Blood From a Stone

by Donna Leon

  ‘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 news-reader. 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.

  ‘The Carabinieri hoped to catch them unawares, the article says,’ Brunetti reported.

  Paola bent forward and jabbed a finger at the photo, ‘With half an armoured division at the front door?’ she demanded.

  ‘The men in the apartment,’ Brunetti began and then bowed his head to hunt for the account. ‘“. . . responded with violence, leaving the forces of order no choice but to defend themselves. In the resulting exchange of fire, one policeman was shot in the arm, but the two terrorists were fatally wounded.”’ He read another paragraph silently and then again out loud. ‘“Among the documents found in the apartment were hand-drawn maps of the American embassy in Rome and what is believed to be the water system of the US base in Vicenza.”’

  Brunetti removed his glasses and tossed them on to the papers. ‘There is a statement from someone who is listed as “a member of the special anti-terrorism unit”, who says that the police responded bravely and well and that it is hoped that an investigation will reveal the full extent of the links between this group and international terrorism.’

  Paola moved over to the sink and poured her cold coffee into it. She opened and cleaned the pot, started to fill it with water. ‘More?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Brunetti said. ‘I’ve had too much already.’

  When the pot was on the stove,
Paola sat down opposite him. Gesturing at the papers on the table, she asked, ‘But why did my father call you? What does it mean?’

  Brunetti shrugged. ‘Just about anything, I suppose. It could mean that it is exactly what they say it is, a terrorist cell. But it could mean other things.’

  ‘You’ve had coffee, so you tell me what the possibilities are. My political imagination isn’t awake yet.’

  ‘The first thing that is strange is that they don’t give the nationality of the suspects, nor do they give their names. Nor do they give any idea of what larger terrorist group they’re linked to.’

  ‘The Americans said Islamic fundamentalists.’

  ‘The Americans say that if someone double parks,’ Brunetti answered angrily. Then, in a cooler voice, he went on, ‘Your father called me and told me to watch this, but the original call came from a friend of his. But your father wouldn’t call unless it were related to the black man’s death. But I have no idea how.’

  The coffee bubbled up, and Paola went to take it off the stove. ‘Then go to work and see what they tell you there.’

  At the Questura, where he arrived a little after eight, things seemed as quiet and restrained as they generally did at that hour. He went up to his office, but since he had already read the newspapers, he had no choice but to read through the documents and files that had been accumulating on his desk for more than a month. He found himself thinking that, if the people from the Ministry of the Interior had seen fit to answer his phone for him while they were there, the least they could have done was read and process all of these papers.

  He kept at it doggedly until about eleven, when his phone rang. He answered on the sixth ring, reluctant to be taken from the mindless rhythm of his paperwork. ‘Yes?’ he answered gruffly.

  ‘Good morning, Commissario,’ Signorina Elettra said.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said automatically. ‘I’ve had too much coffee.’

  ‘Apparently so has the Vice-Questore.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘He’s quite ebullient, if that’s the proper word to describe his behaviour. And he wants to see you.’

  ‘I’ll come down,’ Brunetti said, entranced by the idea of what form an ebullient Patta would take.

  It took the form, he saw when he entered Patta’s office a few minutes later, of a broad smile in which Brunetti noticed a considerable proportion of self-satisfaction. ‘Ah, Brunetti,’ Patta fairly chirped when he saw him. ‘I’m glad you came down. There are a number of things I want to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ Brunetti asked, coming forward.

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ Patta said, pointing Brunetti to a chair just in front of him.

  Brunetti took his place but said nothing.

  ‘I know we’re all busy, so I won’t take up too much of your time,’ Patta began, which told Brunetti that he must have plans for an early lunch or for one out of town.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘It’s about this black man who was killed,’ he began, but then, slipping a note of camaraderie into his voice, ‘or, if I must say it, about your refusal to trust me when I said it was being handled by higher authorities.’ Brunetti asked for no explanation, so Patta continued. ‘I told you they knew what was going on with these men.’

  When he saw Brunetti react to that last word, Patta said, ‘Yes. Men. There were a number of them, and the man who was killed was a member of their group.’

  Here Brunetti interrupted the flow to ask, ‘Are you speaking about the incident in Vigonza last night, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’ve spent the morning with my counterpart’ – ah, how Patta loved the rhetoric – ‘at the Ministry of the Interior. He came here to share with me their intelligence on the men who were killed in that gun battle last night.’

  ‘And that was?’ Brunetti inquired.

  ‘The news reports have it right, at least in essence. They were members of a terrorist organization: there’s no question of that. But they aren’t certain yet which larger group they were linked to.’

  ‘No doubt they’ll discover that,’ said a diffident Brunetti.

  Missing his tone, Patta smiled at his words. ‘Of course they will. I’m glad you can see it that way.’

  ‘And the phone call?’ Brunetti prodded.

  ‘An anonymous call, apparently made from a public phone. It told the police where to go.’

  ‘The police? I thought I saw pictures in the paper of Carabinieri vehicles.’ He remembered, but did not mention, the unmarked cars.

  ‘It was a mixed operation,’ Patta answered smoothly.

  Brunetti thought of the men in ski masks but said only, ‘I see.’

  ‘They wanted to get into the apartment before the men realized they were there. But they must have been on guard, or perhaps they heard them.’

  ‘Or saw them from the window?’ Brunetti suggested.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Patta said with the first signs of irritation. ‘But what I do know is that, when the men went in, the terrorists opened fire. There was no choice but to fire back, and in the confusion, both of them were killed. Luckily, only one of us was hit, and not badly.’

  Brunetti resisted the impulse to give voice to an exclamation of prayerful thanksgiving.

  ‘When it was over, they searched the place and found weapons and documents. False passports, an arsenal.’ When Brunetti did not comment or question, Patta added, ‘One of the guns they used is the same calibre as the one that killed the man in Campo Santo Stefano. The first hypothesis is that there was some sort of falling out between them, and they decided to eliminate him,’ Patta concluded. The statements describing the killers as white were among those things disappeared from Signorina Elettra’s computer, and he had never bothered to get the addresses of the American witnesses. Patta pointed at a folder that lay on the desk between them and said, ‘My counterpart brought me copies of the police photos.’

  ‘Will they be in the papers?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Perhaps, in days to come,’ Patta answered, then added, ‘but perhaps some of them are too graphic to be given to the press.’ He opened the folder and turned the photos around, then pushed them across the desk to Brunetti.

  Brunetti knew he would recognize them even before he saw them, so he gave no indication of surprise when the first photo revealed a close-up of two of the black men he had spoken to in the apartment in Castello. The gentle eyes of the older one were open in death, gentle no longer. Nor was he unprepared to see the profile of the very thin young man, who succeeded in looking just as angry in death as he had in life. It was the later photos, taken from farther away so as to give a full view of the room, that did succeed in surprising Brunetti. The older man lay on his back, a machine-gun across his chest, one hand gripped around the stock. The younger man lay on his left side, his right arm thrust out, fingers wrapped around the butt of a pistol.

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, sliding the photos back across the desk.

  ‘I hope the sight of these will be enough to convince you that they knew what they were doing, the men from the Ministry of the Interior.’

  ‘There’s no doubt of that,’ Brunetti said, getting to his feet.

  27

  AS HE WALKED up the stairs to his office, Brunetti realized the low humming sound he heard was one he was making himself. He forced himself to stop, hoping that the pressure he felt as a physical force in his head and chest would ebb away if he did. It seemed to help, and by the time he was back in his office, his rage had diminished sufficiently to allow thought.

  The set-up was easily understood: arrive with enough firepower, blow the men away, and then provide an explanation likely to be believed. What more fashionable than terrorism these days? It was entirely likely that the Carabinieri who were called in had no idea of what was really going on, were there like extras in a production of Aida, useful to cross the stage once or twice to provide verisimilitude in what might otherwise be revealed as a shabby, ill-rehearsed spectacle.
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  Brunetti thought back to the scene the cameras had revealed: the blue cars had no markings, and the uniforms of the men in the ski masks bore no insignia. By calling in some favours, he could probably see the Carabinieri report on the incident, but there was no guarantee that it would reveal the identity of the masked men, nor was it likely to specify which corps had been the first to enter the apartment.

  He tried to recall the appearance of the room in which the two men were photographed, for it suddenly occurred to him that they might just as easily have been executed somewhere else. The shapes on the stretchers were merely shapes, and it was easy enough to spill blood on a floor, any floor. He stopped himself there, realizing that he was entering the land of paranoia: it would, after all, have been far easier for them to track down the two men and follow them to where they were hiding. It required far less scene-setting than the other scenario. Besides, only those who broke into the apartment need know what had happened there.

  Inside his office, Brunetti went to the battered wardrobe against the far wall and pulled down the metal box in which he kept his service revolver. He placed it on his desk and unlocked it, then took out the cloth-covered wooden head.

  He unwrapped it and set it upright on his desk, but the splintered pieces of the neck caused it to fall over and roll to one side. He took it in his hand and studied the face. Though there was no trace of a smile, the head nevertheless gave a sense of peace and well-being. The smooth finish reflected the light. He placed a finger on the pattern carved into the forehead and followed the zigzag until it returned, unbroken, to the point where it had begun.

  ‘Chokwe,’ Brunetti said, trying to pronounce the word as Professoressa Winter had.

  After some time, he replaced the figure in its cloth, slipped it back in the box, and put the box back on to the top shelf of the closet. Then he went home.

  For two days, Brunetti neither discussed the case, nor allowed himself to think about it at any conscious level. To his colleagues, he seemed abstracted, but they paid little attention.