Death in a Strange Country cgb-2

by Donna Leon

  ‘No, not about that,’ Brunetti answered, thinking only then of how much easier it would have been to have asked his father-in-law, instead, of Fosco, about Viscardi, and perhaps how much more accurate. ‘It’s about something else I’m working on.’

  The Count was far too polite to ask what but said, instead, ‘We’re invited to dinner, but if you could come over now, we would have an hour or so free. Is that convenient, Guido?’

  ‘Yes, it is. I’ll come over now. And thank you.’

  ‘Well?’ Paola asked when he went back into the kitchen, where another load of washing was busily swimming about in a sea of white suds.

  ‘I’m going over there now. Would you like to come along and see your mother?’

  By way of answer, she pointed with her chin to the washing-machine.

  ‘All right. I’ll go now. They have to go to dinner, so I imagine I’ll be back before eight. Would you like to go out to dinner tonight?’

  She smiled at him, nodding.

  ‘All right. You choose the place and call for a reservation. Any place you like.’

  ‘Al Covo?’

  Manfully, he did not wince at what he knew that would cost. First, the shoes, and now dinner at Al Covo. The food was glorious; to hell with what it cost. He smiled. ‘Reserve for eight-thirty. And ask the kids if they want to come.’ After all, he was a man who had been given back his life that afternoon. Why not celebrate?

  When he got to the Faliers’ palazzo, Brunetti was faced with the decision that always awaited him there, whether to use the immense iron ring that hung from the wooden door, dropping it against the metal plate beneath and sending the message of his arrival booming across the open courtyard, or to use the more prosaic doorbell. He chose the second, and a moment later a voice spoke through the intercom, asking who it was. After he gave his name, the door jolted open. He pushed it back, slammed it closed behind him, and walked across the courtyard towards the part of the palazzo that fronted onto the Grand Canal. From an upstairs window, a uniformed maid looked out, checking to see who had come in. Apparently satisfied that Brunetti was not a malefactor, she pulled her head inside the window and disappeared. The Count was waiting at the top of the outside staircase that led into the part of the palazzo where he and his wife lived.

  Though Brunetti knew that the Count would soon be seventy, it was hard, seeing him, to think that he was Paola’s father. Older brother, perhaps, or the youngest of her uncles, but certainly not a man almost thirty years older than she. The thinning hair, cut short around the shining oval of his head, suggested his age, but that impression was dispelled by the taut skin of his face and the clear intelligence shining from his eyes. ‘How nice to see you, Guido. You’re looking well. We’ll go into the study, shall we?’ the Count said, turning and leading Brunetti back towards the front of the house. They passed through a few rooms until they finally arrived at the glass-fronted study that looked out over the Grand Canal as it curved up towards the Accademia Bridge. ‘Would you like a drink?’ the Count asked, going to the sideboard where a bottle of Dom Perignon stood, already open, in a silver bucket filled with ice.

  Brunetti knew the Count well enough to know that there was absolutely no affectation in this. If the Count had preferred to drink Coca-Cola, he would have kept a litre-and-a-half plastic bottle in the same ice bucket and offered it in the same manner to his guests. The Count had been born having no one he needed to impress.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ Brunetti answered. This way, he could set the tone for an evening at Al Covo. If the Count turned his back, perhaps he could get away with the ice bucket and thus pay for that dinner.

  The Count poured champagne into a fresh glass, added some to his own, and handed the first glass to Brunetti. ‘Shall we sit, Guido?’ he asked, leading him towards two easy chairs that were turned to face out over the water.

  When they were both seated and Brunetti had tasted his wine, the Count asked, ‘In what way can I be of service?’

  ‘I’d like to ask you for some information, but I’m not sure just what questions I have to ask,’ Brunetti began, deciding to tell the truth. He couldn’t ask the Count not to repeat what he told him; an insult like that would be difficult for the Count to forgive, even of the father of his only grandchildren. ‘I’d like to know whatever you could tell me about a Signor Gamberetto, of Vicenza, who has both a hauling company and, apparently, a construction company. I don’t know anything more about him other than his name. And that he might be involved in something illegal.’

  The Count nodded, suggesting that the name was familiar but that he preferred to wait until he knew what else his son-in-law wanted to know before saying anything.

  ‘And then I’d like to know about the involvement of the American military, first with Signor Gamberetto, and second with the illegal dumping of toxic substances that seems to be taking place in this country.’ He sipped at his wine. ‘Anything you can tell me, I’ll be very grateful for.’

  The Count finished his wine and placed the empty glass on an inlaid table at his side. He crossed his long legs, exposing an expanse of black silk sock, and brought his fingers together in a pyramid under his chin. ‘Signor Gamberetto is a particularly nasty, and particularly well-connected, businessman. Not only does he have the two companies you refer to, Guido, but he is also the owner of a large chain of hotels, travel agencies, and resorts, many of which are not in this country. He is also believed to have recently branched out into armaments and munitions, buying into partnership with one of the most important arms manufacturers in Lombardy. Many of these companies are owned by his wife; therefore, his name is not anywhere present in the papers that deal with them, nor does it appear in the contracts made by those businesses. I believe the construction business is under his uncle’s name, but I could be wrong there.

  ‘Like many of our new businessmen,’ the Count continued, ‘he is strangely invisible. He happens, however, to be more powerfully connected than are most. He has influential friends in both the Socialist and Christian Democratic party, no mean feat, so he is very well-protected.’

  The Count got up and walked over to the sideboard, came back and filled both their glasses, then went and replaced the bottle in the ice bucket. When he was comfortable in his chair again, he continued. ‘Signor Gamberetto is from the South, and his father was, if memory serves, a janitor in a public school. Consequently, there are not many social occasions when we are likely to meet. I know nothing about his personal life.’

  He sipped. ‘As to your second question, about the Americans, I’d like to know what prompts your curiosity in this matter,’ When Brunetti didn’t answer, the Count added, ‘There exists a great deal of rumour,’ Brunetti could do no more than speculate about the dizzy heights at which such filings were rumoured, but still he said nothing.

  The Count twirled file stem of his glass between his thin fingers. When it became evident that Brunetti intended to say nothing, he continued, ‘I know that certain extraordinary rights have been extended to them, rights which are not stipulated in the treaty we signed with them at the end of the war. Various of our many short-lived and variously incompetent governments have seen fit to offer them preferential treatment of one sort or another. This, you realize, extends not only to things like allowing them to peppercorn our hills with missile silos, information to be had from any resident of the province of Vicenza, but to allowing them to bring into this country just about anything they wish.’

  ‘Including toxic substances?’ Brunetti asked directly.

  The Count bowed his head. ‘It is rumoured.’

  ‘But why? We’d have to be insane to accept them.’

  ‘Guido, it is not the business of a government to be sane; it is their business only to be successful.’ Dismissing what he must have perceived as a pedantic tone, the Count became more direct and particular. ‘The rumours say that, in the past, the cargoes were merely transshipped through Italy. That they came down from the bases in Germany, were unloaded
here, and immediately loaded onto Italian vessels that took them off to Africa or South America, where no questions were asked about what got dropped into the middle of the jungle or the forest or the lake. But since many of these countries have experienced radical changes of government in recent years, these outlets have been cut off, and they refuse any longer to accept our deadly rubbish. Or they are willing to accept it, but now the price they put upon doing so has become exorbitant. At any rate, those who receive the ongoing shipments at this end are unwilling to cease doing so - and thus cease to profit from them - merely because they can no longer dispose of them in other places, on other continents. So they continue to arrive, and room is found for them here.’

  ‘You know all of this?’ Brunetti asked, making no attempt to hide his surprise, or was it something stronger?

  ‘Guido, this much - or this little - is common knowledge, at least at the level of rumour. You could easily discover it in a few hours on the phone. But no one knows it except the people who are directly involved, and they are not the sort of people who talk about these things. Nor, I might add, are they the sort of people one talks to.’

  ‘Snubbing them at cocktail parties can hardly be enough to make them stop,’ Brunetti snapped. ‘Nor will it make the things they’ve already dumped suddenly disappear.’

  ‘Your sarcasm is not lost on me, Guido, but I’m afraid that this is a situation in which one is helpless.’

  ‘Who is “one”?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Those who know about the government and what it does but are not part of it, not in any active sense. There is also the not inconsiderable fact that it is not only our own government which is involved, but that of America, as well.’

  ‘To make no mention of the gentlemen from the South?’

  ‘Ah, yes, the Mafia,’ the Count said with a tired sigh. ‘It would seem that this is a web woven by all three of them, and, because of that, triply strong and, if I might add as a note of warning, triply dangerous.’ He looked over at Brunetti and asked, ‘How closely are you involved in this, Guido?’ His concern was audible.

  ‘Do you remember that American who was murdered here over a week ago?’

  ‘Ah, yes, during a robbery. Most unfortunate.’ Then, tiring of his pose, the Count added, soberly, ‘You’ve discovered some connection between him and this Signor Gamberetto, I assume.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There was another strange death among the Americans, a doctor at the Vicenza hospital. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. She was his lover.’

  ‘It was an overdose, as I recall.’

  ‘It was a murder,’ Brunetti corrected but offered no explanation.

  The Count sought none and remained silent for a long time, sitting and staring at the boats that travelled up and down the canal. Finally he asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Brunetti answered and then asked in his turn, bringing himself close to the reason for his coming, ‘Is this something over which you have any influence?’

  The Count considered this question for a long time. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that, Guido,’ he finally said.

  Brunetti, to whom the question was sufficiently clear, ignored the Count’s remark and provided him, instead, with more information. ‘There’s a dumping site up near Lake Barcis. The barrels and cans are from the Americans’ base in Ramstein, in Germany; the labels are in English and German.’

  ‘Did those two Americans find this place?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And they died after they found it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about this?’

  ‘A Carabiniere officer who works at the American base.’ There was no need to bring Ambrogiani’s name into this, nor did Brunetti see fit to tell the Count that the only other person who knew anything about this was his only child.

  ‘Can he be trusted?’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Don’t be intentionally ignorant, Guido,’ the Count said. ‘I’m trying to help you here.’ Not without difficulty, the Count gained control of himself and asked, ‘Can he be trusted to keep his mouth shut?’

  ‘Until what?’

  ‘Until something is done about this.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that I’ll call some people this evening and see what can be done.’

  ‘Done about what?’

  ‘About seeing that this dump is cleared up, that the things are taken away.’

  ‘And moved where?’ Brunetti asked, voice sharp.

  ‘Moved away from where they are, Guido.’

  ‘To some other part of Italy?’

  Brunetti watched as the Count considered whether to lie to him or not. Finally, deciding against it, Brunetti would never understand why, the Count said, ‘Perhaps. But more likely out of the country.’ Before Brunetti could ask any more questions, the Count held up his hand to stop him. ‘Guido, please try to understand. I can’t promise you any more than I just have. I think that this dump can be disposed of, but, beyond that, I would be afraid to move.’

  ‘Do you mean that literally, afraid?’

  The Count’s voice was ice. ‘Literally. Afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I would prefer not to explain that, Guido.’

  Brunetti thought he would try one more tack. ‘The reason they found out about the dump was that a little boy fell into it and burned his arm on the things leaking from those barrels. It could have been any child. It could have been Chiara.’

  The Count’s glance was cool. ‘Please, Guido, now you’re being mawkishly sentimental.’

  It was true, Brunetti knew it. ‘Don’t you care about any of this?’ he asked, unable to keep the passion from his voice.

  The Count dipped his finger into the trace of wine left in his glass and began to run the tip of his moistened finger around the rim. As his finger moved ever faster, a high-pitched whining emerged from the crystal and filled the room. Suddenly, he lifted his finger from the glass, but the sound continued, hanging in the room, just as did their conversation. He looked from the glass to Brunetti. ‘Yes, I care about it, Guido, but not in the same way you do. You have managed to retain remnants of optimism, even in the midst of the work you do. I have none. Not for myself, nor for my future, and not for this country or its future.’

  He looked down at the glass again. ‘I care that these things happen, that we poison ourselves and our progeny, that we knowingly destroy our future, but I do not believe mat there is anything - and I repeat, anything - that can be done to prevent it. We are a nation of egoists. It is our glory, but it will be our destruction, for none of us can be made to concern ourselves about something as abstract as “the common good”. The best of us can rise to feeling concern for our families, but as a nation we are incapable of more.’

  ‘I refuse to believe that.’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Your refusal to believe it,’ the Count said with a smile that was almost tender, ‘makes it no less true, Guido.’

  ‘Your daughter doesn’t believe it,’ Brunetti added.

  ‘And for that grace I give daily thanks,’ the Count said in a soft voice. ‘That is perhaps the finest thing I’ve achieved in my life, that my daughter does not share my beliefs.’

  Brunetti sought irony or sarcasm in the Count’s tone, but found only pained truth.

  ‘You said you’d do this, see that this dump is cleared up, taken away. Why can’t you do more?’

  Again, the Count bestowed that same smile upon his son-in-law. ‘I believe this is the first time we’ve talked to one another in all these years, Guido.’ Then, changing his voice, he added, ‘Because there are too many dumps and too many men like Gamberetto.’

  ‘Can you do anything about him?’

  ‘Ah, there I can do nothing.’

  ‘Can or will do nothing?’

  ‘From some positions, Guido, can and will are the same.’

  �
�That’s sophistry,’ Brunetti shot back.

  The Count laughed outright ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Then let me say it like this: I prefer to do nothing else about this matter save what I’ve told you I will do.’

  ‘And why is that?’Brunetti asked.

  ‘Because,’ the Count replied, ‘I can bring myself to care for nothing beyond, my family,’ The tone of his voice was terminal; Brunetti would get no explanation beyond that.

  ‘May I ask you one more question?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I called and asked if I could talk to you, you asked if I wanted to talk about Viscardi. Why was that?’

  The Count looked at him in involuntary surprise, then returned his attention to the boats on the canal. When a few had gone past, he answered, ‘Signor Viscardi and I have common business interests.’