Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(14)

‘Two and Four,’ she said, naming the least comfortable of the interrogation rooms, both painted an unfriendly green, each with a cheap plastic table and four plastic chairs. Although there were ‘No Smoking’ signs on the outside and inside of the doors, both rooms stank of cigarettes, the floors covered with flicked-away ash that was no sooner removed than again flicked to the floor by the next person to be questioned. People had complained about the smell for years, both among those questioned and those asking the questions, but the fact that granting a suspect the right to smoke sometimes led to a loosening of their resolve not to speak legitimized the custom, and so suspects were sometimes permitted to smoke, and sometimes it soothed them into the truth. And sometimes it did not.

Brunetti took out his telefonino and called Griffoni. When she picked up, he asked, ‘You’ve heard we’ve found them?’

‘Yes.’

‘One of them will be here in ten minutes. Would you like to . . .’

‘Sì,’ she said, so loud as to force him to hold his phone away from his ear. There was noise, then a loud slam, followed by a metallic rattle, after which he heard what must have been footsteps.

He stepped out into the hallway and went down towards the stairwell. Just as he arrived, Griffoni, left hand on the railing, swung herself around into the stairs leading down to the next floor. When she saw him, she raised her hand from the bannister and slowed her pace.

‘They aren’t here yet,’ Brunetti called up to her. Griffoni reached the bottom step and walked towards him. ‘Tell me,’ she said. The flush of colour on her face, left tanned by the summer sun, made the contrast with her blonde hair and green eyes even more startling. It also made it more difficult to believe she was from the South.

‘The Carabinieri on the Giudecca recognized them,’ Brunetti said. ‘Neither of them has a record.’

‘You aren’t bringing the two of them in together, are you?’ she asked.

‘Claudia,’ Brunetti said slowly, nothing more.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ She backed up a step, saying, her voice suddenly tight and nervous, ‘I saw the girl today.’

‘The one in Mestre?’

‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the floor.

Brunetti waited and, in the face of her continued silence, finally asked, ‘And?’

Griffoni raised a hand and brushed at the side of her mouth, something she did when she was nervous. She looked down at her feet again and shook her head. ‘Guido,’ she said, ‘she’s nineteen years old.’ She looked back at him and went on, ‘She hasn’t regained consciousness, and they can’t operate until she does.’

Before she could say anything else, they heard voices from below. There was a man’s voice, loud with fear, and the lower, calm voice of Pucetti. ‘If you’d come with . . .’ Pucetti began, but his voice became inaudible, no doubt as he turned towards the back of the building and the interrogation rooms. The louder voice said, ‘I don’t know what you’re . . .’ but then it too softened and disappeared as the person who must be Vio followed Pucetti.

Knowing he had only moments to explain things to Griffoni, Brunetti said, nodding his chin in the direction of the disappearing footsteps on the floor below, ‘This one works as a boatman, and his friend who was with him is the son of a lawyer and works in his father’s office. All I learned is that the boatman is a “person of interest” to the Carabinieri on the Giudecca. There are rumours that he’s been smuggling cigarettes and clams.’

She made a puffing noise to comment on the irrelevance of this.

‘And perhaps other things,’ Brunetti said.

‘Only rumours?’ she interrupted to ask.

Suddenly Pucetti appeared at the bottom of the steps and called up, ‘Commissari, I put him in Room Four.’

‘Thanks, Pucetti,’ Brunetti said, starting down the stairs towards the young officer. It had been some time since Pucetti had worked with him, so he suggested, ‘Would you like to stand in with us?’

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Pucetti said, perhaps too enthusiastically.

‘Claudia?’ Brunetti asked.

‘By all means,’ she said. ‘Come along, Pucetti. We’ll see what he knows about boats.’

Inside the room, the young man wearing the sunglasses in the photo Brunetti had seen stood behind a chair, hands gripped on its back, as if poised there for a moment, sure that he was soon to be on his way. He wore faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, sleeves turned back to show thick forearms, one encircled by a tattooed band. He had a round face, a turned-up nose, and wore his hair in the current fashion, shaved close on the sides long on top, but even with these signs of youth, he looked older than in the photo Captain Nieddu had shown Brunetti, with dark circles under his eyes and a face drawn tight as though with pain. His skin was dry and pale beneath the remnants of his summer tan, and Brunetti thought he could hear his breathing.

‘Have a seat, Signor Vio,’ Brunetti said as he approached the table. He waited for Vio to pull back the chair and sit. When he did not, Brunetti sat and reached towards a switch on the top of the table, flipped it to the right, and said, ‘Our conversation will be recorded, Signor Vio. This way there will be no doubt about what we discussed. I hope that’s all right with you.’ Brunetti added this last in a way that made it clear he neither hoped nor cared whether it was all right with Signor Vio.