Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(16)

Brunetti smiled before he answered. ‘Take friends out into the laguna.’

Because he was opposite Vio, Brunetti could see on his face the moment the question registered. The young man had apparently thought that the slight warming of tone on the part of his two interlocutors was a sign of their goodwill, that he had managed to impress them as a good employee and thus a good person who, obviously, was there by mistake. Brunetti’s question put an end to that dream and brought Vio back to the cruel reality that he was in the Questura, and the police were interrogating him.

‘Oh,’ Vio said, his hands grasping at one another, ‘that doesn’t happen very often. Redentore.’ He looked at his hands, stopped their embrace, and placed them palms down in front of him, where he could keep a close eye on them.

‘Redentore was months ago,’ Brunetti reminded him. ‘Have you been out with friends since then?’

‘No!’ Vio’s answer came too fast and too loud. ‘I work on the weekends. I don’t have time.’ Any other defence was cut off by a short bark of a cough and then another series of quick breaths.

‘Really?’ Griffoni asked when he stopped, quite as though she were in possession of different information. She twisted her mouth and raised her eyebrows, glanced aside at Brunetti and asked, ‘That’s not what you heard, is it, Commissario?’

‘Well,’ Brunetti answered, stretching the word for as long as possible. ‘Maybe there’s been some mistake.’

‘Perhaps,’ Griffoni said, sounding unpersuaded.

Vio’s head moved back and forth, as if he thought he might understand what was going on if he managed to keep his eyes on Brunetti and Griffoni all the time they spoke.

Brunetti returned his attention to Vio, saying, ‘We’d like to ask you some questions about Saturday night, Signor Vio.’

Vio’s mouth fell open and he stared, speechless, at Brunetti, then at Griffoni. He sat still – prey – waiting, too frightened to move.

Brunetti smiled again, amiability itself. ‘Could you give us an idea of what you did on Saturday night, Signor Vio?’

‘I . . .’ he began, and they could see him trying to remember what Saturday was, and when he had that figured out, when Saturday was. ‘I went for a walk.’

‘Were you at home when you decided to go for your walk?’ Griffoni asked. Then she smiled to suggest that she was merely trying to pass the time.

‘Yes.’

‘And where is home, if I might ask?’

‘Near Sant’Eufemia.’

She allowed her smile to soften and said, ‘You have to be patient with me, Signor Vio: I’m not Venetian, so I don’t know where that is.’

For a moment, it seemed that Signor Vio didn’t know, either, but then he burst into speech, saying, ‘It’s down at the end of the canal before you get to Harry’s Dolci. Number 630.’ He raised an arm, as if to point towards his home, but the gesture was cut off by a deep wince of pain and a single, barked cough. Out came the handkerchief, and he wiped at his mouth again.

‘Thank you, Signor Vio,’ Griffoni said.

Brunetti interrupted to add, ‘There’s not much to do there on a Saturday night, I’d say.’ Then, thinking he should make it clear to Vio that he knew the place he was talking about, he added, ‘Even Palanca closes at ten.’

‘No, not there,’ Vio said.

‘Oh, where did you go?’ Griffoni chirped, suggesting that he had but to name the beautiful Venetian location where he’d decided to go and she’d be out of the room and on her way to see it the instant he stopped speaking.

Brunetti and Griffoni had developed a symbiotic ability to delude and deceive suspects or, indeed, any people they interviewed together. They took turns being the good cop or the bad cop; sometimes they even switched roles during an interrogation. They had never discussed this, did not plan before speaking to someone: they simply looked for weakness and dived towards it, no more thoughtful than sharks.

‘On the other side,’ Vio said, grudgingly.

‘Of the Giudecca Canal?’ Griffoni asked, as if she believed there could be some other canal to cross from the Giudecca.

‘Yes.’

‘And where did you go?’

Vio opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Brunetti interrupted to ask, ‘Did you see anyone you know?’

Vio’s mouth slammed shut, almost involuntarily, and they both watched him retracing his steps through the city on Saturday night. And they saw him meet someone, at least open his eyes with surprise and look about him, as if in search of that person. His breathing became more agitated, and his nervousness seemed to prevent him from taking in enough oxygen.

Vio nodded and waved a hand, unable to speak.

After waiting some time for him to get his breath back, Brunetti asked, with a complete absence of friendliness, ‘Who did you meet?’

‘Someone from work.’

‘Who?’ Brunetti continued.

Vio remained silent for a while and then said, ‘My uncle’s secretary,’ and Brunetti disguised his pleasure at this answer: a woman was more likely to tell the truth when asked if, and where, she had seen him. No, he told his ever-constant eavesdropper: not because women were more honest – though he believed they were – but because they were more afraid of having trouble with authority.