A Noble Radiance (10 page)

Instead of answering,
she put the knuckle of the first finger of her right hand into her cheek and
turned it, smacking her lips as she did.

That settles is,
then,' the Count said, smiling up at her.'How about you, Guido?'

'No, I'll take the
rombo’ Brunetti said, thinking the other dish sounded too fussy, the sort of
thing that would share a plate with a piece of carrot carved to look like a
rose, or a sprig of mint arranged at a clever angle.

'Wine?' she asked.

'Do you have that
Chardonnay your father makes?'

'If s what we drink
ourselves, Conte, but we usually don't serve it.' She saw his disappointment,
so she added, 'I can bring you a carafe’

'Thank you, Valeria.
I've had it at your father's. If s excellent’

She nodded in
acknowledgement of this truth, then added, as though it were a joke, 'Just
don't say anything about it if the Finanza comes in’

Before the Count
could comment, a shout rang out from the other room. She turned and was gone.

'No wonder this
country is an economic cripple’ the Count said with sudden fury. 'Best wine
they make, and they can't serve it, probably because of some legal nonsense
about the alcoholic content, or because some idiot in Brussels has decided if s
too similar to another kind of wine made in Portugal. God, we're ruled by
morons.'

Brunetti, who had
always considered his father-in-law one of those rulers, found this a strange
position for him to be taking. Before he could ask him about it, however,
Valeria was back with a litre carafe of pale white wine and, though she hadn't
been asked to bring it, a bottle of mineral water.

The Count poured two
glasses of wine and pushed one towards Brunetti. 'Tell me what you think.'

Brunetti took it and
sipped. He'd always hated remarks about wine and its taste, all the chatter
about 'woody richness', the 'scent of crushed raspberries', so all he said
was, 'Very good.' He set the glass down on the table. 'Tell me more about the
boy. You said you didn't like him.'

The Count had had
twenty years to grow accustomed to his son-in-law and his techniques, so he
took a sip of his wine and answered, 'As I said, he was dull and full of
himself, a very tedious combination.'

'What sort of work
did he do for the company?'

‘I think he was given
the title of
"cansulente",
though I haven't an idea of what
he would consult about. When they needed to take a client to dinner, Roberto
would come along. I suppose Ludovico hoped that his exposure to clients and
talk of business would make him more serious or at least take the business more
seriously’

Brunetti, who had
worked all of the summers of his university years, asked, 'But surely he didn't
just go to dinner and call that his job?'

'Sometimes, if there
were important deliveries or pick-ups to be made, they'd send Roberto. You
know, if contracts had to get to Paris or a new book of samples for the textile
factories had to be delivered in a hurry, Roberto would take them, and then
he'd get to spend a weekend in Paris or Prague or wherever it was’

'Nice work,' Brunetti
said. 'What about the university?'

'Too lazy. Or too
dumb’ was the Count's dismissive explanation.

Brunetti was about to
remark that, from what Paola had said about the students at the university,
neither of those served as much of an impediment, but he stopped when Valeria
came towards their table, carrying two plates loaded with the small sardines, oil
and vinegar glistening on their skins.

'Buon appetite’
she wished them and moved away to answer a wave from
someone at another table.

Neither man bothered
to bone the tiny fish, but forked them up, dripping oil, sliced onions, and
raisins, and ate them whole.

'Bon’
the Count said. Brunetti nodded but said nothing, delighted
with the fish and the sharp tang of vinegar. He'd once been told that,
centuries ago, Venetian fishermen had been forced to eat the fish this way,
chopping them up and pickling them to keep them from rotting, just as he'd been
told that the vinegar was poured in against scurvy. He had no idea if either
story was true, but if it was, he thanked the fishermen.

When the sardines
were gone, Brunetti took a piece of bread and wiped his plate clean with it.
'Did he do anything else, Roberto?'

'You mean in the
business?'

‘Yes.'

The Count poured them
each another half glass of wine. 'No. I think that's all he was either capable
of doing or interested in doing.' He took another sip. 'He wasn't a bad boy,
just dull. The last time I saw him, in fact, I felt sorry for him.'

'When was that? And
why?'

'It must have been a
few days before he was kidnapped. His parents were having a party for their
thirtieth anniversary and invited me and Donatella. Roberto was there.' The
Count paused after he said this and after a time, added, 'But it was almost as
if he weren't there.'

'I don't understand,'
Brunetti said.

'He seemed invisible.
No, that’s not what I mean. He looked thinner, and he had already begun to lose
his hair. It was summer, but he looked like he hadn't been out of the house
since winter. And he's the one who was always on the beach or playing tennis’
The Count looked off, recalling the evening. 1 didn't speak to him, and I
didn't want to say anything to his parents. But he looked strange’

'Sick?'

'No, not that, well,
not really. Just very pale and thin, like he'd been on a diet and stayed on it
too long.'

As if called on to
put an end to all talk of diet,

Valeria arrived just
at that moment with two heaped plates of spaghetti topped with scores of tiny
clams still in their shells.
The
perfume of the oil and garlic
wafted ahead of her.

Brunetti dug his fork
into the spaghetti and began to twirl up the interwoven strands. When he had
what he thought a sufficient forkful, he raised it to his hps, encouraged by
the warmth and the pervasive scent of garlic. Mouth full, he nodded at the
Count, who smiled in return and began to eat his own.

It wasn't until
Brunetti's pasta was almost gone and he had begun to break open the clams, that
he asked the Count, 'What about the nephew?'

‘I’m told he's a
natural for the business. He's got the charm to work with the customers and the
brains to calculate estimates and hire the right people.'

'How old is he?'
Brunetti asked.

'He's two years older
than Roberto, so that would make him about twenty-five.'

'Do you know anything
else about him?'

'What sort of thing?'

'Anything you can
think of.'

'That's very broad.'
Before Brunetti could explain, the Count asked, 'To know if he could have done
this? Assuming that if s been done?'

Brunetti nodded and
continued with his clams.

'His father,
Ludovico's younger brother, died when Maurizio was about eight. The parents
were already divorced, and the mother apparently wanted nothing to do with the
boy, so when she saw the chance, she gave him to Ludovico and Cornelia, and
they raised him: he might just as well have been Roberto's brother’

Thinking of Cain and
Abel, Brunetti asked, 'Do you know this or have you been told this?'

'Both’ was the
Count's terse answer. 'I'd say if s unlikely that Maurizio was involved in any
way.'

Brunetti shrugged and
tossed his last clam shell onto the pile that had accumulated on his plate. 'I
don't even know if it's the Lorenzoni boy.'

'Then why all the
questions?'

‘I
told you: two people thought it was a joke or a stunt. And
the stone that was blocking the gate was placed there from inside.'

'They could have
climbed the wall’ the Count suggested.

Brunetti nodded.
'Perhaps. I just don't like the feel of the whole thing.'

The Count gave him a
curious glance, as if he found the conjunction of Brunetti and intuitive feelings
a strange one. 'Aside from what you've just told me, what else is it that you
don't like?'

'That no one followed
up on the remark that they thought it was a joke. That there is no interview
with his cousin in the file. And the rock: no one asked about that.'

The Count placed his
fork on top of the uneaten spaghetti that still lay in the bottom of his plate,
and just as he did so, Valeria arrived to clear the table. 'Didn't you like the
spaghetti, Count?'

‘It was delicious, my
dear, but I need to save some room for the coda’

She nodded and
removed his plate, then Brunetti's. The Count was adding wine to their glasses
when she returned. Brunetti was satisfied to see that he had been right about
the coda. It was decorated with sprigs of rosemary, and a radish.

^‘
Why do they do that to food?' he asked, pointing with his
chin to the Count's plate.

'Is that
a
real question or a criticism of the service?' the Count
asked.

'Just a question,'
Brunetti answered.

The Count picked up
knife and fork and separated the fish to see if it was cooked all through.
Seeing that it was, he said, 'I remember when, for a few thousand lire, you
could get a good meal at any
trattoria
or
osteria
in
the city. Risotto, fish, a salad, and good wine. Nothing fancy, just the good
food that owners probably ate at their own table. But that.was when Venice was
a city that was alive, that had industry and artisans. Now all we have is
tourists, and the rich ones are accustomed to fancy stuff like this. So to
appeal to their tastes, we get food that's been made to look pretty.' He took a
bite of the fish. 'At least this is good, as well as pretty. How's yours?'

'Very good,' Brunetti
answered. He placed a small bone to the side of his dish and said, 'You wanted
to talk to me about something?'

His head bent over
the fish, the Count said, 'It's about Paola.'

'Paola?'

‘Yes, Paola. My
daughter. Your wife.'

Brunetti was swept
with a sudden wave of anger at the Count's dismissive tone, but contained it
and replied, his own voice distant with mirrored sarcasm, 'And the mother of my
children. Your grandchildren. Don't forget that.'

Placing his knife and
fork on his plate, the Count pushed it away from him. 'Guido, I don't mean to
offend...'

Brunetti cut him off.
'Then don't patronize me.'

The Count picked up
the wine carafe and poured half of the remainder into Brunetti's glass, the
rest into his own. 'She's not happy.' He looked across at Brunetti to see how
he took this, paused, and when Brunetti said nothing, said, 'She's my only
child, and she's not happy.'

‘Why?'

The Count lifted the
hand that wore the ring with the Falier crest. Seeing it, Brunetti thought
immediately of the body in the field and whether it would turn out to be the
Lorenzoni boy. If so, who should he speak to next, the father, the nephew,
perhaps the mother? How could he intrude on a grief that would be resurrected
by the discovery of the body?

'Are you listening?'

'Of course I'm
listening,' answered Brunetti, who had not been. 'You said Paola's not happy,
and I asked you why.'

'And I've been telling
you, Guido, but you've been off somewhere with the Lorenzoni family and the
body that's been found, wondering how you can arrive at justice.' He paused and
waited for Brunetti to say something. 'One of the reasons I've been trying to
explain to you is just that, that your pursuit of what you construe as justice
takes up
..
.' here he paused and moved his
empty wine glass back and forth on the table, holding it between the knuckles
of his first and second finger. He looked up at Brunetti and smiled, though the
sight of his smile made Brunetti sad. It takes up too much of your spirit,
Guido, and I think Paola suffers from that’