Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(50)

Brunetti walked along the riva and turned into the calle that would take him to Borgato’s place of work. A middle-aged woman with a round face sat at a desk in a small office to the right of the main door and looked up when he came in. Brunetti wondered if this could have been the woman who met Marcello Vio in Campo Santa Margherita.

‘Good afternoon, Signora. I have an appointment with Signor Borgato,’ he said in Veneziano. He pushed up the worn cuff of his left sleeve and looked at his watch. ‘At four,’ he said and bent his wrist as though he were going to show the watch to her. Instead, he set the briefcase beside him on the floor, careful to knock it over, then stooped to pick it up. It dangled from his right hand.

‘He’s out back, helping the men unload a boat. If you go out there,’ she said, waving towards a door behind her and to the left, ‘maybe you can talk to him.’

Brunetti nodded, then spoke his thanks and started towards the door. He found himself in a large, cement-floored passage with padlocked wooden doors on both sides. It led towards the back of the building and, presumably, a canal.

Brunetti counted three doors on either side, placed about four metres apart: the distance suggested separate storage rooms of considerable size.

As Brunetti had expected, the corridor led out on to a landing dock that ran along the back of the entire building. A transport boat was tied up beside it, both sides of its prow bearing the wounds of many years of service: the strip of metal meant to protect the top of the sides was battered and dented in many places, the wooden sides scratched and streaked with the paint of other boats.

A crane anchored to the dock was just then raising a large wardrobe, secured by straps and bands, from the wooden boards that created the deck of the boat. Slowly, wrapped and cradled, it floated up and over the dock, where two men waited for it, one in a flannel shirt and an older man in a dark blue sweater. The one wearing the shirt turned the wooden wardrobe effortlessly until its feet were aligned correctly to fit on to a loading platform sticking out from a small cargo fork-lift. The man waved his arm, and the wardrobe stepped four-footed on to the platform. He freed the straps and bands, while the man in the sweater climbed behind the wheel of the the fork-lift, moved it backwards, turned, and came at full speed towards Brunetti.

Hurriedly Brunetti stepped aside, careful to raise his hands in fear, his briefcase waving on a level with his head. The man standing down in the boat laughed so hard at the sight of him that he had to bend over and prop his hands on his knees.

Brunetti lowered the hand holding the briefcase and hurried back into the corridor and back to the secretary, who looked up from some papers when he came in. ‘Is Signor Borgato wearing a dark blue sweater?’ he asked, hoping that he was.

‘Sì, Signore,’ she said.

‘Is there some place I can wait for him?’ Brunetti asked nervously.

‘He doesn’t let anyone into his office unless he’s there,’ she said. Then, pointing to a straight-backed chair on the other side of the room, she added, ‘You could wait for him there.’

Brunetti thanked her and went over to the chair. He set his briefcase beside it, took off his trench coat and draped it over the back, sat, and pulled up his briefcase. He opened it and removed some papers.

It was fifteen minutes before Borgato appeared, indeed the man in the blue sweater who had aimed the fork loader at Brunetti.

‘Pivato?’ he asked as Brunetti stood.

Brunetti put the papers in his briefcase, tried unsuccessfully to close it, grabbed up his trench coat, and stepped over to Borgato. Seeing Brunetti embroiled in coat and briefcase, Borgato extended his hand, which forced Brunetti to switch the briefcase to his left hand in order to shake Borgato’s. None of his bones were broken by Borgato’s handshake, but Brunetti made no attempt to muffle his groan.

Saying nothing, Borgato turned to the door on his left and opened it. ‘No calls, Gloria,’ he called back over his shoulder.

He closed the door after Brunetti and went to stand in front of his desk, leaning against it and facing Brunetti. He had the thickened nose of a drinker and the even thicker body of a man who had done hard physical work all his life. His eyes were a pale blue, striking in his sun-darkened face. Brunetti looked around and, seeing a chair, draped his coat over the back and stood his briefcase on the seat.

‘What’s this all about?’ Borgato asked in a not very friendly voice. He walked around his desk and sat.

Brunetti opened the briefcase, searched for a few moments, and pulled out two papers. He walked to the desk, leaned over it, and passed the first paper to Borgato. ‘This is the registration of your boat,’ he said.

Borgato took it and glanced at it. He read out a series of letters and numbers and said, ‘That’s my topo. It’s registered to me, under this number’ – he slapped the back of his fingers against the paper for emphasis – ‘for seven years.’ He thrust the paper back towards Brunetti, who took it and handed another paper to Borgato, one that Signorina Elettra had managed to falsify that morning. This one stated that there existed another boat of the same type and size, with the same registration number and licence plate number as Borgato’s boat. The only difference was the owner’s name.

‘What is this shit?’ Borgato demanded, then jumped from his seat and tossed the paper in Brunetti’s direction.

‘I’m not sure that word is justified, Signor Borgato,’ Brunetti said in his most pedantic tone as he picked up the paper.