Beastly Things

by Donna Leon

  At this point, Torinese astonished Brunetti by saying, ‘The phone records will all have the exact times, Alessandro.’ The sadness in his voice made it clear to Brunetti that he must be a colleague, perhaps a friend, of Papetti’s father, perhaps of the man himself.

  Papetti returned his attention to the tape recorder. As if speaking for the first time, he said, ‘I had dinner with a friend in Venice. It was for business. We were at Il Testiere and they know him, so they’ll remember us, that we were both there. After dinner, my friend went home and I went for a walk.’

  He looked across at Brunetti. ‘I know that sounds strange, but I like being in the city by myself, with no people, and I wanted to be alone.’ Before Brunetti could ask, he added, ‘I called my wife and told her how beautiful it was. That will be on your records, too.’

  Brunetti nodded, and Papetti went on. ‘She called me about midnight.’ Brunetti did not ask Papetti to confirm that he was speaking about Signorina Borelli: the records would do that.

  ‘She told me to meet her at the new dock on the Zattere, down by San Basilio. I asked her what she wanted, but she wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘Did you go?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Of course I went,’ Papetti said savagely. ‘I always have to do what she says.’

  Torinese cleared his throat, but neither Brunetti nor Vianello said a word.

  ‘When I met her there, she took me back to a house. I’m not sure where it is.’ Having said that, Papetti looked around and explained, ‘I’m not Venetian, so I get lost.’

  Brunetti permitted himself a nod.

  ‘When we went in, there was a kind of entrance hall, with windows at the back and a few stairs. Going down, not up. She took me over, and I saw a man’s feet sticking out of the water, on the steps: his feet and legs. But his head was in the water.’ Papetti looked at the floor.

  ‘Nava?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘I didn’t know when I first saw him,’ Papetti said, raising his eyes to Brunetti’s. He shook his head and added, ‘But I knew. I mean I didn’t see, but I knew. Who else could it be?’

  ‘Why did you think it had to be Nava?’ Brunetti asked. Torinese sat quietly, his face wiped of all expression, as though he were on a train, eavesdropping on a conversation in the seat in front of him.

  Papetti repeated dully, ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘Why did she call you?’

  Papetti held up his hands and looked at them, one after the other. ‘She wanted to put him in the canal, but she couldn’t open the water door. It was … the metal bar that held it closed … was rusted shut.’

  Brunetti decided to let Papetti decide when to speak again. At least a minute passed, during which Torinese examined the backs of his own hands, which were placed on his thighs.

  ‘She had tried to hit it open with the heel of his shoe. But it wouldn’t open. So she called me.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ Brunetti asked after a long wait.

  ‘I pulled it open. I had to step into the water to get close enough to the door to open it.’

  ‘And then?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Then we pushed him out into the water; then I closed the door and bolted it.’

  ‘And Signorina Borelli?’ Brunetti asked. One of the tape recorders made a whirring noise and the red blinked off. Torinese leaned forward and pushed a button: the red light went on again.

  ‘She told me to go home, said she was going home.’

  ‘Did she tell you what happened?’

  ‘No. Nothing. She asked me to open the door and then to help her push him down the steps.’

  ‘And you did.’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice, did I?’ Papetti asked and looked down again, silent.

  Papetti licked his lips, sucked them into his mouth, then licked them again. ‘We’ve known one another a long time.’

  Calmly, Brunetti asked, ‘And that gave her that much power over you?’

  Papetti opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. He gave a small cough and said, ‘I once … I once did something indiscreet.’ And then he stopped.

  ‘With Signorina Borelli?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you have an affair with her?’

  Papetti’s eyes widened in shock. ‘Good God, no.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Papetti closed his eyes and said, ‘I tried to kiss her.’

  Brunetti shot a glance at Vianello, who raised his eyebrows.

  ‘That’s all?’ Brunetti asked.

  Papetti looked at him. ‘Yes. But it was enough.’

  ‘Enough for what?’

  ‘For her to get the idea.’ When Brunetti failed to understand, Papetti said, ‘About telling my father-in-law.’ Then after a moment, he added, ‘Or she planned it and that’s why she asked for a ride home. She said her car was in for servicing.’ Papetti ran both hands across his scalp. ‘Or it really was. I don’t know.’ Then, fiercely, ‘I’m a fool.’

  Brunetti said nothing.

  Voice unsteady, Papetti said, ‘He’d kill me.’ Then he asked, ‘What else could I do?’

  It seemed to Brunetti that he had passed his entire life hearing people ask that same question. Only once, about fifteen years ago, had a man who had strangled three prostitutes said, ‘I liked it when they screamed.’ Though it had chilled Brunetti’s blood to hear it then, and still did to remember it, the man had at least spoken the truth.

  ‘After you put the body in the water, what did you do, Signor Papetti?’ he asked, deciding there was no way to prove or disprove Papetti’s story. What was not in question was the woman’s power over him.

  ‘I went back to Piazzale Roma and got my car and went home.’

  ‘Have you seen Signorina Borelli since then?’

  ‘Yes. At the macello.’

  ‘Has either of you spoken about this?’

  Puzzled, Papetti asked, ‘No, why should we?’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti answered. Turning to Torinese, Brunetti said, ‘If you have anything to say to your client, Avvocato, my colleague and I can leave you here for a while.’

  Torinese shook his head, then said, ‘No, I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Then I would like to ask Dottor Papetti,’ Brunetti went on, ‘to tell me something more about the way things work at the macello.’ Torinese, he noticed, was understandably surprised by his question. His client had just confessed to helping to dispose of the body of a murder victim, and the police wanted to know about his job. To prevent Papetti from wasting time and energy by looking surprised too, Brunetti said, ‘Certain suspicions have arisen about the safety of the meat being produced there.’

  ‘Suspicion is not the same thing as information,’ Torinese interjected, making one of those distinctions that earn lawyers hundreds of Euros an hour.

  ‘Thank you for that point of law, Avvocato,’ Brunetti answered.

  The lawyer looked across at Brunetti as if in search of clarification. ‘Forgive me for being vulgar, Commissario, but am I correct in assuming that we are involved in a bargaining session here?’ Knowing his gesture would not appear on the tape, Brunetti gave a small nod. ‘In which case I would like to know what sort of an offer you might be making my client in return for whatever information he might have to give you.’

  Brunetti had to compliment the man on the eloquence of his vagueness: ‘assuming’, ‘would like’, ‘might’, and ‘might’ again. For a moment, he considered decapitating Torinese and using his smoked head as a bookend, so perfect did he find his attention to the niceties of language. Casting away that thought, he said, ‘The only offer I can make is the continued goodwill of your client’s father-in-law.’

  That stopped them. Papetti’s mouth dropped open, and Brunetti thought he was going to begin to cry again. Instead, he looked at Torinese, as if waiting for him to speak, then back at Brunetti. ‘I don’t know what …’ he started to say.

  Torinese gave his client a quick look and tried to take over. ‘If you
could clarify your statement, Commissario, I’m sure both my client and I would be very pleased.’

  Brunetti waited for the colour to return to Papetti’s face; when it did, he said, careful to speak to Torinese, ‘I’m sure your client understands my meaning. The last thing, the very last thing, I would like to see happen is for Dottor Papetti’s father-in-law to misunderstand the nature of his relationship with any of the employees at the macello.’ Papetti stared at him, face blank, mouth open just the least little bit.

  Brunetti gave him the merest glance and returned his attention to the lawyer. ‘That Dottor Papetti’s father-in-law would confuse professional intimacy with intimacy of another kind: I dread the possibility that something like that might happen.’ He smiled to show his opinion of the rashness of men and of how terribly prone to it some of them were. ‘Such a misunderstanding might upset Signor De Rivera, to make no mention of his daughter, Dottor Papetti’s wife, and I would never want to feel in any way responsible for the possible consequences of that error.’ He turned to Papetti and gave him a smile that was an exercise in compassionate fellow feeling. ‘I couldn’t live with myself were that to happen.’

  Papetti’s right hand lifted and moved towards his head, but he caught it in time and returned it to his thigh. Ignoring the glance Torinese shot him, he said, ‘She started an affair with Dottor Nava after he began to work at the slaughterhouse.’

  ‘She started it?’ Brunetti asked, placing special emphasis on the personal pronoun.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To get a hold on Nava. She knew he was married, and it was obvious that he was a decent man.’ Papetti shook his head at his lawyer to stop him from speaking. ‘We had to pay the ones who came before him; not all that much, but still we paid them. She wanted to save money, so she began the affair, and then, when she was sure that Nava was deeply involved with her,’ he began, leaving the three other men in the room to imagine what this might entail, ‘she told him she was going to tell his wife that they were lovers unless he changed his behaviour at the macello.’

  ‘Changed it how?’ Brunetti asked to nudge him along.

  ‘Stopped condemning so many animals as unhealthy.’

  ‘Why would she want to do that?’ Brunetti asked, aware that Torinese’s head was moving back and forth as if he were watching a tennis match.

  ‘Because she was …’ Papetti began but was cut short by a savage glance from Brunetti. ‘Because she and I,’ he amended, ‘were paid by the farmers to see that most of the animals brought in for slaughter would be accepted.’

  No one spoke, all of them waiting to see how much more he would reveal. ‘There was a certain amount of money involved.’ Before anyone could ask, he said, ‘A lot of money.’

  ‘What was your share?’ Brunetti asked, using a soft voice and asking in the plural.

  ‘Twenty-five per cent,’ Papetti said.

  ‘Of?’

  ‘Of the price the farmers got if the sick animals weren’t condemned and could be slaughtered.’

  Though Torinese tried to disguise it, Brunetti could see that he was startled, perhaps even something stronger than that.

  ‘These animals, Dottor Papetti, the ones that Dottor Nava condemned: what sort of diseases did they have?’

  Evasively, Papetti said, ‘The usual ones.’

  Torinese, in a voice that had suddenly grown dry, asked, ‘What ones?’

  ‘TB, digestion problems, cancer, viruses, worms. Most of the diseases animals can have. Some of them looked like they’d been eating contaminated fodder.’

  ‘And what happened to them?’ Torinese asked almost as if he could not stop himself.

  ‘They were slaughtered,’ Papetti said.

  ‘And then?’ Again, it was his lawyer who asked the question.

  ‘They were used.’

  ‘As?’

  ‘Meat.’

  Torinese gave his client a long look and then turned his attention away from him.

  ‘And this was a profitable business for you and Signorina Borelli?’ Brunetti asked.

  Papetti nodded.

  ‘You have to speak your answer, Dottore,’ Brunetti informed him. ‘Or else it won’t appear on the transcript.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Dottor Nava agree to stop condemning the animals?’

  It took some time, but finally Papetti said, ‘No.’

  ‘Did you and Signorina Borelli discuss the financial consequences of his refusal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did you decide to do?’

  Papetti thought about this before he answered. ‘I wanted to fire him. But Giulia – Signorina Borelli, that is – wanted to try to threaten him first. I told you: she’d already begun an affair with him as a kind of insurance policy if he didn’t agree to do it, so she threatened to tell his wife.’

  ‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked.

  Papetti rolled his eyes back in his head, as if imitating the actions of a lunatic. ‘He told his wife. Or at least that’s what he told Giulia: that he went home and told her about the affair.’

  ‘And what did the wife do?’ Brunetti asked, sounding completely ignorant about the matter.

  ‘She told him to get out,’ Papetti said in the voice one uses for recounting signs and portents, wonders and miracles.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He left. And the wife went ahead and asked for a legal separation.’ Unable to stifle his astonishment, he said, ‘For an affair.’

  ‘And, surely, you both must have been concerned that Nava would tell someone what was going on,’ Brunetti said calmly, stating the most natural thing in the world.

  Papetti pursed his lips and then rubbed at them, seeking the proper way to say it. ‘I didn’t think I was at much risk,’ he finally conceded.

  ‘Because of your father-in-law’s connections?’ Brunetti asked. Torinese was back, watching the match again.

  Papetti raised his hands and let them fall to his thighs again. ‘I’d rather not say. But I didn’t have to worry, not really.’

  ‘About an investigation?’

  Papetti nodded.

  ‘Protected by someone concerned with public health?’ Brunetti asked.

  Papetti’s grimace was strained. ‘I’d really rather not say.’

  ‘Did Signorina Borelli share your sense of ease about an investigation?’

  Papetti thought for a long time, and Brunetti saw the moment when he realized the profit to be had. ‘No,’ he said.

  Before Brunetti could formulate another question, Papetti went on, ‘She was angry – I think I could say very angry – about the loss.’

  ‘Loss?’ Torinese asked from the sidelines.

  ‘Of money,’ Papetti said in a quick, impatient voice. ‘That’s all she cares about, really. Making money. So as long as Nava was there, she was losing a lot of money every month.’

  ‘How much?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Close to two thousand Euros. It depended on how many animals were brought in.’

  ‘And she objected?’ Brunetti asked.

  Papetti actually sat up higher in his chair before he asked, ‘Most people would, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course,’ Brunetti acquiesced in face of the reprimand, then asked, ‘How was it left between you?’

  ‘She said she’d try to talk to him one more time. Maybe persuade him to quit. Or to ask him if he’d let Bianchi do some of the inspecting.’

  ‘He knew what was going on, this Bianchi?’ Brunetti asked, quite as though it were in doubt.

  ‘Of course,’ Papetti shot back.

  ‘And it was left like this? That she would ask him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And was any of this on your mind when she called you at midnight and said she had to see you?’

  Papetti shrugged. ‘I suppose it was. But I never thought she’d do something like that.’

  ‘Like what, Signor Papetti?’ Brunetti demanded.

  All Pa
petti could do was shrug.

  32

  WELL, THOUGHT BRUNETTI, here we are. Two of us and two of them, and everything is clear, at least clear to anyone who wants to understand. He looked across at Torinese: the lawyer had returned to the contemplation of his hands, sufficient sign that he now had a more comprehensive idea of his client’s involvement in the story of Dottor Andrea Nava. Brunetti leaned forward and switched off both tape recorders: neither Papetti nor Torinese objected.

  The silence expanded, each moment making it more difficult to break. Brunetti decided to see where it led. Vianello, he noticed, kept his head down, eyes on his notes. Torinese continued the study of his hands, while Papetti looked at his lawyer and then, it appeared, at the feet of Brunetti’s desk.

  After an eternity, Papetti said, clearing his throat before he spoke, ‘Commissario, you mentioned your concern for my father-in-law.’ Did his voice grow less steady as he pronounced that title?

  Brunetti met his eyes but said nothing, waiting.

  ‘Could you be clearer about what you mean? Specifically, that is.’

  ‘I mean that your father-in-law, when the information about Signorina Borelli reaches the press, might come to the hasty conclusion that there was something other than a common economic interest between the two of you.’ He gave a smile, the sort men use when it’s just men talking together, and about women. ‘She’s a very attractive young woman, and she certainly sounds available.’ That word, which would usually, in a conversation among men, sound like a promise, now fell upon Papetti’s ears like the threat it was.

  Papetti cleared his throat again. ‘But I never …’ He smiled, as if he remembered that he was in a room with other guys and there was a way they had to talk to one another. ‘I mean, it’s not that I didn’t want to. You know that. As you said, she’s an attractive woman. But she’s not my type.’ No sooner had Papetti spoken, and in that manner, than Brunetti saw the shadow of his father-in-law fall across his face. Quickly, Papetti added, ‘Besides, it’s obvious that she’s more trouble than she’s worth.’

  Well, Brunetti thought, Nava certainly discovered that, didn’t he? But he said, ‘My concern, Dottore, is not so much our understanding in this room,’ and he waved his hand at the other two men, neither of whom looked up, ‘as that your father-in-law should not draw the wrong conclusion.’