Blood from a stone - Donna Leon

‘Yes. So maybe he didn’t have enough time to talk to anyone else. But if he did, who would he have gone to?’ Brunetti asked.

There was a long pause, so long it grew awkward. Finally Claudio said, ‘The only one I can think of is Guelfi. He has a shop in San Lio, but there’s no sense talking to him. He won’t tell you anything, not if he bought them, and not if he didn’t buy them, either.’

‘Any reason?’ Brunetti asked, idly paging through the map of his memory to see if he could recall a jewellery shop anywhere near San Lio.

‘No,’ Claudio answered. ‘It’s a sort of principle with him. He never gives anyone anything, even information. Trust me and don’t waste your time trying to talk to him.’

‘I will,’ Brunetti said, and then as quickly, ‘I mean I won’t. Anyone else?’

‘No, not really. Not here, at least. My friends and I are the only other people in the city who would buy in that quantity, and the man I told you about is the only one who was asked. I’m sure about this.’

‘Sure sure or just semi-sure?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Sure sure,’ Claudio answered. ‘Trust me,’ he said again and hung up.

Angola. Was that the country where the old government was taken down to the beach and slaughtered by the men leading the coup? Or was it the one where the old government simply disappeared? Brunetti had once come across the term ‘compassion fatigue’, but thought that the oh-so-clever press had got it wrong, and the term should really be, ‘horror fatigue’. He had a friend in Rome, a former camerawoman for RAI, who had been to most of the world’s trouble spots during her career. Some years ago, when she returned to Rome from Rwanda, she submitted a one-sentence letter of resignation: ‘I cannot film any more piles of bodies.’

Brunetti read widely, as did Paola, but neither of them could keep up with the succession of misfortunes to afflict that desperate continent. Mineral wealth to make the West salivate with desire and villains at every turn ready to sell it to them. Maybe Mr Kurtz was right, and all there was was horror.

If the man had succeeded in selling the diamonds, what would he have done with the money? If this were a case of private theft, he would most likely have spent it on himself, but private theft hardly seemed on the cards, not in a scenario where the Ministries of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs were to be heard shuffling their feet somewhere offstage. It was the duty of the Ministry of the Interior to control the flux of foreigners into the country, so they would have had a legitimate interest in the dead man. But why take over the investigation of the death of this one foreigner without offering any explanation?

As to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, their involvement could have been just about anything: keeping an eye on a known or suspected criminal or, because it had become so much easier to justify arresting them, keeping an eye on someone they defined — or had decided to define — as a terrorist. Or, and Brunetti had to admit the possibility, keeping an eye on him because they had been asked to do so by the people who had tortured him and because it served their political interests to do those people a favour.

When he was new to the police, thoughts of this kind would never have come to Brunetti, regardless of all the political talk of the Left, regardless of his bride’s political convictions. Now, after decades of involvement with the forces of order, Brunetti had to admit that no possibility, no matter how vile or incredible, was to be excluded.

He sat at his desk, studying the opposite wall, and continued to invent reasons why the offices of government might want to impede the investigation into the murder of a foreigner. Not for an instant did it occur to Brunetti that either of the two ministries might have had any interest in simply apprehending the man’s killers. Had that been the case, they would have left the job to the police.

Why had they not found the diamonds? And why had they delayed in coming to search for them? The likely solution was that the killers, or whoever had sent them, did not know where the victim lived and had taken days to find out. Either the other black men had left before the apartments were searched, or they had panicked and fled when they discovered that their homes had been searched.

He pulled the phone book from his bottom drawer and took from it the photos that had been taken of the dead man’s body. He studied the face, peaceful in death, stared long at the handsome symmetry of his features. ‘Were you a good guy or a bad guy?’ Brunetti asked the photo. He stuck them back inside the phone book and tossed it into his drawer. He picked up the phone and called his father-in-law.

Conte Orazio Falier, when his secretary passed the call to him, told Brunetti that he was about to leave for the airport. When Brunetti said he would like to speak to him now, if possible, the Count offered to have his boat stop at the Danieli dock and pick him up. They could talk on the way to the airport, and then Massimo could bring him back. Brunetti said he’d be there in ten minutes, and hung up.

He looked out of the window: it was still raining, so he took an umbrella from the back of his closet, put on his overcoat, and went downstairs. He found the glass doors of the Questura open and no guard in sight. He glanced into the small guardroom and saw that it was empty. On the desk lay an officer’s peaked blue cap, and over the back of the chair was draped a belt and holster, presumably containing a service pistol. For a moment, Brunetti was tempted to take the gun and toss it into the canal in front of the door: he was stopped only by the thought of the wave of paperwork that would then wash through his own office. Instead, he pulled the door to the office shut and, as he left, that to the building.

When he emerged on to the Riva degli Schiavoni, huddled behind his umbrella, the wind coming off the bacino yanked the umbrella over his head and behind him, then ripped the material free of the thin struts and left it hanging shredded in his hands. Brunetti grabbed at it, gathering it up into a bulky, prickly lump, and made his way through the driving rain to the dock. The Count’s boat was there, Massimo draped in a yellow slicker, waiting for him on deck. The pilot extended his hand and half pulled Brunetti forward, against the force of the wind, on to the boat. His foot slipped on the top step and he bounced down the other two, landing beside Massimo, who steadied him with both hands.

‘Buona sera, Commissario,’ the pilot said and relieved him of the umbrella.

Brunetti thanked him, but did not linger over it. He pushed open the double doors and went down, more carefully this time, the two steps that led to the cabin. The Count was seated at the back, talking on his telefonino, but as Brunetti came in, the Count said, ‘I’ll call later,’ and slipped the phone into the pocket of his jacket.

He smiled at Brunetti, and as the Count’s face softened, Brunetti saw a hint of the age he knew must lie behind the deeply tanned skin. But it was gone as quickly as it came, that flash of mortality, leaving behind the clear blue eyes, the thick white hair, and the general impression of effortless well-being. Suddenly Brunetti felt the heat of the cabin caress his face and hands.

Stooping forward, he shook the Count’s extended hand and sank into one of the long benches running down the sides of the cabin. ‘God, it’s cold out there,’ Brunetti said, rubbing his hands together, as much to dry as to warm them.

‘Would you like me to tell Massimo to turn the heat up?’ the Count asked, half rising.

‘No, no,’ Brunetti said, placing a hand on his father-in-law’s shoulder and gently pushing him back into his seat. ‘I feel it already.’ He unbuttoned his overcoat and struggled out of it without getting to his feet. He laid it beside him and looked down at his feet: another pair of shoes soaked through. ‘We need the rain,’ was all he could think of to say.

‘The defining statement of modern life,’ the Count said, confusing Brunetti entirely.

The sound of the motor deepened, and a quick glance out of the window opposite showed Brunetti that they were backing away from the dock and into the bacino. ‘I’m glad you have the time,’ Brunetti said. ‘Where are you going, by the way?’

‘London,’ the Count answered, offering no explanation.

‘Will you be back for Christmas?’ Brunetti asked, alarmed at the possibility that his children would be deprived of what remained one of the highlights of their year.

‘I’ll be back tonight,’ the Count answered.

The younger Brunetti, the less worldly Brunetti, would have asked if it were really possible to get there and back on the available flights, but the Brunetti who had for more than twenty years been a member of the Falier family did not ask such a question.

‘I’d like to be direct and save time,’ Brunetti said without further preamble.

‘By all means,’ the Count said, then added, ‘A pleasant change from the way the people I deal with generally do business.’

‘Last Sunday,’ Brunetti began, ‘an African was shot in Campo Santo Stefano.’ The Count nodded but said nothing. ‘I later searched the place where he was living and found what has been estimated as six million Euros in uncut diamonds — diamonds that are thought to be from Africa, specifically from a region near the border between the Congo and Angola — hidden there. Some time later, the apartment was searched again, presumably by his killers or by someone who knew of and wanted the diamonds. Two days before the murder, an African tried to sell a large number of diamonds to a merchant here, who refused to buy them.’

Brunetti stopped, curious to see how the Count would respond to this. The man’s face was impassive. As Brunetti’s silence lengthened, the Count said, ‘I’m waiting for you to ask me for information. With this little, Guido, I can’t tell you anything. I’m waiting for the plot to grow more complicated.’

‘It does,’ Brunetti said. ‘Since the investigation was opened, both the Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry have displayed interest in the case.’

‘Together?’ the Count asked with open surprise.

‘I think not. They appear to be working separately. The Ministry of the Interior has taken over the case officially, with a request to Patta. The Foreign Ministry broke into the computer where the records were kept and erased them.’

‘I will not ask how you found that out,’ the Count remarked.

‘Better not,’ Brunetti said.

The Count crossed his legs and pressed both palms on to the seat to push himself upright. He turned to look out of the window. Brunetti’s eyes followed his, and through the water-speckled glass he saw the metal light stanchions of the stadium and the odd collection of decommissioned vaporetti stations that the ACTV stored down here at the end of Sant’Elena.

The heat, the dampness of his clothing, the constant thud of the motors, all lulled him into dullness. Still the Count said nothing. Suddenly the boat lurched to one side as the open waters of the laguna hit them.

‘Six million Euros is a relative sum,’ the Count said. Brunetti turned his attention to him. ‘That is, to most people it is a fortune, undreamed-of wealth. But to many others it is a relatively insignificant sum.’ Brunetti wondered where the Count stood on this spectrum.

‘To an African, well, to most people in Africa, the sum is even more monumentally grand, perhaps so grand as to lose all meaning and be nothing more than a sum.’ He paused again, and Brunetti could almost hear the Count’s brain humming as it worked through this problem.

‘Then we must consider what an African would want to do with the money to be had from selling diamonds. If it were for his own use, he would be likely to try to sell them one at a time, perhaps going to private jewellers, perhaps even to their shops, to try to sell a stone or two, though few jewellers would be interested in uncut gems, I suspect. If he did succeed in selling them separately, he would have a steady source of money, at least until the diamonds were gone, but it would leave him with the problem of having to find a safe place where he could keep the diamonds.’ The Count glanced in Brunetti’s direction to see if he was following. ‘But you say this man tried to sell many of them at one time?’

Brunetti nodded.

The Count rested his head on the cushions behind him and closed his eyes. ‘If he tried to sell them all, then there was something he needed a lot of money in order to buy.’ He opened his eyes, turned his head, and gave Brunetti a sharp look. ‘You’ve got this far already?’ he asked.

‘To arms and guns, yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘I wanted to ask you who the likely seller would be so I can begin to have some idea of what’s been going on.’

The Count closed his eyes again. ‘Ah, you never disappoint me, Guido.’ He smiled and shook his head in amused distress. ‘But, in future, I would be very grateful if you would not indulge me by letting me show off how clever I am when you’ve already reached the conclusion.’

‘Of course,’ Brunetti said.

Both men gazed out of the windows, watching the wooden channel markers march past them. ‘Once he, or they, arrange to buy the weapons,’ the Count said, ‘which I think would be the easy part, they would have to transport them. That’s where things would become complicated.’

Brunetti had no idea what sort of weapons, or how many, could be bought for six million Euros, assuming this to be the minimum raised by the sale of the diamonds. Television movies had, over the years, turned Uzi and Kalashnikov into household words; Brunetti tried to calculate the volume of the disassembled machine-guns that could be bought for that sum, but he made a hopeless muddle of it.

The Count continued, ‘They would have to get to a port: easily enough done in trucks. Then there would be the false bills of lading, the Customs inspectors to be paid, the shipping company persuaded to be accommodating. And then the unloading at whatever port of entry was used, where it would all be put on trucks.’ He paused to give Brunetti an idea of the possible complications here. ‘So whoever was arranging this would need a great deal more money for these — what shall I call them? — incidental expenses, and then he would need someone at the other end to collect and, er, distribute whatever weapons he managed to acquire.’ He placed a hand on Brunetti’s arm and said, ‘It would require an efficient organization, at least there. Here, you’d need someone to sell the diamonds and buy the arms. Presumably your dead man.’ The Count raised a hand and wiped at the condensation on the window, then took out a handkerchief and dried his hand. The clean window showed them little more than the wet one had.

‘What I don’t understand,’ the Count said, ‘is the attempt to sell the diamonds privately. These things are generally taken care of beforehand.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti said.

‘Usually, the deal is arranged before the diamonds are brought here, to Europe, and often at the governmental level. Very often it’s a simple barter arrangement: stones for guns, so the complication of moving large amounts of money is avoided,’ the Count said, increasing Brunetti’s uneasiness by saying, ‘and the transport can usually be arranged by the addition of a percentage charge.’