A Venetian Reckoning (32 page)

The sound grew confused, for the men
were calling to one another and laughing, and the cameraman seemed to be egging
them on. Like a low continuo, the woman moaned and whimpered through all of
this, but it was almost impossible to pick up the sound she made.

The last to use her were the two
middle-aged men. One of them baulked at the table and shook his head, but this
was met with hoots of derision, and so he too climbed on the table and took his
turn. The last one, the oldest, was so eager that he pushed the other one from
her body and mounted her.

When all six were done, the camera
moved for the first time and came in very close. It moved lovingly up and down
her body, pausing here and there, wherever there was blood. It paused on her
face. Her eyes were closed, but the voice that Brunetti was now thinking of as
the cameraman's called softly to her, and she opened her eyes, just inches from
the camera. He heard her gasp and heard her head crack against the table as she
pulled it roughly to the side in a vain attempt to hide from the camera.

The lens pulled back and more of her
body came into the screen. When he was back in his original position, the
cameraman called out again, and the first one who had used her picked up the
knife. The cameraman spoke again, more urgently, and the one with the knife, as
casually as if he had been asked to prepare the chicken for that night's
dinner, drew the blade across the woman's throat. Blood splattered across his
arm and hand, and the other men laughed at the foolish look that filled his
face as he leaped back from her body. They were still laughing as the camera
slid in for one last look at her body. It didn't have to be particular any
more: there was plenty of blood now. The screen darkened

The tape continued to play, but the
only sound was its quiet whirr and a faint humming sound that Brunetti, after
a moment's confusion, realized was coming from himself. He stopped and tried to
get up, but he was prevented by his hands, which he couldn't release from the
edge of the chair. He looked down at them, fascinated, and willed his fingers
to relax. After a moment, they did, and he got to his feet

He had recognized enough of the
language to know it was Serbo-Croat Months ago, he had read a brief article in
Corriere
della
Sera
about
these tapes, made in the death traps that the cities of Bosnia had become, made
and then brought out to be reproduced and sold. He had, at the time, chosen not
to believe what he read, unable, even with what he had seen for these last
decades, or perhaps unwilling, to believe his fellow man capable of this last
obscenity. And now, like St Thomas the Doubter, he had plunged his hand into
the open wound, and so he had no choice but to believe.

He turned off the television and the
VCR. He went down the corridor to Chiara's room. The door was open and he went
in without knocking. Chiara lay propped up on her pillows. She had one arm
wrapped about Paola, who sat on the ride of the bed, and in the other she held
to herself a much chewed and battered toy beagle which she had had since her
sixth birthday.

^l
Ciao,
Papa!’
she
said as he came in. She looked up at him but she didn't smile.

‘Ciao,
angelo?
he said and came to stand closer to the bed. ‘I’m
sorry you saw that, Chiara.' He felt as stupid as the words.

Chiara looked at him sharply, seeking
a reproach in his words, but found none, only a searing remorse she was too
young to recognize. 'Did they really kill her, Papa?' she asked, destroying at
once his hope that she had fled from the video before the end.

He nodded. 'I'm afraid so, Chiara.’

'Why?' Chiara asked, voice as filled
with confusion as horror.

His mind flew up and away from the
room. He tried to think noble thoughts, tried to think of something to say that
would assure his child, convince her that, however wicked what she had seen,
the world was a place where things like that were random, and humanity remained
good by instinct and impulse.

'Why, Papa? Why would they do that?'

‘I don't know, Chiara.’ 'But they
really killed her?’ she asked. 'Don't talk about it,' Paola interrupted her and
bent to kiss the side of her head, pulling her closer. ' Undeterred, Chiara
repeated, 'Did they, Papa?' 'Yes, Chiara.' 'She really died?'

Paola looked up at him, trying to
silence him with her eyes, but he answered, 'Yes, Chiara, she really died.'

Chiara pulled the battered dog on to
her lap and stared down at it

'Who gave you the tape, Chiara?' he
asked.

She pulled at one of the dog's long
ears, but not roughly, remembering that this was the one that was ripped.
'Francesca,’ she finally answered. 'She gave it to me before class this
morning.’

'Did she say anything about it?'

She picked up the dog and held it,
standing upright, on her lap. Finally she answered, 'She said she'd heard I was
asking questions about her because of what happened to her father. She thought
I was doing it for you because you're a cop. And then she told me to look at
the tape if I wanted to see why someone might want to kill her father.' She
tilted the dog from side to side and made it walk towards her.

'Did she say anything else, Chiara?'

'No, Papa, just that'

'Do you know where she got the tape?’

'No. That's all she said, that it
would show why someone would want to kill her father. But what does Francesca's
father have to do with that?'

‘I don't know.’

Paola stood, so abruptly that Chiara
let go of the beagle and it fell to the floor. Paola bent and snatched it up
with one hand and stood holding it for a moment, clutching the tattered thing
in a death grip. Then, very slowly, she bent down and returned it to Chiara's
lap, ran her hand across the top of her daughters head, and left the room.

‘Who were they, Papi?’

'I think they were Serbs, but I'm not
sure. Someone who knows the language will have to listen to them, and then
we'll know.’

'What will you do about it, Papa?
Will you arrest them and send them to prison?’

‘I don't know, darling. It won't be
easy to find them.'

'But they should go to prison,
shouldn't they?'

'Yes.'

'What do you think Francesca meant
about her father?' A possibility occurred to Chiara and she asked, 'That wasn't
him holding the camera, was it?'

'No, I'm sure it wasn't,'

"Then what did she mean?'

'I don't know. That's what I have to
find out’ He watched her try to tie the dog's ears together. 'Chiara?'

'Yes, Papa?' She looked up at him,
certain that he would say something that would make it all right that would fix
it and make it be as though it hadn't happened.

'I think you better not talk to
Francesca any more.' 'And not ask any more questions?' 'No, not that either.'

She absorbed this, then asked
hesitantly, 'You're not mad at me, are you?'

Brunetti stooped down beside the bed.
'No, I'm not mad at you at all.' He wasn't sure if he could control his voice
and so paused a moment, then said, pointing to the dog, 'Be careful you don't
pull Bark's ear oft?

'He's a silly dog, isn't he?' Chiara
asked. 'Whoever heard of a dog with bald spots?'

Brunetti rubbed a finger across the
dog's nose. 'Most dogs don't get chewed, Chiara.'

She smiled at that and swung her legs
out from under the covers, ‘I think I better do my homework now,' she said,
standing up.

'All right. I'll go talk to your
mother.'

'Papa?' she said as he went towards
the door.

'Hum?' he asked.

'Mamma's not mad at me, either, is
she?'

'Chiara,' he answered, voice not
entirely steady, 'you are our greatest joy.' Before she could say anything, he
deepened his voice and added, 'Now do your homework.' Brunetti waited to see
her smile before he left the room.

In the kitchen, Paola stood at the
sink, whirling something around in the vegetable centrifuge. When he came in,
she looked up and said, "The whole world could fall down, and still we'd
have to have dinner, I suppose.' He was relieved to see her smile when she said
it. 'Chiara all right?'

Brunetti shrugged. 'She's doing her
homework. I don't know how she is. What do you think? You know her better than
I do.'

She took her hand off me knob that
spun the centrifuge and looked at hint. The whirring sound filled the room,
and when it slowed to a stop, she asked, 'Do you really believe that?'

'Believe what?'

That I know her better than you do?'
'You're her mother,' Brunetti said, as if that would explain it

'Oh, Guido, you're such a goose at
times. If you were a coin, Chiara would be the other side.’

Hearing Paola say that made him feel,
strangely enough, very tired. He pulled one of the chairs out and sat down at
the table. 'Who knows? She's young. Maybe she'll forget'

'will you?' Paola asked, coming to
sit opposite him.

Brunetti shook his head, I’ll forget
the details of the film, but I’ll never forget that I saw it, never forget what
it means.'

That's what I don't understand,'
Paola said. 'Why would anyone want to see such a thing? It's obscene.' She
paused a moment and then added, voice filled with surprise at finding herself
using such a term, it's evil. That's what's so horrible about it: I feel as
though I'd looked through a window and seen human evil looking back at me.'
After a moment she asked, 'Guido, how could those men do that? How could they
do that and continue to think of themselves as human?'

Brunetti never had answers to what he
thought of as Big Questions. Instead of trying, he posed his own, 'What about
the cameraman, and what abort the people who will pay to watch it?'

'Pay?' Paola asked. 'Pay?’

Brunetti nodded, ‘I think that's what
this is, a video made to be sold. The Americans call them "snuff
films". People really get killed. I've read about them. Interpol had a
report a few months ago. They found some in America, in Los Angeles, I think.
In a film studio, they were being reproduced and then sold.'

'Where do they come from?' Paola
asked, her astonishment now replaced by horror.

'You saw the men, in uniforms. I
think it was Serbo-Croat they spoke.'

'Jesus help us all,' Paola whispered.
'And that poor woman.' She covered her mouth with one hand. 'Guido, Guido.'

He got to his feet, ‘I have to go
talk to her mother again,' he said.

'Did she know?'

Brunetti had no idea; he knew only
that he was tired, tired to the point of pain, with Signora Trevisan and her
barely concealed contempt and her protestations of ignorance. He suspected
that, if Francesca had given the tape to Chiara, then the girl was far clearer
than her mother on separating fact from fiction. When he thought that the girl
must have known what was on the tape, he was filled with a horror of the
unclean at the thought of having to question her, but all he had to do was summon
up the memory of the look in the woman's eyes when she opened them and saw the
camera lens staring down at her, and he knew that he would hound the girl and
her mother to the fiery pit itself to find out what they knew.

26

Signora Trevisan backed away from
Brunetti the instant she opened the door, as if responding to some refulgent
ferocity that expanded out and filled the air around him. He stepped into the
apartment and slammed the door closed behind him, almost glad to see her flinch
away from the sharp sound it made.

'No more, Signora,’ Brunetti said.
'No more evasions and no more lies about what you knew and didn't know.'

‘I don't know what you're talking
about,' she said, pumping up her voice with an anger so patently false that it
could not cover the fear that lurked there. 'I've spoken to you once already,
and...'