at them. 'He was
...'
Lorenzoni began. ‘I'm not sure how to say this gracefully. He was not at all a
complicated person.'

He stopped. Brunetti
waited, curious to see what other euphemisms the young man would use.

'He was useful to the
company in that he always presented
una
bellafigura,
so my uncle could
always send him anywhere to represent the company.'

'In negotiations?'
Brunetti asked.

'Oh, no,' Lorenzoni
answered immediately. 'Roberto was better at social things, like taking clients
to dinner or showing them around the city.'

'What other things
did he do?'

Lorenzoni thought
about this for a few moments. 'My uncle would often send him to deliver important
papers: if he had to be sure a contract would get somewhere in a hurry, Roberto
would take it.'

'And then spend a few
days there?'' 'Yes, sometimes’ Lorenzoni answered. 'Did he attend university?'
'He was enrolled in the
facolta
of
economia commerciale.'
'Where?'

'Here, at Ca Foscari’

'How long had he been
enrolled?'

'Three years’

'And how many exams
had he taken?'

The truth, if
Lorenzoni knew it, never made it past his lips. ‘I don't know.' This last
question had broken what-ever rapport Brunetti had established by his response
to Lorenzoni's confession of fear. 'Why do you want to know all this?'
Lorenzoni asked.

1 want to get an idea
of what sort of person he was,' Brunetti answered truthfully.

'What difference is
that supposed to make? After all this time?'

Brunetti shrugged. 1
don't know if it will make any difference at all. But if I'm going to spend the
next few months of my life with him, I want to know something about him.'

'Months?' Lorenzoni
asked.

'Yes.'

‘Does that mean the
investigation of the kidnapping is going to be reopened?'

'It’s not just
kidnapping any more. It’s murder.'

Lorenzoni winced at
the word but said nothing.

Is there anything
else you can think of to tell me about him that might be important?'

Lorenzoni shook his
head and turned towards the steps that led to the front door of the villa.

'Anything about the
way he was behaving before he was kidnapped?'

Lorenzoni shook his
head again but then stopped and turned back to Brunetti. 'I think he was sick.'

'Why do you say
that?'

'He was tired all the
time and said he didn't feel right. I think he said he was having trouble with
his stomach, diarrhoea. And he looked like he had lost some weight.'