The Golden Egg (2 page)

As Brunetti walked to the Questura, he gave no thought to last night's language game and remained impervious to the crisp autumn day; his mind was taken up with less diverting matters. An email had reached him just as he was leaving his office the previous evening, telling him that his immediate superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, wanted to speak to him the following morning. In typical fashion, Patta had given no information about the
topic of their meeting: Patta always liked to have the advantage of surprise, and he believed that not to reveal what he wanted to discuss would assure that. In this he failed to take into account the sense of fair play that lay deep in the heart of his secretary, Signorina Elettra Zorzi, who invariably gave a few minutes' warning to the person she conducted to her superior's office.

Brunetti had once commented on this to her, and she had replied that it was no more than telling the Christians in the Colosseo which door the lions were hiding behind.

This morning, it seemed, they were hiding behind the door to the offices of the Vigili Urbani, those unarmed officers whose job it was to see that city ordinances were obeyed. ‘It's about the pavement in front of that mask shop in Campo San Barnaba,' she said after she and Brunetti had exchanged polite greetings. ‘There's been a complaint from one of the other shopkeepers in the
campo.
They're paying taxes to put their tables outside and use the space as
un plateatico
, but the people in the mask shop aren't, and they insist that there's only one way that could happen.'

Brunetti often walked through the
campo
and knew the shop, and as he cast his memory back over the years
he realized that, yes, the pavement in front had, as time passed, been increasingly covered by the amoeba-like extension of the tables on which the Made in China masks were displayed. Because this was a matter that did not concern the police, but only the vigili, Brunetti had ignored it. If paying for the vigili's blindness was cheaper than paying the tax, what merchant would not opt for it?

‘But why is he concerned about something like that?' Brunetti asked, indicating Patta's door with a quick turn of his head.

‘He had a phone call late yesterday afternoon; a few minutes after, he came out and asked me to send you an email.'

‘Who called?'

‘The mayor.'

‘Aha,' Brunetti said softly.

‘Aha, indeed,' she echoed.

‘About the shop?' he asked.

‘I'm working on . . .' she began and then effortlessly transferred to a much cooler voice to finish the sentence, ‘in his office and waiting for you, Commissario.'

With Patta, Brunetti knew, there existed no lily that was not in need of gilding, and so he said, voice rich with passionate – however false – intensity, ‘I saw his mail a moment ago, so I came down immediately.'

Whereupon the door to Patta's office was pushed fully open from the inside, and the Vice-Questore appeared. Brunetti often reflected that, in an opera, some sort of trumpet voluntary would sound at the appearance of this man. So handsome, so noble of bearing, so impeccably well dressed: one had no choice but to admire him, much as one would admire a well-wrought urn. Today, in acknowledgement of the approach of cooler weather, Patta wore a grey cashmere suit of such exquisite cut that, had they but known the final destination of their wool, scores of rare and endangered Kashmir goats would have fought to be the first to be shorn. The cotton of his shirt was blindingly white and served to reflect light up towards his still-tanned face.

As sometimes happened to him, Brunetti had to fight down the urge to tell Patta how beautiful he was. Conscious of how fraught his dealings with his superior already were and how prone Patta was to misinterpret what was said to him, Brunetti confined his enthusiasm to a smile and a pleasant ‘Good morning, Vice-Questore.'

With every show of utter uninterest in their conversation, Signorina Elettra returned to her computer, her bearing making it evident that she found it more absorbing. She seemed to disappear, as if she actually occupied less space in the room, a tactic which Brunetti both admired and envied.

Patta turned and went back into his office, saying over his shoulder, ‘Come in here.'

Brunetti's sensibilities had grown a hard callus over the years, and he was now virtually invulnerable to Patta's manner. Casual disregard, the absence of respect for anyone he considered an inferior: these things no longer caused Brunetti concern. Violence or its threat might have offended or angered him, but so long as Patta chose passive, rather than active, disrespect, Brunetti remained untroubled.

‘Sit,' Patta said as he walked around his desk. As Brunetti watched, the Vice-Questore crossed his legs and then, as if remembering the crease in his trousers, immediately uncrossed them. He met his subordinate's neutral glance. ‘Do you know why I want to talk to you?'

‘No, sir,' Brunetti said with every evidence of ignorance.

‘It's about something important,' Patta said, glancing aside after he spoke. ‘The mayor's son.'

Brunetti refrained from asking how the mayor's son, whom Brunetti knew to be an untalented lawyer, could be important. Instead, he tried to look eager for the Vice-Questore's revelations. He nodded with calculated neutrality.

Again, Patta crossed his legs. ‘Actually, it's a favour for his son's fiancée. The girl – young woman – owns a shop. Well, half owns a shop. She has a partner. And the partner has been doing something that might not be entirely legal.' Patta stopped, either to draw breath or to search for a way to explain to Brunetti how something not ‘entirely legal' might refer to the bribery of a public official. Clam-like, Brunetti sat in his safe place and waited to see what route Patta would choose.

The straight and narrow, as it turned out, at least in the fashion that term was understood by the Vice-Questore. ‘For some time, the partner has been persuading the vigili to ignore the tables outside the shop.' Patta stopped, his use of the word, ‘persuading' proof that he had exhausted his store of frankness.

‘Where is this shop, Dottore?' Brunetti asked.

‘In Campo San Barnaba. It sells masks.'

Brunetti closed his eyes and gave every appearance of searching through his memory. ‘Next to the shop with the expensive cheese?'

Patta raised his head quickly and stared at Brunetti, as though he'd caught him trying to steal his wallet. ‘How do you know that?' he demanded.

Calmly, calmly, with an easy smile, Brunetti said, ‘I live near there, sir, so I pass through the
campo
often.' When Patta said no more, Brunetti prodded, ‘I'm not sure I understand your involvement in this, Dottore.'

Patta cleared his throat and said, ‘As I mentioned, it's her partner who's been dealing with the vigili, and only now has this young woman realized that he might have been inducing them to ignore the space they use in front of the shop.'

In response to an intentionally dull look from Brunetti, Patta added, ‘It's possible they don't have all the permits to use that space.'

Hearing ‘inducing' and ‘it's possible', Brunetti wondered what he would have to do to make Patta use the word ‘bribe'. Hold his hand over a flame? Threaten to rip off one of his ears? And had Patta any intention of revealing the identity of the partner?

‘You have friends who work there, don't you?' Patta asked.

‘Where, sir?' Brunetti asked, unsure whether Patta meant the office that granted the permits and, if so, why the mayor couldn't just walk down the hall in the Commune and do his son's dirty work for him.

‘The vigili, of course,' Patta said with a certain lack of patience. ‘They're all Venetian, so you must know them.' Though he had been working in Venice for more than a decade, Patta still thought of himself as a Sicilian, an opinion in which he was joined by everyone else at the Questura.

‘I do know some of them, Dottore,' Brunetti said and then, suddenly tired of the conversation, asked, ‘What would you like me to do?'

Patta leaned forward and answered in a softer voice. ‘Speak to them.'

Brunetti nodded, hoping that his silence would be answered with further information.

Patta, perhaps realizing a certain lack of precision in his instructions said, ‘I'd like you to find out if the vigili involved are trustworthy.'

‘Ah,' Brunetti allowed himself to say, making no sign of the wild hilarity evoked in him by Patta's choice of word. Trustworthy? Not to reveal that they had been accepting bribes from the business partner of the mayor's future daughter-in-law? Trustworthy? Not to reveal that a request for information had come from a commissario of police? Trustworthy? Brunetti found it interesting that it seemed never to have occurred to Patta to wonder if the same thing could be said of the mayor, or his son, or his son's fiancée.

A long silence settled on the room. A minute passed, quite a long time when two men are seated facing one another. A sudden obstinacy overcame Brunetti: if Patta wanted something from him, then he would have to ask him for it directly.

Some of this must have conveyed itself to Patta, for he finally said, ‘I want to know if there's any danger this might become public, if this girl is going to cause him trouble.' He shifted in his seat and added, ‘These are difficult times.'

So there it was: the girl might cause the mayor – who was to run for re-election the following year – trouble. This was not about law: it was about reputation and probably about re-election. In a land where no one was without sin, everyone feared the first hand that reached for a rock, especially if the hand emerged from the cuff of a uniform. Once that started, there was no knowing when the next hand reaching for a rock might emerge from the pale grey uniform sleeve of the Guardia di Finanza.

‘But how can I find out?' Brunetti inquired politely, as if he were not already busy making a list of the various ways he could.

‘You're Venetian, for God's sake. You can talk to these people: they trust you.' Then, aside, to some invisible Recorder of Injustices, Patta said, ‘It's a secret club you have, you Venetians. You do things among yourselves, in your own way.'

This, Brunetti forbore to say, from a Sicilian.

‘I'll see what I can find out,' was all he said. He got to his feet and left the office.

When Brunetti stepped out of Patta's office, Signorina Elettra glanced in his direction and raised one eyebrow. Brunetti doubled the gesture and made a circling gesture with one hand to tell her to come up to his office when she could. Face still bland, she turned back to the screen of her computer, and Brunetti left the room.

He stopped in the officers' squad room and asked Pucetti to come upstairs with him. Inside, when the young officer was seated, Brunetti said, ‘You have much to do with
the vigili?'

He watched Pucetti try to figure out the reason for the question and liked him for that. ‘My cousin Sandro is one, sir. So was his father until he retired.'

‘You close to them?' Brunetti asked.

‘They're family, sir,' Pucetti said.

‘Close enough to ask them about bribes?'

Pucetti weighed this up before he answered. ‘Sandro, yes; my uncle, no.'

Curious, Brunetti asked, ‘Because you couldn't ask him or because he wouldn't tell you?'

‘A little bit of both, I think, sir. But mostly because he wouldn't tell me.'

‘How long did he work for them?'

‘Forty years, sir. Until he retired.'

‘So you're a police family?' Brunetti asked with a smile.

‘I suppose you could say that, Dottore. Sandro's brother Luca is in the Guardia Costiera.'

‘Anyone else?'

‘No, sir.' Then, with a smile, Pucetti added, ‘My mother has a German Shepherd. Does that count?'

‘I'm afraid not, Pucetti. Not unless it's been trained to smell bombs or drugs.'

Pucetti's smile broadened. ‘I'm afraid all he can smell is food, Dottore.' Then he asked, ‘What do you want to know about the vigili, sir?'

‘It's about that mask shop in Campo San Barnaba. I've been told the vigili have been ignoring the
plateatico
they use.'

Pucetti glanced away, no doubt hunting for the shop in his route-walking memory. He looked back at Brunetti and said, ‘I'll ask Sandro, sir.'

Brunetti thanked him and sent him back to the squad room. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was well past the hour to go down to the bar at the bridge for a coffee. Signorina Elettra would come up in good time, he was certain.

In order to distract himself from continuing to think about Patta's request, Brunetti went downstairs and asked Vianello if he'd like to come for a coffee. The Inspector closed the file he was reading and got to his feet. They walked along the
riva
side by side, occasionally moving out of the way of the people walking towards them. Vianello talked about his vacation, which he had delayed until November and was now trying to organize.

Inside the bar, they exchanged pleasantries with Sergio, the owner, who now worked only a few days a week. They ordered two coffees; while they waited, Vianello pulled a pamphlet from his pocket and placed it on the counter in front of Brunetti. He saw a long expanse of white sand, the usual palm trees bending down towards it, and in the far distance the beaches, equally white, of small islands.

‘Where's this?' Brunetti asked, tapping a finger on one of the trees.

‘The Seychelles,' Vianello answered just as Sergio brought them their coffees. Vianello ripped open a packet of sugar and poured it into his cup, then added, ‘Nadia wants to go there.'

‘You sound as if you don't want to,' Brunetti said as he stirred sugar into his own coffee.

‘I don't,' Vianello answered.

‘But you've got this,' Brunetti said, licking his spoon clean and using it to tap the brochure.

‘Nadia got it,' Vianello clarified.

‘And you're carrying it around.'

Vianello took a sip of coffee, swirled the cup twice, and finished it. He set it on the saucer and said, ‘I'm carrying it around, but I'm also carrying around the receipt for the hotel in Umbria we've reserved for the first two weeks in November.'

‘Can you cancel the reservation?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello shrugged. ‘I suppose I can. Nadia went to school with the owner, and he knows how crazy my schedule can be. But I wanted the kids to see it.'

‘Any particular reason?' Brunetti asked.

‘Because it's a working farm. Not one of those places where they keep a donkey in a field and sell you apples to give to it,' Vianello said with contempt. ‘They've got cows and sheep and chickens, all those animals my kids think live inside the television.'

‘Come on, Lorenzo,' Brunetti said with a smile, ‘they're a little too old for that.'

Vianello smiled, ‘I know. But the animals might as well be on TV. How are city kids supposed to know what an animal is and what it does or what it's like to work the land?'

‘You think that's important?' Brunetti asked.

‘Of course it's important,' Vianello said, perhaps too fiercely. ‘You know it is. Everyone's always telling us we should respect nature, but if kids never see it, how are they going to respect it? All they get are some crazy
ideas that television gives them.'

‘That's television's job, I think,' Brunetti observed.

‘What is?'

‘Giving people crazy ideas,' he said, then asked, ‘What are you going to do?' He knew Vianello's wife and was surprised that she'd had an idea like this. ‘Are you sure Nadia really wants to go to the Seychelles?'

Vianello asked Sergio for a glass of tap water and did not speak until the barman set it in front of him, when he said, ‘She got the brochure and said that it would be wonderful to get away from the cold.' He drank the water, set the glass back down. ‘Doesn't that sound like she wants to go?' He did not look at Brunetti as he asked this.

‘Are you going to tell me the real reason?' Brunetti surprised Vianello, and perhaps himself, by asking. ‘Why you don't want to go?' Before Vianello could protest, Brunetti said, ‘I know, I know, the kids need to be exposed to nature.'

Vianello picked up his glass and was surprised to find it empty. He put two Euros on the counter and turned towards the door.

Outside, they fell into step and started back to the Questura. Brunetti, content to have asked his question, waited for his friend to speak. A boat puttered past them, a mottled brown dog standing at the front, barking with the joy of the boat's forward motion.

‘We shouldn't do things like that,' Vianello finally said.

‘Like what?'

‘Travel those distances,' Vianello said. ‘Just to go and lie in the sand and look at the sea, I mean.' The barking diminished, and Vianello went on. ‘If you're a neurosurgeon and you have to go somewhere to save a life, then get on a plane and fly. But not to lie on the beach. It's not right.' Then, happy to think of further justification, Vianello added, ‘Besides, the sun's bad for you.'

They walked a few more steps. ‘Right in an ecological sense?' asked Brunetti, unable to resist the impulse to take a poke at Vianello's growing enthusiasm.

Eventually Vianello said, ‘Yes.'

Brunetti slowed down and then stopped. He rested his forearms on the metal railing beside the canal and turned back towards the leaning tower of the Greek church. Another boat entered the canal from the right, passed them, then the Questura, and went on its way.

Brunetti stood there, watching the boat approach the far turn and thinking about Vianello's use of the word ‘right'. It was a smallish boat, and there was no appearance of cargo in it, so the man might well be going down to Castello to meet his friends for a drink and a game of cards. Like all motors, however small, this one would leave a slick of oil on the water, adding to the pollution and thus to the eventual death of the
laguna
. So, under Vianello's system of judgement, would the man's trip be condemned as not ‘right', or was there a factor of quantity to be considered? Or, as Vianello had stated, necessity? How much could we do before it became wrong?

The priests, he remembered, had taught him and his friends that gluttony was one of the cardinal sins, but Brunetti had never known what gluttony was. More accurately, though he had grasped that it meant eating too much, he had never understood where ‘too much' began. How could wanting a second helping of his mother's
sarde in saor
be wrong? Which sardine would push him over the edge from pleasure to sin? It was this perplexity that had led the young Brunetti to the realization of how strongly the priests associated pleasure with sin, and that had put an end to that.

‘Well?' Vianello asked when the boat had disappeared and Brunetti had still not spoken.

‘I think you should go to Umbria.'

‘And my reason for wanting to go there?' Vianello asked.

‘It's a perfectly legitimate one,' Brunetti answered and, pushing himself back from the railing, headed towards the Questura.

Vianello hung back; not hearing his footsteps, Brunetti stopped, turned to him and raised his chin interrogatively.

‘You think it's legitimate or you agree with me?' Vianello asked.

‘I think it's legitimate and I agree with you,' Brunetti said, walked back to Vianello, and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I don't know what good it's going to do for the planet or for the universe . . .' he said and his voice trailed away.

‘But?' Vianello asked.

‘But if you don't go, then you avoid doing something that's harmful, and that's a good thing.'

Vianello smiled and said, ‘I didn't think of it that way. All I knew was that it wasn't right.' After a moment, he added, ‘Besides, I've always wanted to learn how to milk a cow.'

That stopped Brunetti in his tracks. He took a close look at Vianello to see if he was joking. Finally he said, ‘You're serious, aren't you?'

‘Of course,' Vianello answered.

Turning back towards the Questura, Brunetti said over his shoulder, ‘You paid for the coffee, so I won't tell Signorina Elettra you said that.'