Unto Us a Son Is Given

by Donna Leon

  Suddenly the waiter excused himself and walked over to a table where two men were seated and came quickly back to give their order to the bartender. After he took their drinks to them and gave a look around the other tables, he returned to the bar and resumed. ‘So I started to pay attention to him and to the other guy, who always paid in cash, too.’ When he saw confusion cross Brunetti’s face, he explained. ‘Guests always put the bill on their room.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I noticed that they both came in alone but always seemed to end up talking to someone else, then moving to his table.’ So, Brunetti said to himself, it was always men they spoke to.

  ‘Then one night I noticed that the guy I recognized would disappear for a while, and then the man whose table he had gone to would follow him after about a minute, and neither one of them would come back for about ten minutes.’ He stopped and gave Brunetti a long look, managing to appear very embarrassed by what he had just said.

  As if to wipe away any suspicion Brunetti might have about his bothering to tell this long story, he said, ‘At first I thought they were going outside for a cigarette, but they didn’t go to the front of the hotel and the exit but back towards the men’s room.’

  Brunetti pulled his lips together and raised his eyebrows. The bartender moved forward and asked if he’d like another glass of wine, but Brunetti refused.

  ‘So what did you do?’ he asked the waiter.

  ‘I watched them for the next few weekends, and I realized the other guy had the same pattern, more or less, though not every night he was here.’

  His eyes flashed across to the tables, but when no one signalled, he continued. ‘I didn’t like it. It’s not my hotel and it’s none of my business what people choose to do, but for the love of God, not in the men’s room in a public place. What happens if there’s a family here or someone brings his kid in for a Coke during the summer, and the kid goes to the bathroom, and he sees two men coming out of the same cubicle or he sees something else, I don’t know what.’ He looked out over the tables again, but no one tried to catch his eye.

  ‘What did you do?’ Brunetti repeated.

  ‘I told the boss, and they put a camera in the men’s room. Well, not really in the room, but on the far wall, inside, and it’s trained on the door, so you see whoever comes in.’

  Brunetti did his best to hide his excitement and asked, ‘What did you do about the two men?’

  The waiter and the barman exchanged a long look, and this time the barman spoke. ‘The day after it was installed, the first one came over to pay his bill when he was leaving, and I asked him if he knew that there was a video camera in the men’s room.’

  He pressed his lips together and tilted his head to one side, as though he wanted to give evidence of his confusion. He glanced at his colleague, who nodded, so he continued, ‘We thought it was right to tell him.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He dropped his change. Didn’t even bother to try to pick it up. He left, and I haven’t seen him again.’

  ‘And the other one?’

  The waiter interrupted. ‘He never came back after that night, either.’

  Keeping his voice as calm as he could, Brunetti asked, ‘Is the camera still there?’

  Again, the two men looked at one another. The waiter said, ‘I suppose so. There’s no reason not to have it there.’

  Brunetti finished his wine. He reached for his wallet, but the waiter put his hand on his arm. ‘Please, Signore. You’re our guest.’

  ‘Am I allowed to leave a tip?’ Brunetti asked with a broad smile to show he was joking.

  ‘The very idea,’ the bartender said in the voice of a maiden aunt at the sight of a too-short skirt.

  ‘Thanks, then,’ Brunetti said, leaning over the counter to shake the hand of the bartender. The waiter’s hand was waiting when he turned, and Brunetti shook that, as well, then said, ‘If I can ever fix a parking ticket for you, gentlemen, my name’s Brunetti, and it would be my pleasure to do it.’

  Both men laughed, and Brunetti went back to speak to the concierge.

  27

  With no explanation of how he had learned about it, Brunetti asked the concierge to send the file from the video camera that filmed the door of the men’s room to his private email address so that he could have a look himself. When he got home, he poured himself a glass of white wine, sat in front of Paola’s computer, and opened the file attached to the email. He moved the timer at the bottom of the screen to six o’clock of the night of the murder and settled down to watch.

  He had had no idea of how tedious it would be to keep his eyes on a door that repeatedly opened to allow a man to pass through it, either entering or leaving. After less than half an hour, he found himself agitated at the constant flash of the faces and heads of men entering and leaving the men’s room, as if he were looking at an American comic film from the Twenties played at double speed. Viewing turned to something approaching pain. Each man was visible for, at the most, three seconds and was replaced instantly. No matter how much the flashing images troubled Brunetti, he could not take his eyes from the screen. If he wanted to glance away or close his eyes, even for an instant, he had to stop the tape and stare at the far distance for a moment, then resume. Twice, he had to stop the video and move it back to see the last man to come through the door, only to discover that he could not remember if he had seen the face or not. At one point, he stopped the video and went to the window to study the tree in the courtyard below their apartment, then went back to the computer.

  He heard the front door open and close and Chiara call out, ‘Who’s home?’

  ‘I am,’ Brunetti called out, feeling a bit like Papa Bear.

  She came in, carrying her backpack, and walked over to kiss him on the top of his head. She looked at the screen and asked in her sweetest voice, ‘Have they demoted you to watching surveillance films?’

  ‘You watch too much television,’ Brunetti said in his roughest voice.

  She kissed him again and went back towards the kitchen.

  He was vaguely aware that she later passed down the hall to her room. He stopped the video and got up to turn on the lights and saw that it was after seven. He went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water, wished he had the patience to make himself a coffee or that they lived on the first floor and he could go down to Rizzardini to get one.

  He sat again and was about to continue when he heard the front door open and close and light footsteps come down the hall. Paola was at the door, smiling, curious. ‘You? At the computer?’ She laughed, then asked, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for a killer,’ he said.

  ‘Same old work day, eh?’ she asked as she came across the room. Like Chiara, she kissed him on the head and looked at the screen. ‘But there’s nothing there,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Just a door.’

  ‘I had to stop,’ he confessed.

  ‘Why?’ Paola asked, coming around to stand beside him.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said and clicked on the arrow.

  After three minutes of watching the continual in and out of men through the door, Paola said, ‘It’s a good thing you keep your pistol locked up in the wardrobe somewhere.’

  ‘Because I’d shoot myself?’ Brunetti guessed.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said and then asked, ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s a video of the door to the men’s room at a hotel.’

  She leaned to the side and dragged a chair over beside him and sat. ‘Tell me why you’re watching this.’

  Brunetti repeated what the bartender and waiter had explained about the video.

  ‘And you’re waiting for Gonzalo’s young man to come through the door?’ she asked. ‘Or hoping?’

  It took him a moment to think about that. ‘No, I’m not hoping.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t want Gonzalo to be responsible for her death.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said and went silent for a long time, until she
added, ‘I see.’

  Brunetti leaned forward and started the video again. They sat, silent, side by side, for ten minutes until Paola said, ‘I find this frightening.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at their faces,’ she said, voice surprisingly sober. ‘These are men on their own for a few minutes, with no one to talk to, no one to boast to, no one to tell their stories to. And just look at their faces. Have you ever seen such misery in your life?’

  With newly-focused eyes, Brunetti observed what he now saw as a cavalcade of sadness and woe. He studied the faces of the men entering and those leaving: they could have been on their way to their own funerals, so grim were their expressions, so dejected their posture. Why had he not noticed that before? He watched two more case studies in despair, and stopped the video. ‘Why don’t you sit on the sofa and read, and I’ll watch this until the end?’ he asked Paola.

  ‘Why don’t I make dinner, instead?’ Paola asked and patted his shoulder.

  ‘Bless you,’ Brunetti answered, though not to any of the men who were passing through the door.

  A few minutes later, Chiara brought him a glass of wine and then came back after what seemed a long time to tell him dinner was ready. Brunetti emerged from the room red-eyed and exhausted, battered down by the sight of so many hard-faced men. Dinner helped, but he was in front of the computer as soon as he finished eating, refusing Paola’s offer of a grappa.

  He started anew, fighting off food-induced drowsiness. And then, when the clock at the bottom of the screen read 23:22, the door opened and Attilio Circetti, Marchese di Torrebardo, walked into the men’s room. He made no attempt to lower his head or put his hand over his face: he was a man in a man’s world and held himself up straight and proud. Three minutes later, he walked out: Brunetti noticed the light-coloured coat he was wearing and the dark blue scarf around his neck. Brunetti clicked off the video and decided he would have the grappa.

  28

  The next morning, Brunetti remained in bed until after nine, drinking two cups of coffee and reading that morning’s Gazzettino, those things supplied by his wife, who applauded him in his lethargy and negligence.

  After Paola left for the university, he called the magistrate who was in charge of the investigation of Berta’s murder and asked if he could meet her at the Questura in an hour, when he would tell her what he’d discovered since last they spoke. Then he called Torrebardo, asking him to come back that afternoon at three to answer a few more questions.

  The young man’s peevish agreement pleased Brunetti; a person who is worried does not easily succeed at indignant refusal: the Marchese didn’t even attempt it. Or perhaps the desire to find out what Brunetti knew proved irresistible. Il Marchese did at least make it clear that he would have to cancel an appointment in order to be at the Questura at three.

  On his way to the Questura, Brunetti had another coffee, this one with a brioche, and arrived at the same time as the magistrate. They went up to his office, and he explained the importance of the Marchese’s appearance on the video in light of his insistence, registered on tape during their interview, that he had spent the evening of the murder at home because of a headache, even cancelling a dinner engagement to do so.

  After assuring her there was no doubt it was Torrebardo who appeared in the video, Brunetti easily persuaded her to agree to order a DNA test of Torrebardo’s clothing to see if there were traces of the DNA of the murdered woman he insisted he had not seen in Venice.

  There remained time for lunch; Brunetti called Paola and told her he was too restless to eat, only to have her say, laughing, ‘I’m writing the date down, Guido. I’ll put a notice in the papers.’ Then, still laughing, she said, ‘Try to calm down in time for dinner. We’re having peperonata con polenta,’ and hung up.

  He pulled out the folder of Berta Dodson’s emails and started to read them through again, interpreting them in light of her still being married to Gonzalo. The texts made sense now: once the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle was slipped into place, the entire scene came into perfect focus and made it easy for him to abandon the possibility of some murky financial scandal that would be passed on to any heir Gonzalo named.

  What animated Gonzalo’s deceit was – at least to Brunetti – of an entirely different order, and far worse. He had bought the favours of this young man with a promise of financial reward knowing that his – say it – wife would reveal their marriage after his death. And so, blinded by love – or perhaps it was lust – Gonzalo had gone ahead with the adoption, aware that his son would eventually be stripped of his inheritance: no apartment, no paintings, no anything. What he had not calculated was that his best friend would be stripped of her life because he had so badly misjudged his heir.

  Brunetti closed his eyes and the papers disappeared, taking with them the last words of his dead friend and that man’s best friend. He thought about Gonzalo and what he had done, and why. He stared at the top sheet of paper, then swept them all into his drawer and locked it. He left the Questura and started walking down towards Castello with no destination in mind.

  He paused after an hour and went into a bar, where he had a very bad tramezzino, most of which he left uneaten on his plate on the counter, along with his unfinished wine. When he got to San Pietro di Castello, he sat on one of the benches on the tiny patch of grass in front of the church and watched the advance of the pigeons, optimistic in the belief that he was yet another large creature with some bread in its pocket. They gave up after five minutes or so and tried the same tactic, with significantly greater success, on a grey-haired woman wearing a coat over her apron who stood on the pavement near the canal.

  Brunetti found it surprisingly relaxing to watch her pull pieces of bread from the pockets of her coat and then from those of her apron, tear them in pieces, and toss them to the pigeons. The birds all seemed to be old friends: there was no crowding, no pecking each other. They put their heads down and ate their lunch quietly, something Brunetti still had no desire to do.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that it was after two, got to his feet, and headed back towards the Questura. He saluted the man at the door, who said nothing this time about anyone’s having come to see him, and so went back to his office. He was hungry now but told himself to ignore it.

  About an hour later, Pucetti knocked on his open door. He stepped back, and Torrebardo walked in front of him as though the officer were invisible.

  Brunetti looked up at the young aristocrat and whispered under his breath, ‘Mirabile visu,’ for Torrebardo was wearing the same light coat he had been wearing in the video. ‘Ah,’ he said with unfeigned pleasure. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  Petulance is not an attractive thing to see in an adult. In fact, it’s not a pleasant thing to see in anyone above the age of four. Brunetti steeled himself to the look on Torrebardo’s face and walked towards the door to meet him. When Torrebardo removed his coat, Brunetti took it from him, careful to lift it by the tag on the inside of the collar. He folded it backwards and laid it over the second chair in front of his desk. ‘Have a seat, please,’ he told Torrebardo and went back to the door. In the corridor, Pucetti stood talking to one of the translators.

  Brunetti called and waved Pucetti back with a quick gesture. When the young officer was in front of him, Brunetti leaned close and said, voice urgent, ‘Call Dottoressa Baldassare and tell her I need those papers now.’

  Pucetti remained silent for a few seconds, and when Brunetti said no more, saluted and turned away to go and make the call.

  Brunetti returned to his office; when he was seated, he reached to the side of his desk and made it obvious that he was switching on the microphones again, then put his elbows on the desk and folded his hands under his chin. ‘The last time we spoke, Marchese Torrebardo, you told me you’d had a telephone call from Signora Dodson.’ He paused.

  Torrebardo nodded, and Brunetti said, without bothering to state the obvious, ‘Could you state your answer, please?’

>   ‘Yes,’ the young man said.

  Calmly, Brunetti continued. ‘Could you tell me in more detail about the conversation and how it was you happened to speak to Signora Dodson?’

  When he began to answer, it was clear to Brunetti that il Marchese had told himself to remain calm and agreeable and to give every appearance of friendliness and willingness to cooperate. ‘I think I’ve told you everything, Commissario,’ he said in a voice from which had been erased all annoyance or irritation. They might have been two close friends in easy conversation.

  Brunetti was well aware that he’d been told all there was to say about that conversation, but he hoped Torrebardo would see it as an opportunity to perform once more as an innocent man being patient with the authorities.

  When it became obvious that Brunetti was not going to ask again, Torrebardo gave a long sigh and said, ‘As I said the last time, I first met her two years ago, in London, when my father introduced me to her as his best friend. I’d often heard him speak well of her. We had tea together and had a very pleasant conversation, and then I didn’t hear from her again until the other day, when she phoned me to say she was already in Venice and busy trying to arrange a memorial service for my father. She told me she’d call me again when she had the date and place for the occasion.’ He’d let his voice fall into the descending cadence one puts at the end of a conversation and looked across at Brunetti to show he was finished.

  ‘She did not tell you the name of her hotel?’

  ‘Why would she?’ flashed out before Torrebardo could stop himself. Hearing it, he quickly added, speaking in a patient, reasonable voice, ‘There was no time for us to meet, so there was no need for her to tell me.’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said and named the hotel. ‘Are you familiar with it, by any chance?’