Beastly Things

by Donna Leon

  The knacker pointed farther back in the building and started in that direction. Brunetti, careful to keep his eyes on the man’s back, followed, and a dazed Vianello trailed along behind them. At the end of the catwalk they came to a thick metal door with a horizontal metal handle. Bianchi appeared hardly to break his stride, so quickly did he push it open and pass through. The others followed, and Vianello pushed the door closed behind them.

  At first, Brunetti wondered if they had managed to escape outside and had somehow walked directly into a forest, though he could recall having seen no growth of trees behind the building. It was dark, with light filtering down from above, as in a forest in the early morning. He saw a field of thick shapes just ahead of them, seeming to rise up from the earth. Bushes, perhaps, or young poplar trees in full leaf? Surely they were not tall enough to be full-grown trees, yet they were thick, and that brought his sense-assaulted mind back to the idea of bushes. The three men separated and began to walk about on their own.

  If they were outside, however, the day had changed and it had grown terribly cold. Gradually Brunetti’s eyes adjusted to the diminished light, and the bushes or trees began to take on finer definition. His first thought was of autumnal leaves until he saw that the red was muscle and the yellow was streaks of fat. He and Vianello had become so dependent upon Bianchi’s guidance that they had followed him unthinkingly into the midst of the hanging sides of beef and pig and sheep, the headless beasts distinguishable only by their size, and who could differentiate between a large sheep and a small calf? Red and yellow and the frequent streak of white fat.

  Vianello broke first. He pushed past Brunetti, no longer concerned with Bianchi and his opinion, or any opinion at all, and staggered drunkenly to the door. He pushed at it uselessly, then pounded it twice and gave it a kick. The knacker materialized from the thicket of bodies, pulled at some handle Vianello could not make out in the dimness, and the door opened. Looking into the greater light of the other room, Brunetti could see Vianello walking away from them, one hand raised to shoulder height beside him, as if to keep it there, ready to grab on to the wire wall of the walkway should he not be able to continue.

  Forcing himself to move slowly and keeping his eyes on Vianello’s retreating back, Brunetti went through the door but did not wait for Bianchi to join him. He walked towards the other end of the catwalk, making the same humming noise he heard Vianello making and now understanding that it succeeded in blocking out some of the noise that rose up from what was still going on below them. Something appeared beside him, at shoulder height, appearing to keep pace. Brunetti broke step for a moment but quickly regained control and kept walking, his eyes straight in front and not for an instant giving in to the temptation to look at what was floating alongside him.

  He found Vianello slumped on one of the benches in the changing room, one arm removed from his protective suit, the other forgotten, or trapped, inside it. He looked to Brunetti like one of the heroes of the Iliad, broken in defeat, armour hanging half slashed from his body, the enemy about to slay him and strip him clean. Brunetti sat beside him, then slumped forward and rested his forearms on his thighs and remained like that, staring at his shoes. Anyone seeing them from the doorway would see two middle-aged but oddly dressed athletes, exhausted by the game they had just played, waiting for the coach to come in and tell them how they’d done.

  But there was no sign of Coach Bianchi. Brunetti leaned down and slipped off the plastic shoe covers and kicked them aside, then shoved himself to his feet and fumbled to unzip his suit. He slipped his arms out, then pushed it down below his knees and sat down again to rip it over his shoes. For want of anything else to do, he picked it up and made a sloppy attempt to fold it, then simply dropped it in a heap on the bench beside him.

  Turning to Vianello, Brunetti noticed that he had not moved. ‘Come on, Lorenzo. The driver’s outside.’

  Moving like a man asleep or under water, Vianello pulled his other arm free and used both hands to push himself upright. He yanked the suit down, failing to notice that he had not unzipped it down to the bottom. It stuck at his waist and hips and hard as he pushed at it, he could not force himself free.

  ‘The zipper, Lorenzo,’ Brunetti said, pointing to it, reluctant to try to help him. Vianello saw what he had to do, and did it. He too sat down, first to remove his shoes, then to slip the suit over his feet, and then to replace his shoes. He had a moment of confusion before he figured out he had to remove the plastic covers before he put his shoes back on, but once he saw that, he was quickly finished. Like Brunetti, he bunched his suit together and left it on the bench beside where he had been sitting.

  ‘Bene,’ Vianello said. ‘Andemmo.’

  In the continued absence of Bianchi and Signorina Borelli, the two men retraced their steps towards the entrance. When they walked outside, the sun fell across their bodies, their heads, their hands, even their feet, with a generosity and grace that made Brunetti think of the carvings he had seen of Akhenaten receiving the radiant blessing of Aten, the sun god. They stood there, as silent as Egyptian statues themselves, letting the sun warm them and cleanse them of the miasmic air of the building.

  Soon enough the car appeared just in front of them, neither having heard it approach, their ears still attuned to the things they had heard inside.

  The driver lowered the window and called to them, ‘You ready to leave?’

  20

  THIS TIME, BOTH of them got into the back seat of the car. Though the day was by no means warm, Brunetti and Vianello rolled down the windows of the car and sat, heads leaning back against the seat, to let the air wash over them. The driver, aware of something he did not understand, remained silent but had the sense to use the car phone to call the Questura and ask that a boat be sent to pick the two men up when they got to Piazzale Roma.

  On the way to the city, they passed through quiet countryside that was preparing to expand into the richness of summer. The trees had put out their first green shoots that would unfurl into the magic of leaves. Brunetti gave thanks for the green and for its promise. Birds Brunetti recognized but could not name sat amidst the green shoots, chatting with one another about their recent flight north.

  They did not notice the villas this time, only the cars that came towards them or those that passed them and fell into line in front of them. Nor did they speak; neither to one another nor to the driver. They let time pass, knowing that time would take away the brightness of some of their memories. Brunetti returned his attention to the landscape. How lovely it was, he thought: how lovely growing things were: trees, grapevines just waking from the winter, even the water in the ditch at the side of the road would soon help the plants in their scramble back to life.

  He turned back to face the oncoming traffic and closed his eyes. After what seemed only a moment, the car came to a halt and the driver said, ‘Here we are, Commissario.’ Brunetti opened his eyes and saw the ACTV ticket office and, beyond it, water and the embarcadero of the Number Two.

  Vianello was already getting out of the other side of the car as Brunetti thanked the driver and closed the door gently. He was pleased to see Vianello say something to the driver. The Inspector smiled, smacked his hand lightly on the roof of the car, and turned towards the water.

  They went down the low steps and off to the left, where they saw Foa’s assistant, talking to a taxi driver while keeping his eye on the place from which they were likely to appear. Brunetti was astonished to see that the young man looked exactly as he had some hours before. The pilot raised a hand to the brim of his cap, but it might as easily have been a wave of friendly recognition as a salute: Brunetti found himself hoping it was the first.

  The pilot reached to hand him that morning’s Gazzettino, folded and stuck behind the wheel. But Brunetti needed to see distance and colour and beauty and life, not the close-together lines of the printed word, so he made no gesture to take it, and the pilot bent to turn on the engine.

  ‘Don’t go aroun
d the back of the station. Let’s go up the canal.’ That way, though the trip would take longer, they would avoid having to make the turn next to the causeway, where they would see the smokestacks of Marghera; they would also avoid having to pass between the hospital and the cemetery. Neither Brunetti nor Vianello spoke, though both chose to remain on deck in the sun. It beat down on them, warming their heads and causing them to sweat under their jackets. Brunetti felt his damp shirt clinging to his back, even felt a faint trickle just over his temple. He had forgotten his sunglasses and so, like some eighteenth-century sea captain, he shielded his eyes with his hand and looked off into the distance. And he saw, not a tropical atoll surrounded by pristine beaches and not the tempestuous waters of the Cape of Good Hope, but the Calatrava Bridge, appearing diaper-clad in its current state, with short-sleeved tourists hanging over the side to take a photo of the police launch. He smiled up at them and waved.

  None of the three men spoke as they passed under the bridge, nor when they passed under the next one and the others, nor when they passed the Basilica, and San Giorgio on the right. What would it be, Brunetti tried to imagine, to see all of this for the first time? Virgin eyes? It came to him that this assault of beauty was the opposite of what had happened in Preganziol, though each experience was overwhelming, each ravishing the viewer in its own way.

  The pilot glided the launch up to the dock in front of the Questura, hopped out with the mooring rope in his hand, and hitched it over the bollard. As Brunetti stepped from the boat, the pilot started to say something to him, but the engine gave a sudden burp and he jumped back on deck. By the time he cut the motor, Brunetti and Vianello were already inside the building.

  Brunetti didn’t know what to say to Vianello: he could not remember ever being in this position, as though what they had just experienced together was so intense as to render all comment, almost to render all future conversation, futile. This awkwardness was broken by the man at the door, who said, ‘Commissario, the Vice-Questore wants to see you.’

  The thought of having to talk to Patta came almost as a relief: the predictable unpleasantness of that experience was sure to nudge Brunetti back towards ordinary life. He glanced at Vianello and said, ‘I’ll talk to him, then come and get you, and we’ll go down to the bar.’ First the reintroduction to ordinary life and then the enjoyment of ordinary humanity.

  Because Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, Brunetti knocked on Patta’s door with no advance warning of the level, or cause, of his superior’s irritation. He had no doubt that this was the Vice-Questore’s mood: it was only in moments of severe displeasure with his subordinate that the Vice-Questore could be moved to leave an order downstairs telling Brunetti to see him as soon as he came in. Before their meeting, Brunetti, like a gymnast about to leap up to grab the rings, took a few deep breaths and did his best to prepare himself for his performance.

  He knocked firmly, made it as manly a sound as he could muster: three quick shots of noise announcing his arrival. Brunetti interpreted the responding shout as a request that he enter. Patta, he saw, was costumed for the role of country squire. The instant he saw him, Brunetti realized his superior had finally gone too far in pursuit of sartorial perfection, for he was today arrayed in a proper shooting jacket. A light brownish tweed, cut long and close to the body, it had the requisite brown suede patch at the right shoulder, a single pocket opposite on the left. Below were envelope pockets that could be easily unbuttoned to allow the wearer to reach for more shotgun cartridges. The white shirt Patta wore with it had a discreet check, and the green silk tie was covered with tiny yellow sheep that put Brunetti in mind of the ones in the mosaic behind the main altar in the Basilica of Saint’ Apollinaire in Classe in Ravenna.

  Much in the manner of Saint Thomas, incapable of believing in Christ’s Resurrection until he put his hand into the wound in his Master’s side, Brunetti was overcome with the urge to go and place his cheek on the brown suede patch on Patta’s shoulder, for the patch was evidence, however outrageous, of all existence. In this instant, still battered by the experiences of the afternoon, Brunetti’s spirit needed proof that the ordinary, indeed, all of life, was still there, and what better proof was there than this absurd display? Here was Patta talking on the phone, here was consistency, here was Proof. The Vice-Questore glanced up and, seeing who it was, said something and replaced the phone.

  Brunetti resisted the temptation to bend down and look under the desk to see if the Vice-Questore had chosen to wear what Brunetti’s reading of English novels had trained him to think of as ‘sturdy brogues’. At the desk, with an effort he fought down the urge to thank his superior for calling him back to life. Instead, Brunetti said, ‘Di Oliva said you’d like to speak to me, sir.’

  Patta picked up a copy of Il Gazzettino, the newspaper that Brunetti had chosen not to read on the boat. ‘Have you seen this?’ Patta asked.

  ‘No, sir,’ Brunetti said. ‘My wife is making me read L’Osservatore Romano this week.’ He was going to add that it was the only newspaper that gave him a daily account of the appointments of the Holy Father, much in the manner of the Times with its calendar of the doings of the royals, but he was not sure – not having read the paper for decades – whether this was the case, nor would his gratitude allow him to goad Patta any farther. He contented himself, therefore, with the shrug of a true weakling and reached for the paper.

  Patta surprised him by handing it to him gently and saying, ‘Sit down and read it. It’s on page five. Then tell me where the motive came from.’

  Hastening to obey, Brunetti sat and opened the paper and quickly found the headline, ‘Mystery Man in Canal Identified as Local Veterinarian’. The article gave Nava’s name and age, said that he lived in Mestre, where he ran a private veterinarian clinic. It reported that he was separated from his wife and had one son. The police investigating his death were considering the possibility of a private vendetta.

  ‘“Vendetta privata”?’ Brunetti looked up to ask.

  ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you about, Commissario,’ Patta said with sarcasm that halted just short of a leer. ‘Where did that idea come from?’

  ‘From his wife, from her relatives, or anyone that the reporter spoke to, or maybe he just liked the sound of it. God knows.’ Brunetti weighed for a moment the wisdom of suggesting that it could just as easily have been someone at the Questura, but wisdom and the knowledge that life was long silenced him.

  ‘You deny suggesting it?’ Patta asked, level-voiced.

  ‘Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said in his calmest, most reasonable voice, ‘it doesn’t matter where they got the idea.’ Knowing the crannies and dark corners of Patta’s brain as he did, Brunetti went on to say, ‘If you think about it, “personal vendetta” is far better than the idea that it was random assault.’ He was careful to keep his eyes on the paper and pay no attention to Patta as he said this, speaking as though he were engaged in idle reflection. It probably didn’t matter to Patta that a man had been stabbed and tossed into a canal, so long as the man was a local. Had he been a tourist, then the crime would have disturbed Patta, and had the victim been a tourist from a wealthy European country, there was no saying how strong the Vice-Questore’s response would have been.

  ‘Possibly,’ Patta said grudgingly; Brunetti translated this immediately into an unspoken ‘You’re probably right.’ He folded the paper closed, and set it in front of Patta. He pasted a look of dutiful eagerness across his face.

  ‘What have you done?’ Patta finally asked.

  ‘I spoke to his wife. His widow.’

  ‘And?’ Patta asked, but he said it in such a way that Brunetti decided that this was not the day to continue sparring with Patta.

  ‘She told me they were separated; there’s no question she wanted a divorce. He was involved with a woman colleague. Not at his clinic but at the macello where he worked: it’s just outside of Preganziol.’ He paused to give Patta the opportunity to ask questions, but his supe
rior merely nodded. ‘His wife said he was troubled.’

  ‘Other than with this woman?’ Patta asked.

  ‘So it would seem from what she said, or from the way she said it. I wanted to get a sense of the place.’ More than that, Brunetti could not bring himself to say.

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s not a nice place: they kill animals and cut them up,’ Brunetti said bluntly. ‘I spoke to the woman who must have been his lover.’

  Before he could continue, Patta cut him off, demanding, ‘You didn’t tell her you know about their affair, did you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘That he was dead.’

  ‘How did she react?’

  Brunetti had been thinking about this for some time. ‘She was angry that it took us so long to tell her, but she didn’t say anything particular about him.’

  ‘No reason to, really, I suppose,’ Patta said. Then, seeing Brunetti’s reaction and displaying a remarkable sensitivity to it, Patta hastened to add, ‘From her point of view, that is.’ Returning to his usual self, he demanded, ‘What’s a woman doing working there, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ Brunetti said, ignoring this echo of his own thoughts.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like you got much information,’ Patta said, sounding gratified to be able to say it.

  Brunetti had, on the contrary, got too much information, but this was not something he wanted to discuss with Patta or, indeed, with anyone. He contented himself with giving Patta a serious look, then said, ‘I suppose you’re right, Vice-Questore. I didn’t learn much about what he did out there, nor how this woman might enter into things. If at all.’ He was suddenly too tired and – much as it disgusted him to admit it – too hungry to dispute things with Patta. He allowed his gaze to drift towards the window of Patta’s office, the one that looked out on the same campo as his.