The Waters of Eternal Youth (21 page)

‘For what reason?'

‘To avoid the accusation that, by not considering the ­possibility that she met with foul play, Dottor Gottardi would be discriminating against a handicapped person.' Brunetti's mind reeled. ‘I suspect, however, that Dottor Gottardi would call her “differently abled”.'

‘Will this work with Scarpa?' he asked, filled with a new appreciation of her many talents.

‘To a certain degree,' she said. ‘He'll become more cautious, I suppose, though I don't think it will help him in the long run. The Lieutenant is clever enough, but I think it's time he realizes just how outclassed he is.'

‘You sound very certain of that,' Brunetti said.

‘He's a bully, and like most bullies, he lacks the killer instinct. Once he comes up against someone who isn't afraid of him, he retreats.' Then, with absolute conviction, she said, ‘He'll do what I tell him to do.'

‘And if not?' Brunetti inquired.

‘I'll destroy him.'

Signorina Elettra had her way. Lieutenant Scarpa found an opportunity to explain his second thoughts to Dottor Gottardi, and the magistrate in his turn suggested to Brunetti that he resume his investigation of that poor handicapped girl and of the the murder of the man who had saved her. The hotel and bed and breakfast investigation was given to another commissario – luckily, not to Claudia Griffoni who, it was feared, might not be sufficiently aware of the many tangled obligations and relationships that existed between and among those requesting and those granting the permits necessary in this expanding business.

Once the case was back in his charge, however, Brunetti made little progress. Cavanis proved to have had few friends. He had used his
telefonino
rarely and within a narrow scope. Aside from the calls made just before his death, he had recently phoned an aunt in Torino, Stefano dalla Lana, the number which gave the forecast of the time and height of
acqua alta
, and the Giorgione movie theatre. Only the aunt and dalla Lana had phoned him in the last four months.

Brunetti was almost relieved when a ­Chinese-­run and staffed bordello was discovered in Lista di Spagna, not far from the train station, and he was asked by another magistrate to look into it. It was banal, really, but the interviews and the ­follow-­up arrests, which led to more interviews and more arrests, all rose upwards on the feeding chain of organized prostitution in the province.

As this investigation mutated and took up more and more of his time, Brunetti thought less often about the dead man and the horror of the first sight of that knife.

In the second week of November, late in the afternoon of the feast of San Martino, Brunetti left the Questura early, hoping to see the children on the street banging their pots and pans and asking ­passers-­by for coins. He had done the same as a boy, though he had never understood the reason for the custom. That had made no difference to him, happy as he had been then to get the money and happy now to be able to give it away.

He saw three or four groups and gave each of them a few euros, delighting them with his generosity. As he turned into Ruga Rialto, he was surprised to see Griffoni and Manuela approaching him. At first he took them for mother and daughter, walking arm in arm, heads together, talking and laughing. Griffoni smiled to see him, and Manuela politely extended her hand as if she had never met him.

‘We've just been to visit the Contessa,' Griffoni explained. Turning to the other woman, she said, ‘What's the price on those grey shoes in that window, Manuela? Can you see?'

The window was on the other side of the
calle
, so Manuela had to move away from them to go and have a look. In her absence, Griffoni said, ‘I suppose I shouldn't tell you this, but the Contessa keeps asking me if we've learned anything.' She kept her voice entirely neutral; there was no hint of reproach.

‘How is she?' Brunetti asked.

‘Old and weak,' Griffoni said.

‘How often do you go to see her?'

‘Not as often as she'd like,' Griffoni said. They were interrupted by a group of five boys, who surrounded them and beat their wooden spoons on the bottoms of their pots, chanting the same song about San Martino that Brunetti had shouted out in his own time. He gave them two euros and off they went to encircle an elderly couple, who seemed as delighted by the noise as Brunetti had been.

Turning back to Griffoni, Brunetti said, ‘And the . . .' then caught himself just as he was about to refer to Manuela as ‘the girl' and changed it to ‘Manuela', but it was awkwardly done, and he was embarrassed.

‘She loves to be out and walking and seeing things,' Griffoni said as Manuela came back to her.

‘I didn't see a tag,' she told Griffoni, looking back and forth between her and Brunetti. ‘Is that all right?' she asked, and he winced at the vulnerability in her voice.

‘Of course it is,
Tesoro
,' Griffoni said, linking her arm in hers. ‘If they were stupid enough not to put a price on them, then we're not interested, and that's that.'

Manuela smiled and shook her head. ‘They're not for us, are they?'

‘Not at all,' Griffoni confirmed and patted her arm. Then, in a ­grown-­up voice, the one used for teaching manners, she said, ‘Say goodbye to Dottor Brunetti, Manuela.' After the young woman had dutifully done this, Griffoni said, careful to address the remark to Manuela, ‘Maybe we'll see him again at your grandmother's.'

‘That would be very nice,' Manuela said pleasantly, proof of how well she had learned her manners.

Griffoni said a polite goodbye and they started down the 
calle
, heading towards Manuela's home.

Perhaps prompted by guilt, Brunetti phoned the Contessa the next day. She said she was glad to hear from him and, if the Commissario had time, would be very grateful if he could come and talk to her. It was she who suggested he join Claudia and Manuela for a light lunch on Wednesday, if he didn't mind coming during the working week.

Having seen how adept Claudia was at handling Manuela, Brunetti had no doubt that she would find a way to leave him alone to talk to the Contessa and so agreed, saying he'd speak to Claudia and come along with them.

When he phoned Griffoni, she suggested that he meet them at one at Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio so that she could take Manuela on a different route. ‘She doesn't like change, even simple things like which
calle
to take,' Griffoni explained. ‘But if I tell her it's because that's where we have to pick you up, she'll agree.'

Brunetti kept back a remark about how important the training of young ladies still seemed to be, but Griffoni must have interpreted his silence differently because she said, ‘She can't learn to do multiplication and division, but she has learned to be considerate of other people's convenience.'

‘I'll see you there at one,' Brunetti said and hung up.

Because he had promised to go to Rialto with Paola before lunch, Brunetti left the Questura well before lunchtime on Wednesday and met her there. Heavy dark clouds had appeared in the north in the late morning and got worse while Paola and Brunetti were still at Rialto, trying to decide what to have for dinner that night. Cristina, the fishmonger, suggested a
rombo
, but Paola didn't like the look of it and so asked about the branzino, a variety of fish that had Cristina's enthusiastic approval. ‘I thought I'd serve it with artichoke,' Paola said tentatively. ‘And black rice with peas.'

‘The Findus
primavera
are very good,' was Cristina's sibyl­line reply as she selected a large fish and handed it to her assistant to clean.

By the time they were finished and stopped at Do Mori for a drink, the first rain had begun to fall. As they stepped out under the rain, Paola asked, ‘You still planning to go and see her?'

‘Yes.'

‘Even in this rain?' she asked, pulling her scarf over her hair and taking a collapsible umbrella from her shopping bag.

‘Yes. I said I would.'

‘Good.' Paola handed him the umbrella. ‘Here, you'll need this.'

‘What are you going to do?' he asked.

‘Run,' she said and did just that, out of reach before he could react.

There were few people on the streets, so he was spared the usual jostle and ­umbrella-­sparring as people tried to pass in the narrow
calli
. Venetians had had ages to develop the technique of tilting the top to the side of the
calle
and slipping along the walls past the oncoming walker. Tourists had two techniques: either they forged ahead in the face of all human obstacles or they stopped and cowered with their backs against the nearest building, the umbrella extended fully open above them, effectively forcing all traffic into the centre of the street.

It had never occurred to Brunetti to try to cancel the appointment with the Contessa. He did not want to have the conversation, but that was not sufficient reason not to have it. As he entered the
campo,
he saw Manuela and Griffoni sheltering together under the uncertain protection of the awning of a bar. Griffoni wore something that looked like a man's fishing hat, dark blue and ­wide-­brimmed, perfect to cover her head in the rain; the rest of her was enveloped in a voluminous raincoat that fell below her knees.

He slipped under the awning and gave his hand to Manuela and said hello to both of them. ‘Lovely day,' he said, which comment sent Manuela off into delighted peals of laughter.

‘But it's raining,' she managed to say and broke out in fresh laughter. When she stopped, she turned to Griffoni and said, ‘Your friend is very funny, isn't he?'

‘Yes, he is,' Griffoni affirmed and patted Brunetti on the arm. Then as a gust of wind lashed at the awning above them, she said, ‘Let's go. Your grandmother's waiting.'

‘Will the real lovely day begin when we get there?' Manuela asked.

Griffoni stamped her feet, which were protected by a pair of low rubber boots, and said, ‘As soon as the door closes behind us, it will.'

With that they set off, Brunetti taking the lead because he knew the way. He cut to the right without having to think about it, over the bridge, dodged a few tourists and turned back to be sure that the women were close behind him. A long, empty patch lay ahead of them, and he picked up speed, just as the rain picked up energy. Another bridge, another short stretch, quick right and then left, another bridge. To protect his back from the rain, he held his umbrella almost at the horizontal, the shaft resting on his shoulder. He heard an occasional whoop of laughter from behind him.

Two men wearing raincoats approached from the opposite direction. Their umbrellas were lowered against the fierce wind coming straight at them, so all he saw of them were their legs and large, thick shoes. The rain had already soaked the front of their trousers, as it had the backs of his own trousers below his raincoat.

Brunetti tilted his umbrella to the side and was quickly past them, when a perverse gust hit him in the face, soaking him and almost yanking the umbrella from his hands. From behind him, he heard a violent snap as an umbrella was torn inside out. There was a noise and then something slid into the back of his left foot. He turned and saw that an errant gust of him wind had blown an eviscerated umbrella into him. One of the men came back towards him to pick up his umbrella but, seeing it was broken, kicked it to the side of the street. The other saw his near his own feet and left it there. Both turned and continued on their way.

Brunetti shoved the umbrella out of the way with his foot, then heard a piercing scream like that of an animal in a trap. Manuela and Griffoni had been behind him. He dropped his umbrella at the sound, turned and started in their direction. He saw Manuela backed up against the window of a shop, hands thrust out in front, face mad with terror. ‘No,' she screamed, turning the word into a siren. ‘No.' She tried to move away, but all she could do was step up on the narrow stone ledge beneath the window of the grocery store and try to push herself flatter against the window.

And again, ‘No!' Like the siren for
acqua alta
, the word grew higher with every second. Griffoni was beside her, holding on to her raised arms. Griffoni's head whipped around and she saw the two men, motionless, hair soaked and their wet faces washed clean of emotion by shock.

‘Leave me alone. Don't do that. Please.' Again, Manuela's voice grew shriller with every outburst. Brunetti man­oeuvred hurriedly around the men and raised his hands to chest height, patting at them and backing them away from the two women.

‘Please. Gentlemen. Move back, please,' he said. Only then did he look at their faces and recognize one as Sandro ­Vittori-­Ricciardi, who stood looking at Manuela as if looking at a portrait of his own crucifixion. The second man seemed confused and pained, unable to make sense of anything. But ­Vittori-­Ricciardi could not control the fear on his face as Manuela continued to scream, now past words and returned to her animal noises.

Brunetti put himself between the two men, taking the arm of each. He swivelled them round and started walking them away from the women. The rain continued to pound down; by now all three men were soaked and hardly noticed it.

Speaking to the man he did not recognize, Brunetti said, ‘Signore, I'm a police officer, and I'd like to see your identification.' Brunetti pulled out his wallet and showed his warrant card, but it was hardly necessary: the other man was reaching for his own wallet.

‘Wait a minute,' ­Vittori-­Ricciardi said. ‘Neither of us has done anything. We don't have to identify ourselves to anyone. If you want to do something useful, go back and deal with that crazy woman before she attacks someone.' He turned and started to walk away.

His friend, however, said, ‘Hold on, Sandro. There's no reason to cause trouble.' That said, he handed his
carta d'identità
to Brunetti, who took out his notebook and a pen and, hunched over to keep the page dry, wrote down the name. Gianluca Bembo. Born and still resident in Venice.

‘
Grazie
, Signor Bembo,' Brunetti said as he handed back his card. ‘That's all I need.' Behind him, he could still hear frantic sobbing and turned towards it. The two men walked away.

When he got back to Griffoni, he found her holding the sobbing Manuela against her chest. Griffoni bent down and kissed Manuela on the head, saying, ‘That's all right, Manuela. We'll go to your grandmother's now and have something hot to drink.' When Manuela, who had stopped crying, did not move, Griffoni gave her a few gentle shakes and said, ‘Come on. It's close by. We'll be there in a few minutes.'

Manuela mumbled something, but her face was pressed against Griffoni's shoulder so it was impossible for Brunetti or Griffoni to make out what she said. ‘I can't understand you,
Tesoro
,' Griffoni said, moving slightly away from her to give her space, though still keeping her arm around her shoulder. ‘What did you say?'