Death in a Strange Country (37 page)

‘And moved where?’
Brunetti asked, voice sharp.

‘Moved away from where
they are, Guido.’

‘To some other part of
Italy?’

Brunetti watched as the
Count considered whether to lie to him or not. Finally, deciding against it,
Brunetti would never understand why, the Count said, ‘Perhaps. But more likely
out of the country.’ Before Brunetti could ask any more questions, the Count
held up his hand to stop him. ‘Guido, please try to understand. I can’t promise
you any more than I just have. I think that this dump can be disposed of, but,
beyond that, I would be afraid to move.’

‘Do you mean that
literally, afraid?’

The Count’s voice was
ice. ‘Literally. Afraid.’

‘Why?’

‘I would prefer not to
explain that, Guido.’

Brunetti thought he would
try one more tack. ‘The reason they found out about the dump was that a little
boy fell into it and burned his arm on the things leaking from those barrels.
It could have been any child. It could have been Chiara.’

The Count’s glance was
cool. ‘Please, Guido, now you’re being mawkishly sentimental.’

It was true, Brunetti
knew it. ‘Don’t you care about any of this?’ he asked, unable to keep the
passion from his voice.

The Count dipped his
finger into the trace of wine left in his glass and began to run the tip of his
moistened finger around the rim. As his finger moved ever faster, a
high-pitched whining emerged from the crystal and filled the room. Suddenly, he
lifted his finger from the glass, but the sound continued, hanging in the room,
just as did their conversation. He looked from the glass to Brunetti. ‘Yes, I
care about it, Guido, but not in the same way you do. You have managed to
retain remnants of optimism, even in the midst of the work you do. I have none.
Not for myself, nor for my future, and not for this country or its future.’

He looked down at the
glass again. ‘I care that these things happen, that we poison ourselves and our
progeny, that we knowingly destroy our future, but I do not believe mat there
is anything - and I repeat, anything - that can be done to prevent it. We are a
nation of egoists. It is our glory, but it will be our destruction, for none of
us can be made to concern ourselves about something as abstract as “the common
good”. The best of us can rise to feeling concern for our families, but as a nation
we are incapable of more.’

‘I refuse to believe that.’
Brunetti said.

‘Your refusal to believe
it,’ the Count said with a smile that was almost tender, ‘makes it no less
true, Guido.’

‘Your daughter doesn’t
believe it,’ Brunetti added.
 
                     
 

‘And for that grace I
give daily thanks,’ the Count said in a soft voice. ‘That is perhaps the finest
thing I’ve achieved in my life, that my daughter does not share my beliefs.’

Brunetti sought irony or
sarcasm in the Count’s tone, but found only pained truth.

‘You said you’d do this,
see that this dump is cleared up, taken away. Why can’t you do more?’

Again, the Count bestowed
that same smile upon his son-in-law. ‘I believe this is the first time we’ve talked
to one another in all these years, Guido.’ Then, changing his voice, he added, ‘Because
there are too many dumps and too many men like Gamberetto.’

‘Can you do anything
about him?’

‘Ah, there I can do
nothing.’

‘Can or will do nothing?’

‘From some positions,
Guido, can and will are the same.’

‘That’s sophistry,’
Brunetti shot back.

The Count laughed
outright ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Then let me say it like this: I prefer to do
nothing else about this matter save what I’ve told you I will do.’

‘And why is that?’Brunetti
asked.

‘Because,’ the Count
replied, ‘I can bring myself to care for nothing beyond, my family,’ The tone
of his voice was terminal; Brunetti would get no explanation beyond that.

‘May I ask you one more
question?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes.’

‘When I called and asked
if I could talk to you, you asked if I wanted to talk about Viscardi. Why was
that?’

The Count looked at him
in involuntary surprise, then returned his attention to the boats on the canal.
When a few had gone past, he answered, ‘Signor Viscardi and I have common
business interests.’

‘What is mat supposed to
mean?’

‘Precisely what I said,
that we have interests in common.’

‘And may I ask what those
interests are?’

The Count faced him
before he answered, ‘Guido, my business interests are a subject I do not
discuss, except with those who are involved in them directly.’

Before Brunetti could
protest, the Count added, ‘Upon my death, interest in those matters will pass
beyond my control. Many will pass to your wife,’ he paused here, then added, ‘and
to you. But until that time, I will discuss them only with those people who are
concerned with them.’

Brunetti wanted to ask the
Count if his dealings with Signor Viscardi were legitimate dealings, but he
didn’t know how to ask this without offending him. Worse, Brunetti feared he
didn’t himself any longer know what the word ‘legitimate’ meant.

‘Can you tell me anything
about Signor Viscardi?’

The Count’s answer was a
long time in coming. ‘He has business interests in common with a number of
other people. Many of them are very powerful people.’
         
             

Brunetti heard the
warning in the Count’s voice, but he also saw the connection that lurked there,
as well.

‘Have we just been
talking about one of them?’

The Count said nothing.

‘Have we just been
talking about one of them?’ he repeated.

The Count nodded.

‘Will you tell me about
the interests they have in common?’

‘I can - I will - tell
you no more man that you should have nothing to do with either one of them.’

‘And if I choose to do
so?’

‘I would prefer that you
didn’t.’

Brunetti couldn’t resist
saying, ‘And I prefer that you tell me about their business interests.’

‘Then we seem to be
at
an impasse, don’t we?’ the Count asked in a voice that was artificially light
and conversational. Before Brunetti could answer, they heard a noise behind
them and both turned to see the Countess come into the room. She hurried
quickly over to Brunetti, high heels tapping out a happy message on the
parquet. Both men stood. ‘Guido, how nice to see you,’ she said, leaning up to
kiss him on both cheeks.

‘Ah, my dearest,’ the
Count said, bending over her hand. Married for forty years, Brunetti thought,
and still he kisses her hand when she comes into the room. At least he doesn’t
click his heels.

‘We were just talking
about Chiara,’ the Count said, smiling benignly at his wife.

‘Yes,’ agreed Brunetti, ‘we
were just saying how lucky Paola and I are that both of the children are so
healthy.’ The Count shot him a look over his wife’s head, but she smiled up at
both of them, saying, ‘Yes, thank God for that. We’re so lucky we live in a
healthy country like Italy.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed the
Count

‘What can I bring her
from Capri?’ asked the Countess.

‘Only your safe-return,’
Brunetti said gallantly. ‘You know what it’s like down there in the South.’

She smiled up at him. ‘Oh,
Guido, all that talk about the Mafia can’t be true. It’s just stories. All my
friends say it is.’ She turned to her husband for confirmation.

‘If your friends say so,
my dear, then I’m certain it is,’ the Count said. To Brunetti, ‘I’ll take care
of those things for you, Guido. I’ll make the calls tonight. And please speak
to your friend at Vicenza, There’s no need for either one of you to preoccupy
yourself with this.’

His wife gave him a
questioning look. ‘Nothing, my dearest,’ he said. ‘Just some business Guido
asked me to look into for him. Nothing important. Just some paperwork that I
might be able to get through more quickly than he can.’

‘How kind of you, Orazio.
And Guido,’ she said, positively aglow with this vision of happy families, ‘I’m
so glad you’d think to ask.’

The Count put his hand
under her arm and said, ‘We might think about leaving now, dearest. Is the
launch here?’

‘Oh, yes, that’s what I
came to tell you. But I forgot about it with all this talk of business.’ She
turned to Brunetti. ‘Give my love to Paola and kiss the children for me. I’ll
call when we get to Capri. Or is it Ischia? Orazio, which is it?’

‘Capri, my dearest.’

‘I’ll call, then.
Goodbye, Guido,’ she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him again.

The Count and Brunetti
shook hands. All three of them walked down into the courtyard together. The
Count and Countess turned and walked through the water gate and stepped into
the launch that waited for them at the landing stage of the
palazzo.
Brunetti
let himself out of the main door, careful to slam it closed behind him.

* *
* *

22

Monday was a normal day at the Questura: three North
Africans were brought in for selling purses and sunglasses on the street
without a licence; two break-ins were reported in various parts of the city;
four summonses were given to boats caught without the proper safety equipment
aboard; and two known drug addicts were brought in for threatening a doctor who
refused to write them prescriptions. Patta appeared at eleven, called up to
Brunetti to learn if there was any progress on the Viscardi case, made no
attempt to disguise his irritation that there had not been, and went to lunch
half an hour later, not to return until well past three.

Vianello came up to
report to Brunetti that the car had not shown up on Saturday, and he had been
left waiting at Piazzale Roma for an hour, standing at the number five bus stop
with a bouquet of red carnations in his arms. He had finally given up and gone
home and given his wife the flowers. Keeping his part of the bargain, even if
the criminals couldn’t be depended on, Brunetti changed the duty roster to give
Vianello the following Friday and Saturday free, asking him to get in touch
with the boy on Burano to see what had gone wrong and why Ruffolo’s friends had
not shown up for the meeting.

He had bought all of the
major papers on the way to his office and passed the better part of the morning
reading through them, searching for any reference to the dump near Lake Barcis,
Gamberetto, or anything that had to do with the deaths of the two Americans.
History, however, refused to concern itself with any of these topics, so he
ended up reading the soccer news and calling it work.

He bought the papers
again the next morning and began to read through them carefully. Riots in
Albania, the Kurds, a volcano, Indians killing one another, this time for
politics, instead of religion, but there was no mention of the finding of toxic
waste near Lake Barcis.

Knowing it was foolish
but unable to stop himself from doing it, he went down to the switchboard and
asked the operator for the number of the American base. If Ambrogiani had been
able to find out anything about Gamberetto, Brunetti wanted to know what it was
and found himself incapable of waiting for the other man to call. The operator
gave him both the central number and that of the Carabinieri office. Brunetti
had to walk to Riva degli Schiavoni before he found a public phone that would
take a magnetic phone card. He dialled the number of the Carabinieri station
and asked for Maggiore Ambrogiani. The Maggiore was not at his desk at the
moment. Who was calling, please? ‘Signor Rossi, from the Generan Insurance
Company. I’ll call back this afternoon.’