Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(29)

Cesco could not help smiling. ‘They started installing the first motor. Borgato was there and drove them like they were mules. Swearing at them, correcting them, cursing their mothers, telling them they had to get them installed fast.’

He looked at Brunetti, who said nothing, but nodded, leaving it to Cesco to move on to the climax.

‘I looked at my watch, and I’d been there ten minutes, so I stepped around the cart, tossed my cigarette into the bottom, and grabbed my broom. I swept a little in the courtyard: it’s what I do every day. Then I stuck my broom back in the cart and left.’

‘Did they notice you?’

‘As you mentioned,’ Cesco said with a broad smile, ‘I’m invisible. I finished my route: it took about three hours, and I took my cart back to the magazzino where we leave them and parked it there.’

‘And then?’ Brunetti asked, as he suspected Cesco wanted him to.

‘I went back to the courtyard.’

‘And?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Both boats were gone.’ He paused, reached towards the pocket where he kept his cigarettes, but pulled his hand back and said, ‘Since then, I’ve seen the boats a number of times, so he’s using them. But they come in early in the morning.’

Brunetti watched Cesco trying to decide whether to say something else, so he made himself look as much like an oak tree as possible: patient, motionless, secure.

Cesco gave in to temptation, pulled out his cigarettes and lit one, then turned to Brunetti and said, ‘Once, when I pulled the cart in there – it was raining – one of the big boats was on the other side. He and his nephew – what’s his name? Marcello? – were scrambling around in it, with a hose, washing it down. The nephew was kneeling, using rags to wipe up the water and wringing it out over the side. Borgato kept telling him to hurry up.’

He paused for some time, occasionally puffing at his cigarette. Brunetti did not stir.

‘Borgato went back into the warehouse and came out with one of those black plastic garbage bags and started picking up stuff from the bottom of the boat and shoving it into the bag.’

‘Could you see what it was?’ Brunetti asked.

‘A jacket, a couple of shoes, a scarf. I remember that because, even in the rain, I could see how happy looking it was: lots of bright colours.

‘Did you see anything else?’

Cesco shook his head, then started to speak again. ‘Finally, they got on the boat, and the nephew started the motor, and they backed down the canal, turned around, and left.’

‘Do you have any idea where they went?’

‘No.’ Cesco walked back to the entrance to the embarcadero and rubbed out his cigarette before tossing it into the garbage container. As he walked back towards Brunetti, his smile broke out again, and he said, ‘Professional habit.’ He paused a step from Brunetti and said, ‘I’ve never seen either of the boats there again.’ He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket and checked the time. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.

Cesco stepped back from the railing and turned away from the water. He offered his hand to Brunetti, who shook it gladly.

‘Thanks for your help,’ Brunetti said.

Cesco stuck his hand into his pocket. ‘Glad to do it,’ he said. He turned from Brunetti and started down the riva, a man on his way to work.

When Cesco had been gone a few minutes, Brunetti went into Palanca and had a coffee, a brioche, and another coffee. Leaving the bar, he walked down to Ponte Piccolo and crossed it, right at the first calle and down to Campiello Ferrando, which ended in a canal. He turned right, and in three steps was in a courtyard, a garden on his right. A warehouse stood on the other side of the canal, two large boats moored in front of it: he assumed it to be Borgato’s warehouse.

He went back to the riva and stood for some time, watching the sunlight bring the day back to life. He glanced at his watch, surprised that it was not yet eight. He went down to the Redentore stop to wait for the Number Two.





11


Brunetti was in no hurry to get to work and decided to walk from Valaresso and observe, at this time of the morning, the absence of people in the Piazza. So it proved to be, with so few people he could have counted them had he chosen to. He ambled, delighting in the sight of the flags swirling about in the breeze, and the horses poised, front legs lifted delicately, gazing down the Piazza, as if pausing to decide which way to go. How wonderful they were, even if only copies, how bold and excessive, like so much within his line of sight.

He looked around the Piazza again, still only spotted with people, and thought of his mother’s often-repeated warning that he should never make a wish, for fear it would be granted. For years we Venetians had wished the tourists to disappear and give us back our city. Well, we’d had our wish, and look at us now.

He cast off this thought, paused after passing the bell tower, and turned to sweep a panoramic look from left to right. Could a normal person see this and not be affected? Finding no answer, and not much liking rhetorical questions, anyway, Brunetti shrugged and continued on his way to work.

He stopped in Signorina Elettra’s office first, but she wasn’t there. He turned to leave but saw Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta standing in the doorway of his office, watching him. Brunetti’s first reaction was relief that he was standing well over a metre from her desk and facing it, not close to it and appearing to examine the papers on it.