A Noble Radiance

by Donna Leon

  'Fine. What's it called?'

  'La Bussola. It's just off San Leonardo, heading towards Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. One o'clock?'

  'That'll be fine. I'll see you there. At one’ Brunetti hung up and pulled the phonebook back towards him. He flipped through it until he came to the 'S's. He found a number of Salviatis, but only one Enrico, listed as a 'consulente', a term that always amused Brunetti as much as it confused him.

  The phone rang six times before a woman's voice, already annoyed at the caller, answered, 'Pronto’

  'Signora Salviati?' Brunetti asked.

  The woman was panting, as though she'd run to answer the phone. 'Yes, what is it?'

  'Signora Salviati, this is Commissario Guido Brunetti. I'd like to ask you a few questions about the Lorenzoni kidnapping’ From beyond her, he heard the high wailing of a baby's scream, that genetically pitched howl no human can ignore.

  He heard the phone slam down on a hard surface, thought he heard her tell him to wait, and then all sound was swallowed up in the wail, which rose up to a sudden squeal and, as suddenly as it had started, stopped.

  She was back at the phone again. ‘I told you everything about that years ago. I don't even remember it very clearly now. So much time has passed, so much has happened.'

  'I realize that, Signora, but it would be a great help to us if you could spare me a little time. I guarantee it wouldn't take long at all’

  'Then why can't we do it on the phone?'

  'I'd prefer to do it in person, Signora. I'm afraid I don't like the phone very much’

  'When?' she asked in sudden concession.

  ‘I saw that your address is in Santa Croce. I've got to be over there this morning' - he didn't, but it was close to the traghetto at San Marcuola and so he could quickly get to San Leonardo and lunch with the Count - 'so it would be very easy for me to stop by. If that’s convenient with you, of course.'

  'Let me look at my schedule’ she said, putting the phone down again.

  She had been seventeen when the kidnapping happened, so she was not even twenty now, and with what sounded like a very young baby. Schedule?

  'If you came at quarter to twelve, we could talk. But I've got an engagement for lunch.'

  'That’s perfect for me, Signora. I'll see you then’ he said quickly and hung up before she could change her mind or check her schedule again.

  He called Paola and told her that he couldn't come home for lunch. As usual, she accepted this with such equanimity that Brunetti wondered for an instant if she had already made other plans. 'What will you do?' he asked.

  'Humm?' she asked. 'Oh, read.'

  'And the children? What about them?'

  'I’ll feed them, Guido, don't worry. You know how they wolf their food down if the two of us aren't there to exert a civilizing influence on them, so I'll have plenty of time to myself’

  'Will you eat, too?' he asked.

  'Guido, you're obsessed with food. You do know that, don't you?'

  'Only because of the frequency with which you remind me of it, my treasure’ he said with a laugh. He thought of telling her she was obsessed with reading, but Paola would just take that as a compliment, so he told her he'd be home for supper and hung up.

  He left the Questura without bothering to tell anyone where he was going and was careful to take the back steps and so avoid Vice-Questore Patta, who, given the fact that it was after eleven, might safely be assumed to be in his office.

  Outside, Brunetti, who was wearing both a woollen suit and a light coat in response to the early morning chill, was surprised at how warm it had become. He started along the embankment and was just turning left into the trail of streets that would take him out to Campo Santa Maria Formosa and, from there, to the Rialto, when he suddenly stopped and took off his coat. He turned and went back towards the Questura. When he got to the building the guards inside recognized him and pressed the switch that opened the large glass doors. He went into the small office on the right and saw Pucetti at the desk, talking on the phone. Seeing his superior, Pucetti said something and hung up, then quickly got to his feet.

  ’Pucetti’ Brunetti said, making a pushing gesture with one hand to force the young man to sit down again. ‘I’d like to leave this here for a few hours. I'll pick it up when I get back.'

  Pucetti, instead of resuming his seat, came forward and took the coat from his hands. I’ll put it up in your office, if I might, Dottore.'

  'No, it’s fine here. Don't bother.'

  ‘I’d rather, sir. We've had a number of things disappear down here during the last few weeks.'

  'What?' Brunetti asked with real surprise. ‘From the guard room of the Questura?'

  'It’s them, sir,' Pucetti said, nodding in the direction of the interminable line that stretched back from the door of the Ufficio Stranieri, on which it seemed like hundreds of people waited to fill out the forms that would legalize their residence in the city. 'We're getting a lot of Albanians and Slavs, and you know what thieves they are.'

  Had Pucetti said such a thing to Paola, she would have been all over him in an instant, calling him a bigot and a racist, and pointing out that all Albanians and all Slavs, weren't anything. But as she wasn't there and as Brunetti, in general, tended to agree with Pucetti's sentiments, he did nothing more than thank the young man and leave the building.

  7

  As he was leaving Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Brunetti suddenly remembered something he had seen last autumn in Campo Santa Marina, so he cut through to the smaller campo and turned right just as he entered it. The metal cages were already hung outside the windows of the pet shop. Brunetti drew closer to see if the merlo indiano was still there. Surely that was it, up in the top cage, feathers black and gleaming, one jet eye turned towards him.

  Brunetti approached the cage, leaned forward, and said, 'Ciao’ Nothing. Undaunted, he repeated, 'Ciao’ careful to draw the word out to two syllables. The bird hopped nervously from one parallel bar to the other, turned, and regarded Brunetti with the other eye. He glanced around and noticed that a white-haired woman had stopped in front of the edicola in the middle of the campo and was giving him a very strange look. He ignored her and turned his attention back to the bird. 'Ciao’ he said again.

  It suddenly occurred to Brunetti that this might be a different bird; after all, one medium-sized mynah bird looked pretty much like any other. He tried once more, 'Ciao’ Silence. Disappointed, he turned away, smiling weakly at the woman, who stood still, staring across the campo at him.

  Brunetti had gone only two steps when, from behind him, he heard his own voice call out, 'Ciao,' the last vowel much prolonged, in the manner of birds.

  He turned around immediately and went back to his place in front of the cage. 'Come ti stai?’ he asked this time, paused a moment, then put the question again. He felt, rather than saw, a presence beside him and turned to see the white-haired woman standing there. He smiled, and she smiled back. 'Come ti stai?’ he asked the bird again, and with absolute vocal fidelity, it asked him right back, 'Come ti stai?’ in a voice eerily like his own.

  'What else can he say?' the woman asked.

  'I don't know, Signora. That's all I've ever heard it say.'

  'Wonderful, isn't it?' she asked, and when he looked at her smile of simple delight, he saw that the years had dropped away from her.

  'Yes, wonderful,' he said, and left her there in front of the store, saying 'Ciao, ciao, ciao', to the bird.

  He cut through to Santi Apostoli and up Strada Nuova as far as San Marcuola, where he took the traghetto across the Grand Canal. The reflection from the water was so intense that Brunetti wished he had his sunglasses, but who, that foggy, damp morning of early spring, would have thought such splendour had been in store for the city?

  On the other side, he cut to the right, then to the left, and then back to the right, following unconscious instructions that were programmed into him during decades of walking the city streets to visit friends, take gir
ls home, get a coffee, or to do any of those thousand things a young man did without any conscious thought of destination or route. Soon he came out in Campo San Zan Degola. To the best of Brunetti's knowledge, no one knew whether it was the decapitated body of San Giovanni or his missing head which was venerated in the church. It seemed to him to make little difference.

  The Salviati she had married was the son of Fulvio, the notary, so Brunetti knew the house had to be down the second calle on the right, third house on the left. And so it proved: the number was the same as the one in the phone book, though three different Salviatis lived here. The bottom bell had the initial E, and so Brunetti rang it, wondering if they got to move to the higher floors of the building as the older members of the family died and left the apartments vacant.

  The door snapped open and he went in. In front of him was a narrow walkway, leading across a courtyard to a flight of steps. Cheerful-looking tulips lined the walkway on both sides, and a brave magnolia was just coming into blossom in the centre of the grass to the left of the path.

  He walked up the steps and, as he reached the door at the top, he heard the lock release. On the other side were more steps, these leading to a landing on which stood two doors.

  At the top, the door on the left opened and a young woman came out to the landing. 'Are you the policeman?' she asked. 'I've forgotten your name.'

  'Brunetti’ he said as he walked up the remaining steps towards her. She stood in front of the door, no expression whatsoever on what would otherwise have been a very pretty face. If the baby was indeed hers, and if it was as young as his information suggested, then she had lost no time in getting back her trim young body, which was dressed in a tight red skirt and an even tighter black sweater. Her bland face was surrounded by a cloud of curly black hair that fell to her shoulders, and she looked at him with surprising lack of interest.

  When he reached the top of the steps," he said, 'Thank you for agreeing to talk to me, Signora.'

  She didn't bother to answer this or to acknowledge that he had spoken, but turned to lead him back into the apartment, ignoring his muttered, 'Permesso.'

  'We can go in here,' she said over her shoulder, leading him into a large living room on the left. On the walls Brunetti saw etchings depicting scenes of such violence that they had to be Goyas. Three windows looked down on an enclosed space which he assumed was the narrow courtyard he had come through; the enclosing wall was uncomfortably close. She sat down in the centre of a low sofa and crossed her legs, exposing more thigh than Brunetti was accustomed to see displayed by young mothers. Waving to a chair that stood opposite her, she asked, 'What is it you'd like to know?'

  Brunetti tried to assess the emotion that was emanating from her and knew that his instincts sought nervousness. But he found nothing other than irritation.

  ‘I’d like you to tell me how long you knew Roberto Lorenzoni’

  She pushed at a lock of hair with the back of her hand, probably unconscious of how impatient the gesture made her seem. 1 told all that to the other policeman’

  ‘I know that, Signora. I've read the report, but I'd like you to tell me in your own words.'

  ‘I’d like to think it's my own words that are in the report,' she said curtly.

  ‘I’m sure they are. But I'd like to hear for myself what you have to say about him. It might give me a better understanding of what sort of man he was’

  'Have you found the people who took him?' she asked with the first sign of real curiosity she had displayed since he arrived.

  'No.'

  She seemed disappointed at this but said nothing.

  'Could you tell me how long you knew him?'

  1 went out with him for a year or so. Before it happened, that is.'

  'And what sort of person was he?'

  'What do you mean, "What sort of person was he?" He was someone I went to school with. We had things in common, liked to do the same things. He made me laugh.'

  'Is that why you thought it might be a joke, the kidnapping?'

  'Why I what?’ she asked with real confusion..

  'It says in the original report’ Brunetti explained, 'that you first thought it might be a joke. When it happened, that is.'

  She looked away from Brunetti, as if listening to music played so softly in another room that only she could hear it. 'I said that?'

  Brunetti nodded.

  After a long pause, she said, 'Well, I suppose I could have. Roberto had some very strange friends.'

  'What sort of friends?'

  'Oh, you know, students from the university.'

  ‘I’m not sure I understand why they would be strange,' Brunetti said.

  'Well, none of them worked, but they all had a lot of money.' As if she knew how weak this sounded, she continued, 'No, that's not it. They said strange things, about how they could do anything they wanted to in life or with their lives. Things like that. The sort of things students say.' Seeing the look of polite expectation on Brunetti's face, she added, 'And they were very interested in fear.'

  'Fear?'

  'Yes, they read those horror books, and they were always going to see movies that had lots of violence and things like that in them.'

  Brunetti nodded and made a non-committal noise.

  'In fact, that was one of the reasons I had pretty much decided to stop seeing Roberto. But men it happened, and I didn't have to tell him.' Was that relief he heard in her voice?

  The door opened, and a middle-aged woman came into the room, carrying a baby which had its mouth open, poised to scream. When she saw Brunetti, the woman stopped, and sensing her motion, the baby closed its mouth and turned to look at the source of the woman's surprise. Brunetti stood.

  "This is the policeman. Mamma’ the young woman said, paying no attention at all to the baby, and then asked, 'Did you want something?'

  'No, no, Francesca. But it’s time for the feeding.'

  It'll have to wait, won't it?' the girl answered as though the idea gave her some satisfaction. She looked at Brunetti and then back at the woman she called Mamma. 'Not unless you want the policeman to watch me nurse.'

  The woman made an inarticulate noise and grabbed the baby more tightly. It - Brunetti could never tell if the tiny ones were boys or girls - continued to stare at him and then turned towards its grandmother and gave a bubbling laugh.

  ‘I suppose we can wait ten minutes,' the older woman said and turned and left the room, the baby's laugh following behind her like the wake of a ship.

  'Your mother?' Brunetti asked, though he was doubtful about this.

  'My husband's,' she answered curtly. 'What else do you want to know about Roberto?'

  'Did you, at the time, think that some of his friends rmight have engineered this?'

  Before she answered, she brushed again at her hair. 'Will you tell me why you want to know?' she asked. The tone of her question took years from her previous manner and reminded Brunetti that she couldn't yet be twenty.

  'Will that help you answer the question?' he asked.

  ‘I don't know. But I still know a lot of these people, and I don't want to say anything that might .. .'.She allowed her sentence to trail off, leaving Brunetti to wonder what sort of answer she might give.

  'We've found what might be his body,' he said and offered no further explanation.

  Then it couldn't have been a joke’ she said instantly.

  Brunetti smiled and nodded in what he wanted her to believe was agreement, not bothering to tell her how often he had witnessed the violent consequences of what had begun as nothing more than a joke.

  She looked down at the cuticle of her right forefinger and began to pick at it with the fingers of her left 'Roberto always said he thought his father loved his cousin, Maurizio, more than he did him. So he did things that would force his father to pay attention to him.'

  'Such as?'

  'Oh, getting in trouble at school, being rude to the teachers, little things. But once he had some friends hot-wire his
car and steal it. He had them do it when he was parked in front of one of his father's offices in Mestre and he was inside, talking to his father: that way, his father couldn't think he'd left the keys in it or lent it to someone.'

  'What happened?'

  'Oh, they drove it to Verona and left it in a parking garage there, then took the train back. It wasn't found for months, and when it was, the insurance had to be paid back, and the parking fees had to be paid’

  'How is it that you know about this, Signora?'

  She started to answer, paused, and then said, 'Roberto told me about it’

  Brunetti resisted the impulse to ask when he had told her. His next question was more important.

  'Are these the same friends who might have played a joke like this?'

  'Like what?'

  'A false kidnapping?' '

  She looked down at her finger again. 1 didn't say that. And if you've found his body, then there's no question of that, is there? That it was a joke?'

  Brunetti left that alone for a moment and asked, instead, 'Could you give me their names?'

  'Why?'

  'I'd like to talk to them’

  For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse, but she gave in and said, 'Carlo Pianon and Marco Salvo.'

  He remembered the names from the original file. Because they were Roberto's best friends, the police had wondered if they were the people the kidnappers said they would contact to use as intermediaries. But both of them were enrolled in a language course in England when Roberto was kidnapped.

  He thanked her for the names and added, 'You said that was one of the reasons you had decided not to go out with him any more. Were there others?'

  'Oh, there were lots of reasons,' she answered vaguely.

  Brunetti said nothing, allowing her weak response to echo in the room. Finally she added, 'Well, he wasn't much fun any more, not the last week or so. He was tired all the time, and he said he didn't feel well. It got so all he could talk about was how tired he felt, and how weak. I didn't like having to listen to him complain all the time. Or have him fall asleep in the car and things like that.' ‘Did he go to a doctor?'