Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(30)
‘Good morning, Vice-Questore,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to see Signorina Elettra.’
‘Why?’ Patta surprised him by asking: it was not usual for the Vice-Questore to demonstrate interest in police matters unless they somehow called his authority into question or necessitated his making a decision.
‘I asked Signorina Elettra to get some information for me, Dottore,’ Brunetti answered, making light of the matter by being as vague as possible.
‘About what?’ Patta inquired quietly enough for Brunetti to suspect a trap of some kind.
‘She said her father knows a very good watchmaker on the Giudecca. I’ve got an old Omega my great-uncle . . .’
‘Giudecca?’ Patta interrupted, then asked, ‘Don’t they have a bad reputation?’
Brunetti smiled and did his best to give an easy little laugh. ‘I think that’s a bit of folklore, Dottore. Left over from my parents’ generation.’
‘You’re not trying to protect them, are you, Brunetti?’
Instead of asking – as one would when speaking to someone who knew nothing about Venice – what the Giudecchini needed to be protected from, Brunetti repeated his mini-laugh and said, ‘Of course not, Vice-Questore.’ That seemed to satisfy Patta, who turned back into his office and closed the door.
Next he tried Vianello. He went down the hall on the first floor and into the office where the Ispettore worked and saw him in the far corner, speaking with two other officers, all three of them in uniform. When he noticed Brunetti, Vianello held up a hand to signal that he would be with him quickly. Seeing a copy of that day’s Gazzettino on Vianello’s desk, Brunetti went over to Vianello’s chair and began to page through the newspaper. Attention was paid to the arrest of two politicians in Lombardy for the buying of votes; while another article reported the arrest of 138 people in a maxi-round-up of Mafia collaborators: politicians, businessmen, and lawyers, as well as one banker, all involved in a ring of loan-sharking and the sale of government contracts for road-building and maintenance. The article used two of the by-now-familiar photos of the latest autostrada bridge to collapse as well as close-ups of flaking cement pylons that, with steel support rods poking out on all sides, did not encourage a sense of security in anyone who chose to drive on an autostrada with bridges suspended on these pylons.
He slid the paper aside as useless and found, under it, La Repubblica, which he opened to the Culture section, having read more than enough about the state of the country. And what did his wondering eyes behold but a review of a new translation of the Annals of Tacitus? He had read them as a student, seeking help from what he’d thought even then a very unexciting translation, and had sensed that genius lurked behind the Latin he struggled through and the translation he plodded through.
Aware of motion beside him, Brunetti turned away from the paper and saw Vianello.
‘Il Gazzettino not good enough for you?’ Vianello asked, nodding with his chin at the newspaper Brunetti had moved aside.
‘It’s not good enough for anybody, I suspect,’ Brunetti answered.
‘Then why do you read it every day?’
‘Vox pop,’ Brunetti countered. ‘I think it really is the voice of the people here: their concerns, their preferences, their crimes.’ He looked at Vianello, who seemed unpersuaded by his defence of the newspaper.
‘Besides, they list the names of the pharmacies that are open on Sunday,’ Brunetti concluded and covered one newspaper with the other.
Vianello pulled out the chair in front of the desk and sat. ‘What is it?’
‘I’d like you to listen to something,’ Brunetti said.
Vianello, sensitive to the change in Brunetti’s voice, shifted his chair closer.
‘I was out on the Giudecca this morning,’ Brunetti began. ‘I had a look at the place where Vio’s uncle has his transport business.’ Vianello nodded. ‘But before that I spoke to the garbage man who’s in charge of the streets around it.’
‘The garbage man?’ Vianello repeated, not without a certain surprise.
‘He told me that Borgato’s got new boats but doesn’t moor them there.’ Before Vianello could ask for clarification, Brunetti explained his conversation with Cesco about the motors and their size, excessive for ordinary transport.
It took Vianello only an instant to say, ‘If he’s not a fisherman with a very big boat, then there’s no reason he’d have engines that powerful.’ Interested now, Vianello asked, ‘Is that all he said?’
Brunetti hesitated before answering. ‘That he said directly, yes, but it didn’t sound like he had any great fondness for Borgato.’
‘Doesn’t make him sound like a reliable witness.’
Brunetti shrugged this aside, knowing how few witnesses were reliable. ‘He’s intelligent and observant, and he saw men fitting the motors – he was certain they were at least 250 horsepower – on to the boats. His feelings for Borgato are irrelevant to what he saw.’
Vianello shifted back in his chair and folded his arms, saying nothing.
‘All right, all right, Lorenzo,’ Brunetti conceded. ‘Big motors on boats that belong to someone who transports cargo in the laguna,’ he continued, then added, ‘and who is rumoured to be involved in some sort of smuggling.’