Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(41)

‘Where’d they go?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I think they sell everything online now, but I’m not sure.’

‘You know what’s coming?’ Brunetti asked. Because they were speaking Veneziano, he felt he had the right to ask.

‘Murano glass,’ the man answered, emphasizing the first word.

‘Murano, China?’ Brunetti asked.

The man snorted in response and picked up another glass.

Brunetti thanked him, went back outside, and continued towards the hospital.

Inside, he was directed to the ear, nose, and throat ward and didn’t bother to ask questions, familiar with the odd places patients ended up as a result of crowding.

He followed the signs, passed through the columned garden on the ground floor, and, after asking his way a few times, found the ward. He stopped at the nurses’ desk, was recognized by one of them, and explained that he wanted to see Marcello Vio. He was directed to the third door on the right and found Vio in a two-bed room, near the window, his attention given to his phone, ear pods in place. He was sitting up, braced against a number of pillows. The other patient, an old man who had not shaved for days, slept in the nearer bed, one eye protected by a plastic cup bandaged over it.

Brunetti stood at the door and watched Vio. He looked thinner than he had when Brunetti last saw him, thinner and paler, his face now clean-shaven, drawn with stress or tiredness. His expression suddenly changed in response to whatever was happening on the screen. Tension, fear, concentration led him to push one of the pods deeper into his ear; soon came sagging relief. He looked up, turned to the window and then to the door. The sight of Brunetti washed all expression from his face, but then a trickle of some unpleasant emotion caused his eyes to narrow and his hand to lower the phone on to the bed cover.

He raised both hands and removed the pods but said nothing.

Brunetti approached the bed and extended his hand; Vio shook it and quickly returned his hand to his phone, as if to save it from Brunetti’s interest.

‘Good morning, Signor Vio. I thought I’d come along to see how you are. I thought they’d let you go sooner.’

Vio shook his head. ‘No, they decided not to take the risk and to keep me here.’

‘Risk?’ Brunetti inquired mildly.

‘I broke a rib and cracked two others, and they’re afraid that the broken one could still hurt my lung.’ As he spoke, his hand sought out the ribs under discussion and covered them protectively.

Brunetti nodded enough times to give evidence of concern.

Vio looked down at his hands.

Uninvited, Brunetti moved around the bed and pulled the chair standing against the wall up close to Vio and sat down, only an arm’s length from him. He watched Vio move minimally away from him, then stop with an involuntary groan when he moved too quickly.

‘When we were interrupted, Signor Vio, you were just telling me that you took one of your uncle’s boats and went across the canal to Campo Santa Margherita.’ Brunetti’s lie emerged seamlessly.

He waited until Vio nodded, and then went on. ‘I live not far from the Campo,’ Brunetti said untruthfully, ‘so I know what it’s like late at night, how crowded it is with students and young people meeting and talking together over a drink.’

He gave a small laugh to introduce another lie. ‘My son often goes there with his friends.’ Vio remained silent.

‘He meets girls there, of course.’ Again Brunetti gave a small laugh, then asked, ‘Is that why you went there that night, Signor Vio?’ Then, before Vio could answer, Brunetti added, ‘I’d like you to think very carefully before you answer that question, Signor Vio.’

Vio’s eyes grew wider, perhaps with surprise. They were sitting so close that Brunetti could see the sweat in front of Vio’s ears. ‘Why do you say that, Signore?’ Vio asked, speaking very softly. He pushed air from his chest, then took a deep breath, only to push it out again. He placed his palms beside him on the mattress and pushed himself higher against the pillow, moving with the caution of an old man.

‘Is this like being in the Questura?’ Vio asked, sounding suddenly very young. He raised his hand and pointed at Brunetti and then at himself. ‘You and me, I mean,’ turning this last phrase into a question.

‘In a way it is, yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Only there’s no recording being made.’ To show his good faith, Brunetti took his phone out and turned it off, then showed the unresponsive screen to Vio.

‘So it’s more like a conversation?’ Vio asked.

‘Something like that,’ Brunetti confirmed. ‘There’s no recording and no witness, so it can never be used as evidence.’

‘About what?’ Vio asked.

‘About what happened last weekend, out in the laguna.’

‘With the girls?’ Vio asked.

‘Yes.’

‘It was an accident,’ Vio said with whatever force he could muster.

‘What happened?’

Brunetti saw him bite his lower lip and close his eyes. He opened them after a moment and said, ‘I hit a bricola. I was in the right canal: I know the laguna like I know . . .’ he began but proved incapable of finding a comparison. In Brunetti’s silence, he amended it to, ‘I know it very well.’

‘But still you hit the bricola,’ Brunetti said and waved his hand towards Vio’s chest, ‘very hard.’ He waited for Vio to respond, but he chose not to.