Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(11)

Brunetti raised his head and glanced towards the Captain, but she was busy reading another file that had appeared miraculously in front of her and didn’t look up. Brunetti returned to the story. Marcello Vio, who was the only son of the injured man, had two younger sisters as well as a mother. To support them, he left school at fifteen and began to work for his uncle’s transport business, where he remained to this day.

Filiberto Duso, in this unlikely script, was the young princeling. He and Vio were inseparable at school, until Duso went to liceo to prepare himself for university and Vio went to work. They remained, however, best friends. Together, they sailed the laguna, always in search of adventure, and they were generally considered ‘bravi ragazzi.’

A number of recent rumours suggested that some of Vio’s -latest adventures were of questionable legality, perhaps the smuggling of cigarettes from Montenegro or the transport of illegally harvested clams. His uncle, not Duso, was named in conjunction with these actions, although no date nor specific action was provided. Brunetti read three short comments that spoke of, even warned of, the uncle’s influence upon his nephew. On the Giudecca, it was all but impossible to escape the low murmur of Gossip, and Brunetti was wary of putting much faith in a story that was not corroborated by something more closely resembling fact.

Brunetti finished reading and raised the sheets of paper, and when Nieddu finally looked over at him, he asked, ‘Is this why Vio’s a “person of interest” to you?’

She nodded. ‘Following in the footsteps of his uncle, Pietro Borgato.’

‘Also a person of interest?’

‘Even more so. And for some time. There are rumours.’

‘What sort?’ Brunetti asked.

She started to answer but then shrugged and stopped. ‘You know how it is. People say he’s mixed up in bad things, but when you ask, they don’t know what sort of bad things: but they heard it from someone they trust.’ She let him think about that for a short time and then added, ‘A woman who lives next to one of my men said he’s a smuggler, but she didn’t know what he was smuggling.’ She raised a hand and made a waving gesture, as if to drive these remarks away. ‘It might just as easily be that she simply doesn’t like him and thinks he’s got to be a smuggler because he has boats.’

Because there was nothing he could say, Brunetti remained silent for a moment and then tapped at the photos and asked, ‘How do you know it was these two at the hospital dock?’ he finally asked.

Instead of answering, Nieddu reached to the In box and pulled out the file. She flicked through it until, finding the paper she sought, she turned it around and leaned across her desk to pass it to him.

Clipped to the top was a single photo of two young men, arm in arm, relaxed, smiling at the camera. They were dressed in shorts and T-shirts. Both were deeply tanned; one was heavily muscled. He had pushed his sunglasses back on his head, while the thinner one wore the crown of green laurel leaves that students put on to celebrate their graduation from university. Red silk streamers ran down from a large bow attached to the crown; his mouth was wide open and he seemed ready to take a bite out of the planet. Brunetti’s spirit recalled the joy and wild pride he’d felt when he’d worn the same wreath for a single day: he understood Duso’s expression, for this had to be Duso.

He studied both faces briefly, placed the photo on the desk, picked up the photos Signorina Elettra had sent and placed them on either side of the photo of the two young men together. He glanced back and forth: there was no confounding him, the one with the sunglasses was Marcello Vio.

‘Duso’s graduation party?’ Brunetti asked, tapping at the photo.

‘Yes. This summer.’

‘Who took it?’

The Captain hesitated a moment before she answered, ‘One of my men.’

Brunetti gave no indication of his surprise. ‘How did you get it?’

‘He saw the photos we were sent and brought that one to me this morning.’

Brunetti nodded and considered what she’d just said. To have taken the photo, the officer would have to be a friend, perhaps even a relative, of one of the men in the photo. ‘Am I allowed to compliment you on this?’

She raised a hand as if to push away what he had said. ‘He’s the one who brought the photo.’

‘That means he’s probably from the Giudecca or at least from the city.’

‘He is,’ she said. ‘He’s a good man.’

‘Not a boy?’ Brunetti asked, surprised.

‘No, he’s sixty and sitting out his last years until retirement.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, doubly struck by the man’s courage. He switched his legs and leaned to tap a finger on the first page of the handwritten text. ‘Do you, or the officer who gave you this information, have proof of anything that’s written in here?’ he asked.

‘Aside from information in official documents, no: there’s nothing that anyone would admit having said. Only the usual gossip,’ she answered, and then continued, ‘It’s one thing to believe that something is happening, even to know it is. But that’s not the sort of evidence judges will accept.’ She mirrored him by folding her arms and crossing her legs, then added, ‘And you certainly don’t want anyone to know you passed on the information.’ She stopped speaking, seeming to want some acknowledgement from him.