Through A Glass Darkly

by Donna Leon

  'We in a hurry, Commissario?' Foa asked as they approached Fondamenta Nuove.

  Brunetti wanted this trip to last as long as possible; he wanted never to have to deliver this news. But he answered, 'Yes.'

  I'll ask if we can go through the Arsenale, then,' Foa said, taking out his telefonino. He found a number programmed into the phone and spoke for no more than a moment. He put the phone in his pocket and cut hard to the left, and then arched around to the right, under the footbridge and straight through the centre of the Arsenale.

  How many years had it been since the Number Five did this every ten minutes? Brunetti asked himself. Ordinarily Brunetti would have enjoyed the sight of the shipyard that had fuelled Venice's greatness, but at this moment he could think of little save the cleansing wind.

  Foa pulled into one of the taxi slots beside the Arsenale stop and paused long enough for Brunetti to leap onto the dock. Brunetti waved his thanks to the pilot but said nothing about what Foa should do now: return to the Questura, go fishing—it was all the same to Brunetti.

  He walked up Via Garibaldi, resisting, as he passed every bar, the desire to go in and have a coffee, a glass of water. He rang the doorbell to Tassini's home, saw that it was almost eleven, and rang again. 'Who . . .' he heard what he thought was a woman's voice ask, but then it was obliterated by a blast of static from the loose wires. 'Giorgio?' the same voice asked, ending on the rising note of hope.

  He rang again and the door snapped open.

  As he climbed the stairs, he heard quick footsteps above him, and when he turned into the last flight a woman appeared on the steps above him. She was taller than her mother and had the same green eyes. Her hair came down below her shoulders: there was a great deal of grey in it, and it aged her beyond her years. She wore a brown skirt and flat shoes, held a beige cardigan closed with her hands, as much for protection as for warmth.

  'What is it?' she asked when she saw him on the stairs. 'What's wrong?' Her voice broke off, as if the sight of him—or, for one horrified moment Brunetti wondered, the smell of him— were enough to crucify hope.

  He continued up the stairs, trying to banish pity from his face. 'Signora Tassini’ he began.

  'What's happened to him?' she asked, her voice breaking on the last word.

  From behind her, Brunetti heard what he did not immediately recognize as a familiar voice. 'What's wrong?' it called, then became familiar when she said, 'Sonia, come back up.' A moment passed, and the older woman's voice became more urgent. 'Sonia, Emma's crying.'

  Caught between the perceived threat of Brunetti's presence and the real threat of her mother's warning, she turned and hurried up the stairs. Before she reached the door, she glanced back at Brunetti twice before disappearing into the apartment.

  Her mother waited for him outside the door. 'What's wrong?' she demanded when she saw him.

  'There was an accident at the factory’ he thought it best to say, though he no more believed in an accident than he believed in the Second Coming.

  Those green eyes pierced him, and he wondered at how he had underestimated the intelligence in them. 'He's dead, isn't he?' she asked.

  Brunetti nodded. From behind the woman came the sound of her daughter's voice, words mixed with noises as she crooned to her own daughter.

  'What happened?' the older woman asked in a softer voice.

  'We don't know yet’ he answered, seeing no reason to lie to her. 'He collapsed in the factory and wasn't found until this morning.' It was not a lie, though it was hardly the truth.

  'What was it?' she asked.

  'We don't know yet, Signora,' Brunetti said. "That will be established by the autopsy, I hope.' He spoke of it as though it were a normal procedure.

  'Maria santissima’ she said and pulled out her battered packet of Nazionale blu. Brunetti had time only to read the enormous letters that promised death before she had a cigarette lit and the packet back in her pocket. 'Go inside,' she said. 'I'll come when I've finished this.'

  Brunetti moved around her and went into the apartment. Tassini's wife sat on the stained sofa, the whimpering child cradled in her arms. She smiled and bent down to kiss the little girl's face. There was no sign of the boy, though he heard a semi-singing from the back of the apartment.

  He went to the window and pushed aside the curtain to look out at the house across the calle. He saw bricks and windows and thought of nothing.

  The first sign of the older woman's return was her voice, saying, 'I think you better tell her, Commissario.' When Brunetti turned back to the room, she was sitting on the sofa beside her daughter.

  I'm sorry, Signora’ he began. 'But I have bad news. The worst news.' The woman looked up from her child but said nothing. She sat, looking at him, and waited for this worst of news, though she must have known what it was.

  'Your husband,' he began, unsure of how to phrase it. 'Your husband was found in the factory this morning by one of the other workmen when he went in to work. He was dead.'

  Before he could read her expression, she looked down at the baby, who had calmed and seemed to have drifted off to sleep. She looked back at Brunetti and asked, 'What happened?'

  'We don't know that yet, Signora’ he said. Brunetti had no idea how to comfort this woman and wished her mother would do something or say something, but neither of them spoke or moved.

  The baby gurgled, and the woman placed a hand on her chest. Speaking as much to the child as to Brunetti, she said, 'He knew.'

  'Knew what, Signora?'

  'Knew that something would happen.' She looked at Brunetti after she said this.

  'What did he tell you, Signora?' She did not answer, so he said, "That something like this would happen to him?'

  She shook her head. 'No, only that he knew things and that they were dangerous things to know.' Beside her, her mother nodded in agreement, at least in agreement that she had heard him say these things.

  'Did he tell you what he thought the danger was, Signora? Or did he tell you what it was he knew?' In the face of their silence, he asked, 'Or did he tell you what the source of the danger was?'

  The older woman turned her eyes to her daughter to see how great had been her burden of knowledge, but Tassini's wife said, 'No. Nothing. Just that he knew things and it was dangerous for him to know them.'

  Brunetti thought of the information Tassini had talked about when they met. 'When I spoke to him . . .'he began, wondering if she would display surprise. When she did not, he went on, 'your husband said he had a file where he kept the information he found. He said he had papers that were important.' Her glance was steady: the file was no surprise to her.

  I'd like to see if the file can help us understand what might have happened.'

  'What's happened is that Giorgio's dead!' the older woman exploded. 'So there's no way his papers are going to help.'

  Brunetti made no attempt to oppose her. 'They might help me’ he said.

  Signora Tassini turned to her mother and placed the sleeping child in her lap. She got up and went into the back of the apartment, as if she was simply going to check on the other child.

  From the other room, he heard her voice, soothing and calm, as she spoke to her son. In a few minutes she was back, carrying a manila folder. She handed it to him, saying, 'I think this is all I want to do for you, and I'd like you to leave now.'

  Without thanking either of them, Brunetti stood, took the folder from her outstretched hand, and left the apartment.

  17

  As soon as he got outside, Brunetti opened the file. He had no idea what he had expected to find, but certainly something more than three sheets of paper with numbers on them. At the top of the first were the letters VR and DC, the second an obvious reference to De Cal. Lower down were two numbers: 200973962, and 100982915: amounts of money written without the commas? Bank codes of some sort? Phone numbers? The second sheet bore four numbers: the first part of each was written in Roman numerals, separated by a slash from a number written in A
rabic numbers. At first he thought they might be dates, the month and then the day, but one of the second numbers was greater than thirty-one, eliminating that possibility. The third page had six pairs of numbers. The first pair read 45° 27.60, and 12° 20.90; the other pairs were almost the same, with slightly different final numbers. His first thought, because of the degree sign, was that this was a way to list the high and low temperatures of one of the furnaces, or perhaps each of them, but surely the temperatures were far too low.

  Brunetti had never been good at crossword puzzles; quizzes and mental teasers had always bored him. He walked back towards the Questura and stopped at the bottom of Ponte dei Grechi, suddenly aware that he was lost in time. He saw that it was half-past twelve and called Paola to explain that he would not be home before the everting. She reacted to his tone more than to his message and told him only to eat something and to try to get home at a reasonable hour.

  He went into the bar, where he had a panino and a glass of mineral water, then another panino when his body discovered how hungry he was. When he was finished—not satisfied but finished—he went down the riva and into the Questura. Foa's boat was moored in front, but there was no-sign of the pilot.

  Inside, the officer at the door told him that Vianello was still not back. Brunetti left word for the Inspector to come up when he returned and went to find Bocchese in his lab.

  The technician looked up when he saw Brunetti come in, then returned his attention to the table in front of him. At the end of his long work table was the iron rod, raised ten centimetres above the surface on a pair of wooden blocks, one beneath either end.

  'Anything?' Brunetti asked, gesturing with his chin towards the rod.

  Bocchese looked up from the pair of scissors he was sharpening and said, "The dead man's prints were all up and down the near end. There are partials under his, but he was using it for so long that his prints smeared or covered anything else.'

  Brunetti looked at the rod, as if he might be able to discern some sign with his naked eye. The end near them held a blob of material that could have been a turtle: flat on the bottom, rounded at the top. 'What might have happened?' Brunetti asked, wise enough not to ask Bocchese what he thought had happened. Bocchese never answered questions like that: perhaps he refused to think in such terms.

  Bocchese pointed to the turtle with the scissors and said, 'He might have been trying to make something out of glass. The furnace he was in front of was much hotter than the others: it was preparing glass for the next day. He was alone in the place, so he might have tried to make something. If he dropped the rod, the molten glass would be flattened on the bottom like this.'

  'Could something have happened to him?' Brunetti repeated.

  Bocchese looked up from the scissors and said, 'Guido, I can tell you what the evidence looks like. You have to figure out how it got to be that way.'

  Ignoring this, Brunetti asked, 'You have a chance to look at the body?'

  'There was a mark on his head. It could have happened when he fell. Hit his head against the door, maybe.'

  'Any sign on the door?'

  Bocchese took a sheet of the Gazzettino that covered his table, held it up in the air, and cut it in half with six sudden clips of the scissors. As one piece fluttered onto the table, he said, 'The temperature in the heart of the furnace was almost 1,400 all night, at the door a bit less. No physical evidence can survive that temperature.'

  'On the floor?' Brunetti asked. 'On him?'

  Bocchese shook his head. 'Nothing. The place had been swept clean.' He took another swipe at the remaining piece of Gazzettino. 'Part of his job, I'm told: sweeping.'

  'You don't like it, do you?' Brunetti asked.

  Bocchese shrugged. ‘I measure and I tabulate. You do the liking, Guido.'

  Brunetti held up a hand in acknowledgement, thanked him, and turned to go. From behind him, he heard Bocchese say, 'But no, I don't like it.'

  Back in his office, Brunetti spread the three sheets of paper on his desk, propped his chin in his hands, and stared at the numbers. Twenty minutes later, he got to his feet and went to the window, but the change in position brought him no closer to understanding.

  He cast his memory back to his meeting with Tassini. The more he thought about it, the stranger Tassini's behaviour seemed. He had been both secretive and protective about what he knew, yet his behaviour had suggested that his information was of great import. He had said he read a lot and kept a record of his conclusions and that great men had helped him understand, but he had not explained what it was he understood. Nor had he made clear why De Cal so strongly wanted to keep his son-in-law from the fornace.

  Tassini had said he was close to finding the final proof, but Brunetti had no idea what he had meant by that. What happened was that Tassini died, and his wife said he had been afraid of something.

  Brunetti went back to his desk and stared at the numbers again.

  Signorina Elettra found him like that some time later when she came in with a single sheet of paper in her hand. 'Commissario,' she said when he looked at her with troubled eyes, 'what's the matter?' When he failed to answer, she said, her voice softer, 'I heard about that poor man. I'm sorry.'

  'He was too young,' Brunetti surprised himself by saying. After a moment, he said, 'I'm trying to puzzle something out.' Seeing her confused glance, he redirected his attention back to her and asked, 'What is it?'

  'I've been looking around, and I thought you might be interested to see what I've found: it's the Carabinieri report.' Seeing his momentary confusion, she added, 'Of a visit Tassini made.'

  Brunetti asked her to take a seat. She sat down, placed the sheet of paper on his desk, and said, "This is a copy of their report, though there's little enough to tell. Then there are some things I learned by speaking to people.'

  'All right’ Brunetti said. 'Tell me.'

  She pointed towards the sheet of paper. 'A friend of mine sent me a copy of their file. Tassini went in there a year ago to file a denuncia against his employer for operating an unsafe workplace. The record shows that the maresciallo there—over by Riva degli Schiavoni—told him he didn't have enough evidence and suggested he go and see a lawyer and try to bring a civil suit. That is, if Tassini wanted to persist in the complaint. They refused to let him file it officially'

  'Did he do that?' Brunetti asked: 'find a lawyer?'

  'I don't know. There's nothing else in their records, and he never came to us. I don't know whether I should check further.'

  Brunetti shook his head at this. Tassini was beyond lawyers now. 'Anything else?' he asked.

  'The De Cal factory, sir. I asked around and the word is he's very close to selling it.'

  'Who did you ask?'

  'A friend,' she answered, and that was that, Elettra as reluctant as he to reveal a source when it was not necessary to do so.

  'Is there talk about who might want to buy it?'

  'Since the Chinese haven't discovered glass yet,' she began, using the ironic tone she usually reserved for the acquisitive habits of Venice's Chinese, 'at least not Venetian glass, the only name that's been mentioned is Gianluca Fasano's. He owns the factory next door. My friend said De Cal's furnaces are much newer than his are.'

  'He wants to continue running a glass factory?' Brunetti asked, thinking of the rumours about Fasano's political aspirations.

  'What's more Venetian than Murano glass?' she asked, and it surprised him to realize that she was serious. 'It would be proof that he really does want to help the city come back to life.' Usually Signorina Elettra was incapable of speaking such words except in tones of mock solemnity, but this was hardly the case here. 'Well,' she added, 'for us, that is. For Venetians.'

  'You believe him, then?' Brunetti asked, adding, 'even if he wants to become a politician?'

  Sensitive to his scepticism, she tempered her enthusiasm and said only, 'He's the chairman of the glassmakers' organization: that's hardly a political position.'

  It's a very
good jumping-off point,' Brunetti said, his voice calm and objective. 'He could start on Murano and then move to Venice. You said it yourself: what's more Venetian than Murano glass?' He took her silence as assent and asked, 'How else does he propose to bring the city back to life?'

  'He says that no more apartments should be sold to non-Venetians—' and before he could object or quote European law’she added—'unless they're made to pay a substantial non-residents' tax.' When Brunetti did not respond, she added, 'He says that, if they want to live here, then they should pay to do so.'

  'Anything else?' Brunetti asked neutrally.

  'Because the city always claims it has no money, he's suggested that the finances of the Casino be made public, so people can see how much is spent on salaries, and who gets them, and how much rent is paid by the people who run the restaurants and bars there. And who those concessions are rented to.' This sounded like sovereign good sense to Brunetti, who nodded to encourage her to continue. 'He wants the city or the region to go back to paying forty per cent of the cost of gas for the furnaces on Murano. Or else a lot of people are going to be out of work in a few years' time.'

  When Brunetti made no comment, she added, 'And he's concerned about the risk to the laguna from Marghera. He asks why so few fines have been paid.'

  'Penalize big business?' Brunetti asked, and immediately regretted the words.

  'Or save the laguna,' she said, 'whichever you choose to call it.'

  'Does he have any political backing?' Brunetti asked.

  'The Greens like him, though he's not their candidate. I suppose he's hoping to do what Di Pietro did, start his own party. But I really don't know that.'

  'Not with similar results, I trust’ Brunetti said, thinking of Di Pietro's failed campaign.

  'The report's here, sir’ she said, pushing the page a bit farther across the desk. Not for the first time, Signorina Elettra's sudden change of subject made it clear that politics was something about which she preferred not to enter into discussion. But then she surprised him by adding, 'I'm not sure we see eye to eye on the need to protect the laguna, sir.' She got to her feet and walked over to the door.