Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(25)

‘Shall we go back?’ Griffoni asked.

A thought came floating by, and Brunetti ignored Griffoni’s question. He stood in front of the door to the interrogation room, trying to remember something one of the two men had said or suggested. Or perhaps it was more a sense of their reaction to the accident. Vio did not speed to the hospital, although the girl had said he’d been eager to speed before the accident, and the police had fined him countless times for speeding.

What had changed with the accident? The boat must have been damaged to some degree, but if Vio managed to get it back to the Giudecca, it could not have been serious. He would surely be accountable to his uncle for that, but he had not hesitated to take the boat back to his uncle’s mooring place and tie it up there.

‘Guido?’ he heard Griffoni say.

‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘Let’s get back in.’

He opened the door and stood back to let her enter. They found Duso where and pretty much as they’d left him. He still looked stunned, as though he’d been hit by something heavy he had not noticed coming at him.

‘You can go now, Signor Duso,’ Brunetti said, not explaining their absence nor what might have happened to allow him to make this decision.

Griffoni took over here and said, ‘Abandoning an injured person, as you are certainly aware, is a serious crime, Signor Duso. Therefore, you are obliged to inform us if you have any intention of leaving the city.’ She let that sink in and then added, ‘For whatever reason.’

As if drugged, the young man got to his feet, nodded vaguely to them both, and left the room.

‘What did you think?’ Brunetti asked when they were back in his office.

‘I think he was honestly surprised when I told him the alarm wasn’t there any more.’ Griffoni was sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk, legs stretched in front of her. She pushed the chair back on its legs and latched her hands behind her head. She closed her eyes and after a moment said, ‘The light was dim. They were both still shocked by what had happened. Perhaps by what they were doing. So, yes, he could have mistaken it for the alarm.’

‘You believe him, then?’ Brunetti asked.

She released her hands and let the chair settle to the floor very softly. ‘I think it’s possible,’ was all she was willing to say.

They sat in easy silence for some time until Griffoni said, ‘I suspect Duso’s spent the last few days looking at the statutes regarding failure to offer help to victims of an accident.’ She smiled and added, ‘He’s probably also taken a look at nautical law.’

She let Brunetti consider this and then continued. ‘They didn’t intend any harm and they got them to the hospital as fast as they could. That certainly . . .’

After a moment, she continued in a louder voice, ‘But did Vio actually think he could get away with this? Just drop them off at the hospital and go home, and no one would wonder who took them there or what had happened to them?’ She looked over at Brunetti and asked, ‘Do you think he could be that stupid?’

Rather than spend time in a discussion of Vio’s intelligence, Brunetti and Griffoni remained in his office to mull over the young man’s behaviour. ‘Why didn’t he go to Pronto Soccorso himself?’ Brunetti asked. ‘He knew he’d been hurt.’

‘Adrenaline,’ she said aloud, then, ‘They were both pumped full of it.’

‘In which case,’ Brunetti said in an explanatory voice, ‘he would have gone back to the hospital when it wore off. But he didn’t.’ Then, speculating, he added, ‘He was afraid of something, I’d say.’

They must have given up at the same time. Griffoni asked, ‘Now what?’ just as Brunetti said, ‘I don’t understand it.’ Both lapsed into silence.

Finally Brunetti said, ‘I think I’ll go over to the Giudecca tomorrow and see what I can find out about the transport business.’

‘Would you like me to come along?’ she asked.

For a moment, Brunetti was tempted, but then he thought of what it would be like for him to show up to ask questions of Giudecchini in the company of an attractive, tall, blonde whose every statement was a declaration that she was not Venetian. ‘I’d rather go over there by myself,’ he finally answered.

‘So you can question them more easily in that sneaky, underhand way you sly Venetians use against one another?’ she asked.

‘Something like that,’ he answered with a bland smile. ‘I’d like them not to be distracted.’ He left it to Griffoni to believe he was talking about her inability to speak Veneziano and not her appearance.

This time, she stood and kicked her feet out in front of her to free them after sitting for so long.

As though to show there were no hurt feelings on her part, Griffoni said, ‘Besides, if I were to go, I’d have to take my passport.’

‘I think people on the Giudecca are more accustomed to looking at police warrant cards, Claudia,’ Brunetti said and, since the day had been long enough, added that it was time for her to go home.

She did not protest.

When she was gone, Brunetti checked into his computer and sure enough, there it was, Borgato Trasporti, Giudecca 255, offering water transport and shipping for the entire laguna, to the islands, the mainland, to Jesolo and Cavallino. Free estimates. In business since 2010, Pietro Borgato, owner. He checked the address and found that it was along Rio del Ponte Longo, put his phone in his pocket, and started for home.