A Noble Radiance (7 page)

'The body of a young
man's been dug up near Belluno. There was a ring in the grave with him. It has
the Lorenzoni crest’

'It could be the
person who stole it from him’ the Count volunteered.

It could pretty well
be anyone,' Brunetti agreed. 'But I've been looking through the file of the
original investigation of the kidnapping, and there are a few things I'd like
to clear up if I could.'

'Such as?' the Count
asked.

In the more than two
decades that Brunetti had known the Count, he had never known him to be
indiscreet; further, nothing Brunetti had to say could not be told to anyone
interested in the investigation. 'Two people said they thought it was a joke.
And the stone that was blocking the gate had to have been placed there from
inside.'

'I don't have a very
clear memory of it, Guido. I think we were out of the country when it happened.
It happened at their villa, didn't it?'

'Yes,' Brunetti
answered, and then from something in the Count's voice, asked, 'Have you been
there?'

'Once or twice.' The
Count's tone was absolutely non-committal.

'Then you know the
gates’ Brunetti said, not wanting to ask directly about the Count's familiarity
with the Lorenzonis. Not yet, at any rate.

'Yes’ the Count
answered. They open inward. There's a call box on the wall, and all a visitor
has to do is push the bell and then announce himself. The gates can be opened
from the house.'

'Or from the outside
if you have the code’ Brunetti added. "That's what his girlfriend tried to
do, but the gates wouldn't open.'

'The Valloni girl,
wasn't it?' the Count asked.

The name was familiar
from the report 'Yes. Francesca.'

'A pretty girl. We
went to her wedding.'

'Wedding?' Brunetti
asked. 'How long ago was that?'

'A little more than a
year ago. She married that Salviati boy. Enrico, Fulvio's son; the one who
likes speedboats’

Brunetti grunted in
acknowledgement of a vague memory he had of the boy. 'Did you know Roberto?'

'I met him a few
times. I didn't think very much of him’

Brunetti wondered if
it was the Count's social position that allowed him to speak ill of the dead,
or the fact that the boy had been gone for two years,
my
not?'

'Because he had all
the pride of his father and none of his talent.'

'What sort of talent
does Count Ludovico have?'

He heard a noise from
the other end of the phone, as though a door had closed, and then the Count
said, 'Excuse me a moment, Guido’ A few seconds passed, after which he returned
to the phone and said, I'm sorry, Guido, but a fax has just come in, and I'm
afraid I have to make some calls while my agent in Mexico City is still in the
office’

Brunetti wasn't sure,
but he thought Mexico City was about half a day behind them. Isn't it the
middle of the night there?'

'Yes. He's paid to be
there, and I want to get him before he leaves.'

'Oh, I see’ Brunetti
said. 'When may I call you again?'

The Count's answer
came quickly. 'Is there any chance we could meet for lunch, Guido? There are
some things I've been wanting to talk to you about. Perhaps we could do both.'

'Gladly. When?'

'Today. Is that too
soon?'

'No, not at all. I’ll
call Paola and tell her. Would you like her to come?'

'No,' the Count said,
almost sharply, and then added, 'Some of the things I want to discuss concern
her, so I'd prefer she not be there’

Confused, Brunetti
said only, 'All right. Where shall we meet?' expecting the Count to name one of
the famous restaurants in the city.

'There's a place over
near Campo del Ghetto. The daughter of a friend of mine and her husband run it,
and the food's very good. If it’s not too far for you, we could meet there’

'Fine. What's it
called?'

'La Bussola. It's
just off San Leonardo, heading towards Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. One o'clock?'

'That'll be fine. I'll
see you there. At one’ Brunetti hung up and pulled the phonebook back towards
him. He flipped through it until he came to the 'S's. He found a number of
Salviatis, but only one Enrico, listed as a
'consulente',
a
term that always amused Brunetti as much as it confused him.

The phone rang six
times before a woman's voice, already annoyed at the caller, answered,
'Pronto’

'Signora Salviati?'
Brunetti asked.

The woman was
panting, as though she'd run to answer the phone. 'Yes, what is it?'

'Signora Salviati,
this is Commissario Guido Brunetti. I'd like to ask you a few questions about
the Lorenzoni kidnapping’ From beyond her, he heard the high wailing of a
baby's scream, that genetically pitched howl no human can ignore.

He heard the phone
slam down on a hard surface, thought he heard her tell him to wait, and then
all sound was swallowed up in the wail, which rose up to a sudden squeal and,
as suddenly as it had started, stopped.

She was back at the
phone again. ‘I told you everything about that years ago. I don't even remember
it very clearly now. So much time has passed, so much has happened.'

'I realize that,
Signora, but it would be a great help to us if you could spare me a little
time. I guarantee it wouldn't take long at all’

'Then why can't we do
it on the phone?'

'I'd prefer to do it
in person, Signora. I'm afraid I don't like the phone very much’

'When?' she asked in
sudden concession.

‘I saw that your
address is in Santa Croce. I've got to be over there this morning' - he didn't,
but it was close to the
traghetto
at San Marcuola and so he could
quickly get to San Leonardo and lunch with the Count - 'so it would be very easy
for me to stop by. If that’s convenient with you, of course.'

'Let me look at my
schedule’ she said, putting the phone down again.

She had been
seventeen when the kidnapping happened, so she was not even twenty now, and
with what sounded like a very young baby. Schedule?

'If you came at
quarter to twelve, we could talk. But I've got an engagement for lunch.'

'That’s perfect for
me, Signora. I'll see you then’ he said quickly and hung up before she could
change her mind or check her schedule again.

He called Paola and
told her that he couldn't come home for lunch. As usual, she accepted this with
such equanimity that Brunetti wondered for an instant if she had already made
other plans. 'What will you do?' he asked.

'Humm?' she asked.
'Oh, read.'

'And the children?
What about them?'

'I’ll feed them,
Guido, don't worry. You know how they wolf their food down if the two of us
aren't there to exert a civilizing influence on them, so I'll have plenty of
time to myself’

'Will you eat, too?'
he asked.

'Guido, you're
obsessed with food. You do know that, don't you?'

'Only because of the
frequency with which you remind me of it, my treasure’ he said with a laugh. He
thought of telling her she was obsessed with reading, but Paola would just take
that as a compliment, so he told her he'd be home for supper and hung up.

He left the Questura
without bothering to tell anyone where he was going and was careful to take the
back steps and so avoid Vice-Questore Patta, who, given the fact that it was
after eleven, might safely be assumed to be in his office.

Outside, Brunetti,
who was wearing both a woollen suit and a light coat in response to the early
morning chill, was surprised at how warm it had become. He started along the
embankment and was just turning left into the trail of streets that would take
him out to Campo Santa Maria Formosa and, from there, to the Rialto, when he
suddenly stopped and took off his coat. He turned and went back towards the
Questura. When he got to the building the guards inside recognized him and
pressed the switch that opened the large glass doors. He went into the small
office on the right and saw Pucetti at the desk, talking on the phone. Seeing
his superior, Pucetti said something and hung up, then quickly got to his feet.

’Pucetti’ Brunetti
said, making a pushing gesture with one hand to force the young man to sit down
again. ‘I’d like to leave this here for a few hours. I'll pick it up when I get
back.'

Pucetti, instead of
resuming his seat, came forward and took the coat from his hands. I’ll put it
up in your office, if I might, Dottore.'

'No, it’s fine here.
Don't bother.'

‘I’d rather, sir.
We've had a number of things disappear down here during the last few weeks.'

'What?' Brunetti
asked with real surprise. ‘From the guard room of the Questura?'

'It’s them, sir,'
Pucetti said, nodding in the direction of the interminable line that stretched
back from the door of the Ufficio Stranieri, on which it seemed like hundreds
of people waited to fill out the forms that would legalize their residence in
the city. 'We're getting a lot of Albanians and Slavs, and you know what
thieves they are.'

Had Pucetti said such
a thing to Paola, she would have been all over him in an instant, calling him a
bigot and a racist, and pointing out that
all
Albanians
and
all
Slavs, weren't anything. But as she wasn't there and as
Brunetti, in general, tended to agree with Pucetti's sentiments, he did nothing
more than thank the young man and leave the building.

7

As he was leaving
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Brunetti suddenly remembered something he had seen
last autumn in Campo Santa Marina, so he cut through to the smaller
campo
and
turned right just as he entered it. The metal cages were already hung outside
the windows of the pet shop. Brunetti drew closer to see if the
merlo indiano
was
still there. Surely that was it, up in the top cage, feathers black and
gleaming, one jet eye turned towards him.

Brunetti approached
the cage, leaned forward, and said,
'Ciao’
Nothing. Undaunted, he repeated,
'Ciao’
careful
to draw the word out to two syllables. The bird hopped nervously from one
parallel bar to the other, turned, and regarded Brunetti with the other eye. He
glanced around and noticed that a white-haired woman had stopped in front of
the
edicola
in the middle of the
campo
and was giving him a very strange
look. He ignored her and turned his attention back to the bird.
'Ciao’
he
said again.

It suddenly occurred
to Brunetti that this might be a different bird; after all, one medium-sized
mynah bird looked pretty much like any other. He tried once more,
'Ciao’
Silence.
Disappointed, he turned away, smiling weakly at the woman, who stood still,
staring across the
campo
at him.

Brunetti had gone
only two steps when, from behind him, he heard his own voice call out,
'Ciao,'
the
last vowel much prolonged, in the manner of birds.

He turned around
immediately and went back to his place in front of the cage.
'Come ti  stai?’  
he
asked this time, paused a moment, then put the question again. He felt, rather
than saw, a presence beside him and turned to see the white-haired woman
standing there. He smiled, and she smiled back.
'Come ti stai?’  
he
asked the bird again, and with absolute vocal fidelity, it asked him right
back,
'Come ti stai?’
in a voice eerily like his own.