Blood from a stone - Donna Leon

On the way he decided to tell no one. Signorina Elettra’s computer had been wiped clean: let it stay that way. Vianello’s was gone from the Questura: let it stay where it was. The body was gone, but Claudio was safe. If the powers that ruled them wanted to investigate the death on their own, then let them do it. They’d get no more of him. All the way back, he washed his hands of the case, raged at what he referred to as his former, unreformed self for daring to put his friend in jeopardy and for having risked the jobs and, for all he knew, the safety of the two people he loved at the Questura.

Part of his mind had moved on before the other part registered what it had heard. His steps slowed. He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at his shoes, almost surprised to see that he was wearing shoes that were not soaked. ‘The two people I love at the Questura.’

‘Maria Santissima,’ he said, echoing the exclamation with which his mother had always recognized happy surprises.

26

During the next few days, Brunetti fell into a torpor in which he failed to find the will or the energy either to work or to care that he was not working. He interviewed various professors and students at the university and judged them all to be lying, but he could not bring himself to care overmuch that they were. If anything, he took a grim delight in the fact that corruption and dishonesty should manifest themselves in the Department of the Science of Law.

The children sensed that something was wrong: Raffi occasionally asked him for help with his homework, and Chiara insisted on having him read her essays for Italian class, then asked his opinion of what she had written. Paola stopped complaining about school; in fact, she stopped complaining about everything, to such a point that Brunetti began to suspect that his wife had been the victim of alien abduction and a replicant left in her place.

One night at two in the morning, the drug addicts who had committed the rash of burglaries were discovered in the home of a notary, found there by the owner’s son, who had just come back from a party at a friend’s home. The boy had had too much to drink, made a great deal of noise entering the apartment, and when he saw the two men in his parents’ living room, rashly attacked one of them. The father, awakened by the noise, came into the living room carrying a gun, and when the thieves saw him, one of them raised a hand. The notary shot him in the face and killed him. The other one panicked and tried to flee, but when he broke loose from the son, the notary shot him in the chest, also killing him instantly. He put the gun down and called the police.

Brunetti, reading the reports the following morning, was appalled by the waste and stupidity. They might have taken a radio, a television at worst, maybe some jewellery. The notary was the sort of person who would have insurance; nothing would be lost. And now these two poor devils were dead. The uncle of one of them was a tailor at the shop where Brunetti bought his suits and came to the Questura to ask him if anything would happen to the notary. Brunetti had to tell him that there was every likelihood that it would be declared a case of legittima difesa, in which case no blame would fall upon the killer.

‘But is that right?’ the man demanded. ‘He shoots Mirko in the face like he was a dog and nothing happens to him?’

‘Legally he did nothing we can charge him with, Signor Buffetti. He had a permit for the gun. His son says your nephew tried to attack him.’

‘Of course he’d say that,’ the man shouted. ‘He’s his son.’

‘I know how it must seem to you,’ Brunetti said. ‘But there’s no legal case that can be brought against him.’

The tailor tried to control his anger. Accepting the validity of Brunetti’s judgement, he got to his feet and went to the door. Before he left, he turned and said, ‘I can’t argue with you, not in a legal way, Dottore. But I know that the police shouldn’t let a man be shot and do nothing about it.’ He closed the door quietly as he left.

Brunetti was not a man given to belief in signs and portents: the real had always seemed sufficiently marvellous to him. But he could recognize the truth when someone presented it to him.

Signorina Elettra, perhaps sobered by the ease with which her computer had been violated, had not asked about the case and had made no suggestion that she resume making inquiries. Vianello had taken his family to the mountains for two weeks. When Buffetti had gone, Brunetti used Signor Rossi’s telefonino to call Vianello on his.

‘Lorenzo,’ Brunetti said when the inspector answered, ‘when you get back, I think we have to attend to some unfinished business.’

‘That’s not going to make some people happy,’ Vianello answered laconically.

‘Probably not.’

‘I’ve still got all the information,’ Vianello said.

‘Good.’

‘I’m very glad you called,’ Vianello said and broke the connection.

Two nights later the phone rang just before eleven. Paola answered with the cool, impersonal curiosity she directed at anyone who called after ten. A moment later, her tone changed, and she spoke to the person using the familiar ‘tu’. Brunetti listened, wondering which of her friends it might be, but then she turned to him and said, ‘It’s for you. It’s my father.’

‘Good evening, Guido,’ the Count said when Brunetti took the phone.

‘Good evening,’ answered Brunetti, doing his best to sound normal.

The Count surprised him by asking, ‘Do you get CNN?’

‘What?’

‘The television, CNN?’

‘Yes. The kids watch it for their English,’ he answered.

‘I think you should turn on their news at midnight.’

Brunetti glanced at his watch and saw that it was only a few minutes after eleven. ‘Not until then?’

‘It won’t be on until then, what I want you to see. I’ve just had a phone call from a friend.’

‘But why CNN?’ Brunetti asked. He thought RAI had a midnight newscast, but he wasn’t sure.

‘You’ll understand when you see it. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow, but I think you’d better see the way it’s going to be presented.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Brunetti said.

‘You will,’ the Count said and hung up.

He told Paola about the conversation, but she could make no sense of it, either. Together they went into the living room and turned on the television. Paola took the remote and switched from channel to channel. They flicked past people trying to sell mattresses, women reading tarot cards, an old film, another old film, two people of indeterminate gender engaged in an activity that was perhaps meant to be sexual, another fortune teller, until finally they came upon the faintly alien face of the CNN newsreader.

‘They never have two matching eyes,’ Paola remarked as she sat on the sofa. ‘And I think they all wear wigs.’

‘You mean you watch this?’ asked an astonished Brunetti.

‘Sometimes, with the kids,’ she said defensively.

‘He said midnight,’ Brunetti reminded her and took the remote control from her hand. He pushed the mute button.

‘There’s time for something to drink, then,’ Paola said and got to her feet. She disappeared towards the kitchen, leaving Brunetti to wonder whether she would emerge with something real to drink or a cup of tisane.

His eyes turned to the screen and he watched what appeared to be a programme about the stock market: a man and a woman, equally other-worldly in appearance, chatted amiably, occasionally reducing each other to peals of not very convincing silent laughter, while below the picture scrolled stock prices that would reduce any thinking person to tears.

After about ten minutes Paola came back with two mugs, saying: ‘The best of both worlds: hot water, lemon, honey, and whiskey.’

She handed him one, then joined him on the sofa to observe the two not-talking heads. Soon she too registered the disparity between the hilarity of the presenters and the misery of the numbers that continued their tidal flow below them. ‘It’s like watching Nero playing the lyre while Rome burns,’ she observed.

‘That’s not a true story,’ the historian in Brunetti declared.

At five to midnight he restored the sound but quickly adjusted it to a barely audible minimum. With a final cheery smile, the two presenters disappeared, to be replaced by a rapid series of views of some Gulf state eager for foreign investment or tourism.

A globe, the throb of portentous music, and then the face of another presenter. Brunetti increased the sound and together they listened to a report on the latest suicidal attack in the Middle East, then one by an F16 with an equal number of victims. There followed a report from Delhi about another failed attempt to restore peace in Kashmir.

And then the presenter’s face took on an expression of learned seriousness. Brunetti increased the volume again. ‘And now, breaking news from Italy. We pass you to our local correspondent, Arnoldo Vitale, with a live report of a terrorist attempt that has been foiled by the Italian police. Arnoldo, are you there?’

‘Yes, Jim,’ said a lightly accented voice in English. There was a slight pause and crackle as the image changed and the voice line switched over. In the top left corner of the screen appeared a talking head, behind him the dome of St Peter’s Basilica.

The rest of the screen showed the grey stucco façade of an apartment building. In front of it were parked the black Jeeps and cars of the Carabinieri as well as four unmarked dark sedans. Men in helmets and flak jackets with CARABINIERI written across the back, all carrying machine-guns, milled around with evident lack of purpose. To the left of them stood a group of four or five men in combat gear, all wearing ski masks.

The voice continued. ‘This evening, Italian police raided an apartment in Vigonza, a generally peaceful suburb of the northern Italian city of Padova, not far from Venice. This in response to a report that members of an Islamic fundamentalist sect had been using one of the apartments in the building as a centre for meetings and training sessions. Italian security experts linking the group to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization and its attacks against American interests.

‘First reports that the police attempted to get the two men in the apartment to give themselves up. Response from the terrorist suspects violent, leaving the police no choice but to storm the apartment. In the ensuing gun battle, one police officer wounded and both of the terrorists in the apartment killed.’

‘Arnoldo,’ asked the unaccented voice, ‘how strong is this link to international terrorism?’

‘Yes, Jim, the police here say they have been aware of this group for some time. As you know, arrests have been made all over Italy this year of suspected terrorists. A government spokesperson reporting that this is the most violent confrontation so far and hopes it is not a sign of things to come.’

‘Arnoldo, is there any perceived threat to Americans travelling in Italy?’

‘No, none at all, Jim. The same spokesman said that any connection to US interests would be to US base in Vicenza, about twenty miles from here. Authorities examining that possibility, but believe no danger to the civilian population.’

As the two men spoke, the Carabinieri continued to wander about in front of the building. Finally the door opened inward and a man carrying the front of a stretcher emerged, then a second man. A long shape covered with a sheet lay on it. A second stretcher emerged, but the Carabinieri ignored both, turning to face the crowd that stood behind a hastily erected row of barriers.

‘Once again, Jim: terrorist network broken up by intervention by Italian police. No threat to Americans on vacation in the country.’ Voice sinking into inflated portentiousness, he concluded, ‘But it looks like Italy is now home to something other than la dolce vita.’

The picture returned to the newsreader. He gave a serious smile and said, ‘That was our Italian correspondent, Arnoldo Vitale, speaking from Rome. Italian police reporting break-up of terrorist ring based near Padova, Italy. No threat to Americans in the area.’

The camera panned to the woman sitting beside him. She turned to Jim, saying, ‘We’ve got more news from Italy, Jim, but of a different sort.’ There was a pause, one no doubt deemed long enough to erase the thought of the death of two men, and she went on, ‘In news that has stunned the fashion industry, one of Italy’s most famous fashion designers says he will not use leather or any animal products in his spring collection.’

Brunetti switched the channel to RAI, but the same old movie was still playing. He tried all of the channels in turn, but there was no report of the incident, not even on the local stations.

He turned the television off. ‘Did your father say where he was calling from?’

Surprised by the question, Paola said, ‘No, he didn’t.’

Brunetti looked at his watch. ‘If I call now and he’s not there, I’ll wake your mother, won’t I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it will have to wait,’ he said, picking up his cup. But the drink was cold and he set it down untasted.

Brunetti slept little and was outside by six-thirty, walking in rain he barely noticed towards Sant’ Aponal and the edicola there. He saw the shouting headlines and bought four papers. As he handed Brunetti his change, the news dealer said, with a return to his normal tone, ‘Lousy rain. It’ll never stop.’

Brunetti ignored him and went back home, not bothering to stop to get brioche on the way. In the kitchen, he made himself a pot of coffee and set some milk on to heat. Then he mixed them in a mug and sat in front of the papers, which he had arranged in a neat pile with his glasses folded on top.

Paola came in half an hour later and found him still reading, newspapers open across the entire surface of the table. Though he had read all of the accounts carefully, he still had no idea why his father-in-law had told him to watch the news.

She poured what remained of the coffee into a cup, stirred in sugar, and came to stand behind him. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she asked, ‘And?’

‘And it’s pretty much what they said last night: two men in an apartment near Padova. The Carabinieri received a phone call saying they were members of a terrorist group that was preparing attacks against American interests.’

‘What interests?’ Paola asked.

‘That wasn’t explained. At least not in the papers,’ he said, pushing the one he was reading aside.

‘And then?’ she asked, her coffee forgotten, hand still on his shoulder.

‘And they went. You saw the way they were last night, cars and Jeeps and trucks, and God knows how many of them.’ Brunetti pulled one of the papers towards him and flipped back to the front page, where they could both see a photo of the same apartment, the same stretcher bearers, the same apparently purposeless Carabinieri.