The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17

by Donna Leon

  A silence fell between the men as each considered the possibilities of action open to them. After some time, Brunetti said, making it sound the sort of natural everyday thing a father would do, ‘I can ask my kids.'

  'Ask them what?' Vianello said, unable to disguise his astonishment.

  'If they know either of their children. And what they might have heard about them.' Vianello's look was so long and serious that it made Brunetti uncomfortable.

  'They're of an age,' Brunetti said, then added, 'well, close to it.'

  'Thank God mine are still too young,' Vianello said with suspicious blandness.

  'For what?' Brunetti asked, though he knew what was coming.

  'To work for us,' the Inspector said.

  Brunetti resisted the impulse to defend himself. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost three. ‘I’m going home’ he said, getting to his feet.

  Vianello too had apparently said as much as he chose to say.

  If anyone wants me, tell them I had to go out, all right?' he asked Vianello. 'Of course.'

  Even the Chief Augur would not have been able to find a hidden message in Vianello's voice, though Brunetti knew there was one. Brunetti walked around his desk, and patted Vianello on the shoulder. Then he left the Questura and went home.

  He broached the subject at dinner, between the risotto with spinach and the pork with mushrooms. Chiara -who appeared to have abandoned vegetarianism - looked somehow different that evening, said that she didn't know Ludovica Fornari but knew of her.

  'Of?' Brunetti asked, placing another piece of pork on his plate.

  'Even I've heard about her’ Raffi offered, then returned his attention to the bowl of carrots with ginger.

  'What have you heard?' Brunetti enquired mildly.

  Paola shot him a glance as sharp as it was suspicious and interrupted to ask, 'Chiara, is that my Passion Flower you're wearing?' Brunetti had no idea to what the name referred. Because Chiara was wearing a white cotton sweater, it was not likely to be an article of clothing: that left lipstick or whatever else might be applied to a face. Or perfume, though he had not been aware of any, and Paola usually never wore scent.

  'Yes’ Chiara said with a certain hesitation.

  ‘I thought so’ Paola said with a wide smile. 'It looks very good on you.' She tilted her head to one side and studied her daughter's face. 'Probably better on you than it does on me, so maybe you'd better keep it.'

  'You don't mind, do you, Mamma?' Chiara asked.

  'No, no, not at all.' Looking brightly around the table, Paola said, 'There's only fruit for dessert, but I think tonight might be a good time to open the gelato season. Anyone willing to go over to Giacomo dell'Orio to get it?'

  Raffi speared the remaining wheels of carrot and put them into his mouth, set his fork down, and raised his hand. 'I'll go.'

  'But what about flavours?' Paola, who had never in her life shown any interest at all in the flavours of icecream she ate - so long as she got a lot of it - asked with transparently false brightness. 'Chiara, why don't you go with your brother and help him decide?'

  Chiara pushed her chair back and got to her feet. 'How much?'

  'Get the biggest container they have: we should begin the year with a bang, I think.' Then, to Raffi, 'Take the money from my purse. It's near the door.'

  Before Brunetti could finish his dinner and in open defiance of family tradition, the children were out the door and pounding down the stairs.

  Brunetti set his fork down, conscious in the silence of the sound it made as it tapped the wood of the table. 'And what was that all about, if I might ask?' he said.

  'It's about not turning my children into spies’ Paola said heatedly. Then, before he could begin to defend himself, she added, 'And don't say you were just asking idle questions, making conversation over dinner. I know you too well to believe that, Guido. And I won't have it’

  Brunetti looked at his plate, suddenly wondering how he had managed to eat so much, for why else would he suddenly feel so uncomfortably full? He sipped the last of his wine and set the glass back on the table.

  She was right. He knew that, but it angered him to have it pointed out to him so sharply. He looked at his plate again, picked up his fork and set it across the plate, then placed the knife in a neat parallel next to it.

  'And, Guido, you wouldn't have it, either, not really’ she said in a far softer voice. 'I said I knew you too well.' There was a pause, and then she said, 'You wouldn't like it if you had done it.'

  He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. He picked up his plate to carry it into the kitchen. Behind her chair he stopped and put his hand on her shoulder; hers covered his immediately.

  ‘I hope they bring some chocolate’ he said, his appetite suddenly restored.

  29

  The next morning, Brunetti lay in bed long after Paola had got up and left to go to her early class. He considered his options, looking at the case of the Gypsy girl from a different perspective or what he thought was a different perspective. He had nothing, not really. The only tangible proof he had that the girl had not fallen to her death while leaving the scene of a robbery was the testimony of a child who claimed that his sister had been killed by the tiger man. As evidence of that, Brunetti had in his possession a single cuff link and a ring set with a piece of cheap red glass.

  There were no signs of violence on the child's body other than that which would result from sliding down a terracotta roof, and the cause of death was drowning.

  His judgement that the Fornaris had come into possession of some sort of guilty knowledge was entirely subjective. His original assessment - and Vianello's - had been

  that Fornari's wife had been genuinely surprised by the news of the robbery.

  Fornari had seemed worried when Brunetti spoke to him, but he was a businessman working in Russia: well might he look worried. His wife had seemed nervous that time, as well. So what? Their daughter had seemed entirely untroubled to meet Brunetti. But then he remembered her coughing. It had begun when he had said he was about to leave and would get Vianello. 'Inspector’ Vianello, he had said.

  Even that was meaningless: people coughed all the time.

  Brunetti shifted around under the covers, turned over on to his back and studied the ceiling until the growing light told him he could linger no more. The only thing for it was to talk to Patta and see if, just this once, the Vice-Questore would see the pattern that could be made from these events.

  'Once again, you're letting yourself be carried away, Brunetti,' Patta said some hours later, just as Brunetti knew he would. Brunetti had not wasted time trying to predict his superior's exact words, but he had accurately predicted his superior's response. 'It's obvious that they had no idea what happened,' the Vice-Questore explained. 'She and her son probably came home and found the door to the terrace open: people forget about these things all the time. Unfortunately, the child had been in there while they were out.'

  Patta, who had been pacing his office as he spelled out his judgement, turned suddenly and, much in the manner of the clever prosecution lawyer in American films, said, 'You said she was wearing a plastic shoe?'

  'Yes’

  'Well, there you are,' Patta said, opening his hands in a gesture that suggested he had just revealed the final piece of evidence and there really was no need to waste more time in discussion.

  'Where am I?' Brunetti risked saying.

  Patta's expression made it clear that Brunetti was sailing too close to the wind. In a voice rich with sweet reason itself, the Vice-Questore went on. 'Plastic. On a slanted roof. A roof made from terracotta tiles.' He paused, then asked, 'I don't have to draw you a picture, do I, Commissario?' Patta's use of Brunetti's title was often an advance warning sign.

  'No, Vice-Questore. I understand.'

  'So this Signora Vivarini and her son, as I suggested, came home; she found the door to the terrace open and didn't give it a thought.' Patta paused long enough to smile in
Brunetti's direction, now transformed into the charming defence attorney. 'There's no way they could be troubled by that, is there, Commissario?'

  'No, sir.'

  'You said you thought Signora Vivarini was surprised to learn of the robbery, didn't you?' 'Yes, sir.'

  'Well, then, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.'

  1 told you about the daughter, coughing like that when I used Vianello's title.' As he heard himself saying it, Brunetti realized how limp, almost pathetic, it sounded. 'Before that, everything was entirely normal: she came in, introduced herself as Ludovica Fornari, shook my hand, but when I said -'

  'What?' Patta interrupted, face suddenly alert.

  'Excuse me?'

  'What did you say the girl's name was?' 'Ludovica Fornari. Why?' And then he thought to add, 'sir.'

  'You always talked about Signora Vivarini,' Patta said.

  'It's in the report, sir. The husband's name.'

  Patta waved that aside with a violent gesture, as if he were long past the point where he had to pay attention to written reports. 'Why didn't you tell me this before?' he demanded.

  ‘I didn't think it important, sir.'

  'Of course it's important,' Patta said, speaking as he would to a particularly dull pupil.

  'May I ask why, sir?'

  'You're Venetian, aren't you?' Patta asked, just short of sarcasm.

  Surprised, the best Brunetti could do was say, 'Yes.' 'And you don't know who she is?' Brunetti knew who her parents were, but from the way Patta spoke, Brunetti knew he knew nothing. 'No, sir, I don't.'

  'She's the fidanzata of the son of the Minister of the Interior. That's who she is.'

  Had this really been a cheap courtroom drama and Brunetti the lawyer whose only purpose in the scene was to be defeated utterly by the brilliant coup de theatre of his opposite, then this was the point where he should have slapped his palm to his forehead and said out loud, ‘I should have known,' or 'I had no idea.'

  Instead, Brunetti remained silent, ostensibly to permit Patta to reveal more but actually to give himself time to fit it all together.

  'I'm surprised at you, Brunetti, really I am,' Patta began. 'My son knows both children - he's in the same rowing club with the son - but I had no idea who you were talking about all this time. The Fornari girl. Of course’ Brunetti sat with a look of bright attention plastered across his face, as if still trapped in the conventions of this cheap film.

  The Minister of the Interior. Among whose duties was the direction of the various forces of order, including the police. The scandal magazines loved his family: his wife one of the heiresses of a huge industrial fortune; the eldest son an anthropologist missing and believed dead in New Caledonia; a daughter famous for commuting between Rome and Los Angeles in pursuit of a film career that never quite managed to take off; another daughter married to a Spanish doctor and living quietly in Madrid; and the now-heir, a boy of unpredictable temper who had already been involved in more than one discoteca fracas and about whom rumours of more serious offences - always left unprosecuted - circulated widely among the police. The mother was Venetian, Brunetti knew, the Minister himself Roman.

  '... idea is entirely untenable’ Patta said, approaching the end of his peroration. Thus the idea of even his most remote involvement with such a thing - which I hardly have to tell you is absolutely unthinkable - is not an idea we are going to consider.' The Vice-Questore waited for Brunetti to respond, but Brunetti was busy wondering how, and what, he could find out about the boy.

  Brunetti nodded, as though he had been following every word his superior had said. He was curious about, among other things, who the 'his' and the 'we' in Patta's discourse were. The first could as easily be the Minister as his son; the 'we' most likely referred to the police, but could just as easily refer to the entire political establishment.

  'Have I made myself sufficiently clear, Commissario?' Patta asked, this time infusing his voice with the heavy menace usually reserved for the villain of melodrama.

  'Yes, sir,' Brunetti answered. He rose to his feet and said, I'm sure your analysis of the situation is correct, and we should be very careful about involving someone as important as this in our investigations without serious justification.'

  'There is no justification,' Patta shot back, not attempting to hide his anger, 'serious or otherwise.'

  'Of course,' Brunetti said, 'that's evident.' He took a few steps towards the door, waiting to see what sort of final warning Patta would choose to give him, but the Vice-Questore said nothing further. Brunetti wished his superior a polite good morning and left the office.

  Outside, Signorina Elettra glanced at him as he emerged. 'Unpleasant, eh?' she asked.

  'It seems that the Fornari girl is the fidanzata of the son of the Minister of the Interior,' he said. Her eyes widened, and he watched as she began to consider a new perspective on events. Then, should Lieutenant Scarpa perhaps be hiding behind the arras, he added, 'This, of course, means it is unthinkable that we make an attempt to find out the boy's past history or about any accusations that might have been made against him.'

  She shook her head, dismissing such a course of action. 'If he's the son of a minister,' she said earnestly, 'then it's impossible that these inquiries would find anything, I'm sure.' As she spoke, her right hand reached aside to her keyboard: the mountain stream flowing across the face of her screen disappeared, replaced by a utilitarian panoply of programs. It would be a waste of time to pursue them’ she added, turning her chair to face the screen.

  'I could not agree more strongly, Signorina’ Brunetti intoned and went upstairs to await the results of her search.

  'Mamma mia’ she said as she entered his office two hours later. 'This is a busy boy’ She approached Brunetti's desk, some papers in her hand; she stopped and began to lift them one by one, only to let them flutter on to the surface, saying as they fell, 'Possession of drugs.' Flutter, flutter. 'Dismissed for insufficient evidence. Aggravated assault’ Flutter, flutter. 'Dismissed because the victim retracted his denuncia. Aggravated assault.' Flutter, flutter. 'Another retraction’ She held up one sheet a bit higher than the others and said, ‘I put all four drunken driving arrests on one sheet. It didn't seem right to waste so much paper on him.' Flutter, flutter. 'Each time, he found compassionate judges who considered his age and his sincere desire to change himself, and so formal charges were never brought against him.'

  Her smile was that of a doting aunt, delighted that the forces of order joined her in seeing into the pure heart of this boy. Brunetti noticed that there were only two sheets of paper left. 'Assault on a police officer’ she said, placing one of them in front of Brunetti, perhaps to suggest that playtime was almost at an end.

  'He got into an argument in a restaurant in Bergamo’ she explained. 'It started when one of those Tamils who sell roses came in. The minister's son - his name is Antonio - told him to get out, and when the Tamil didn't go, he started to shout at him. Someone at another table, this was the police officer, who was having dinner with his wife, went over and tried to quiet him down’ 'What happened?'

  'According to the original report, the boy pulled a knife and stabbed at the Tamil, but he backed away in time. Then things got confused, but the boy ended up, handcuffed, on the floor.

  'And then?'

  'Then things get even more confused,' she said, setting the last paper on top of the others.

  Brunetti looked at it: a government form he did not recognize. 'What is it?' he asked.

  'An expulsion order. The Tamil was on a plane to Colombo the next day.' Her voice was neutral. 'When they checked his papers, they discovered that he had been arrested a number of times before and told to leave the country.'

  'But this time they helped him leave?' Brunetti asked unnecessarily. 'It seems.'

  'And the police officer?'

  'When he submitted his written report the following day, he remembered that the Tamil had been drunk and abusive and had threatened the girl.' Whe
n she saw Brunetti's expression, she added, 'Known for their violence, these Sri Lankans, aren't they?'

  Brunetti restrained himself from comment and studied the surface of his desk. Finally he said, 'How lucky for the boy that the policeman remembered.'

  Retrieving the last two pages, she glanced at them, though Brunetti knew this was more for show than from necessity. 'He also remembered that there had been no knife. He said it must have been one of the Tamil's roses.'

  'He actually said that?' demanded an astonished Brunetti.

  Waving the papers, she answered, 'Wrote it.' After a minimal pause, she went on, 'The police in Bergamo appear to have lost the original statement he gave when they got to the restaurant.'

  'And the girl?' Brunetti asked. 'Did she remember that detail, about the rose, too?'

  Signorina Elettra gave the shadow of a shrug and said, 'She said she was too frightened to remember.'

  ‘I see.'

  'How long has he known the Fornari girl?' 'From what the people I know said, it's only a few months.'

  'He's the heir, isn't he?' Brunetti asked. 'Yes.'

  'What actually happened to the older brother?'

  'He was living with a tribe in New Caledonia, doing some sort of anthropological research. Living like them. And this tribe, or so the reports say, was attacked by the tribe living in the next valley and the boy disappeared during a raid.'

  'Killed?' Brunetti asked.

  She raised her shoulders and let them drop. 'No one knows for sure. He'd shaved his head and got all the tribal scars, so whoever raided might have thought he was one of them.'

  Brunetti shook his head at the waste of it, and she added, 'The attack wasn't reported until months later, and by then there was no trace of him.'

  'Which means?'

  'From what I read, either the tribe he was living with would have buried him, or the others would have carried off his body after they killed him’