Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(65)

Brunetti could barely imagine what ideas about sex Pietro Borgato carried around in his head, but he was sure there was no room for a man who loved another man, especially if that man was Pietro Borgato’s nephew. Brunetti had felt the radiant violence in the man: his own performance as a weakling had certainly allowed Borgato to surge on unhindered by any fear of opposition or concern that he might be revealing too much of himself. It was only the mention of the involvement of the Guardia Costiera that had tamed his ascending anger and turned him into the semblance of a reasonable man.

When an inattentive Brunetti found himself in Campo San Barnaba, he decided not to stop to see if his parents-in-law were home. He wanted to continue walking, have time to consider a possible link between the story Nieddu had told him of the women tossed overboard and Marcello Vio’s desperate visit to his friend’s home.

Brunetti’s phone rang, and he saw Griffoni’s name.

‘Si?’ he answered.

‘Alaimo’s clean,’ she said with no introduction.

‘What?’

‘I called some people at home.’

‘In Naples?’

‘It’s home when I need it to be,’ she said. ‘Yes, Naples.’ Then, sounding curious and not offended, she asked, ‘Why do you need to know?’

‘I don’t need to know, Claudia. I just like to know how these family things work.’

‘How did you know it was family?’

‘I figured they’d be the ones you trusted most, or at least the first ones you’d call.’

She laughed. Then she said, ‘I have a cousin who’s a Carabiniere. Maggiore. He works at the Port, so he knows a lot of things.’

‘And he knew Alaimo?’

‘No, he knew his father, who was also a carabiniere. He was having a coffee in a bar, years ago – Alaimo was still a kid – when a man walked in, pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head. Twice. The man was gone from the bar even before Alaimo’s father hit the ground.’

Brunetti waited for her to say more.

‘Years later, a pentito gave the police the name of the murderer, but he’d already been killed.’ Brunetti was struck by the casual way she said this, as though Mafia wars were a part of everyday life. Perhaps the Mafia attack on her own father, years ago, allowed her to sound casual about such things.

Brunetti said nothing, and she continued, ‘Alaimo, the one who was murdered, had three sons, all kids then: one’s already a colonel in the Carabinieri; the second is a magistrate; and the third is the one we met.’

She went silent again, prompting Brunetti to ask, ‘And?’

‘And they’re religious, all three of them, about what they do.’ Before Brunetti could ask how she knew this, Griffoni said, ‘I asked around, and so did other people for me. Believe me, he’s clean.’

‘As to his being religious, there’s still the fake aunt at San Gregorio Armeno, isn’t there?’ he asked, not that he doubted what she’d told him but simply to clarify things fully.

‘She’s his aunt. Well, sort of an aunt. It’s very Neapolitan.’

‘Meaning?’

‘His uncle married a woman from Manila, and it’s her aunt who’s the Abbadessa.’ She paused a moment, as one does before the punchline of a joke. ‘Crocifissa?’

‘Abbadessa Crocifissa?’ Brunetti asked, taking another poke.

‘Yes.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti responded. ‘So we can trust him?’

‘If what I’ve heard from my friends and my family is true, we can trust him absolutely.’

‘When do we do that?’

There was a brief hesitation before Griffoni said, ‘We have an appointment with him at eleven on Monday morning.’

‘Good,’ Brunetti responded. ‘Let’s meet at nine, at the Questura. Then Foa can take us there.’

‘Aye, aye, Signore,’ she said in English and then was gone.





23


On Monday morning, a message from Signorina Elettra was waiting for Brunetti when he opened his email. It confirmed, giving specific dates and actions, what Griffoni’s friends and family had stated: Alaimo was clean.

Brunetti told Griffoni about this when she came down to his office and then told her about his conversation with Mr Watson. When Griffoni asked how the young woman was, Brunetti could do no more than raise his hand and let it fall to his knee, repeating what his mother had always said in times of uncertainty: “We are all in God’s hands.”

Griffoni let a long time pass and then sat up and all but shook herself free of the effect of Brunetti’s last remarks.

‘I confessed,’ she said.

‘What do you mean? To whom?’

‘To Alaimo,’ she said, at first avoiding Brunetti’s eyes. ‘About his aunt. And my conclusion.’

‘Ah,’ Brunetti let escape him. ‘How did he react?’

‘He was . . .’ she began. ‘He was gracious.’

Brunetti forbore saying something to the effect that his years in the North might well have accustomed Alaimo to being treated with suspicion and merely nodded to show he had heard her.

They spent some time, now that they viewed Alaimo in the light reflected from Griffoni’s relatives, in thinking of how they could involve him in their investigation of Borgato. It took them little time to decide to tell Alaimo what they knew and then try to persuade him to help them learn more.