‘What happened to him?’
‘He fell on his face and was buried under the bags. Some of them opened, and sand poured around him. He broke a leg and an arm, but the lack of oxygen was much worse.’
‘How bad is he?’
‘His lawyer says he’s like a child.’
‘Maria Vergine,’ Brunetti whispered, feeling the boy’s astonishment, his terror, his awful sense of being buried.
‘His lawyer,’ Brunetti repeated. ‘Who brought the case?’
‘His parents. He’s going to need lifetime care, and they don’t want him to be in a state hospital.’ Brunetti nodded: no parent would want this for a child. Or for themselves. Or for the man next door.
‘What else?’
‘His lawyer told me that, at the beginning, Puntera made the family a private offer if they’d withdraw the case. They refused, and so it went to court, but things have gone wrong with the case from the beginning. Things like delays and postponements.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said. He looked at the paper and saw that the accident had taken place more than four years before. ‘And until it’s settled in court, where is he?’
‘He’s in the hospital in Mestre, but his family takes him home on weekends.’
‘What will happen?’ Brunetti asked, though there was no reason she should know.
She shrugged. ‘Sooner or later, they’ll accept his offer. There’s no way of knowing when this will be settled — civil cases are backed up for eight years as it is — so eventually they’ll give in. People like this can’t go on paying for lawyers for years.’
‘And the boy?’
‘The lawyer says it will be a mercy for them all if he dies, a mercy for him, too.’
Brunetti let some time pass, then asked, ‘And the other case?’
‘The warehouses again. He doesn’t own them: he rents them. And the landlord wants him out and the space back so that he can turn them into apartments.’
‘Quickly,’ Brunetti begged the surrounding air, ‘please, someone tell me a story I’ve never heard in Venice before.’
Ignoring him, she went on, ‘So the longer the case is delayed, the longer he can continue to use the warehouses.’
‘How long has this case been going on?’
‘Three years. At one time, he had his workers go down and protest about the eviction in front of Cà Farsetti, right in front of the entrance the mayor generally uses.’
‘And His Honour? What tactic did he employ with them?’
‘Do you mean how did he appease the workers while making it clear that his sympathies were entirely with their employers?’
Brunetti held up his hands in awe, as if the Cumaen Sibyl herself had spoken. ‘Never have I heard the man’s political philosophy so accurately expressed.’
‘This time our dear mayor avoided the situation,’ Signorina Elettra explained. ‘Someone must have told him there were only five workers outside: hardly worth his trouble.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He used the side entrance.’
‘More proof of his genius,’ Brunetti said. ‘And the case?’
‘It would seem that Puntera has found a larger place in Marghera and will transfer everything there next year.’
‘And until then?’
‘The case will probably drag its way through the courts,’ she said, as though this were the most natural thing in the world.
Out of curiosity, he said, ‘There were other cases listed on those papers. Did you find out anything about them?’
‘No, Dottore. I haven’t had the time,’ she said.
‘Let them go for now,’ Brunetti decided. ‘If you speak to your friend at the Tribunale again, would you try to find out if he knows anything about Fontana’s private life?’
‘From the little I saw of him in the café the other day,’ she said in a serious voice, ‘I’d be surprised if he had one.’
‘Perhaps secret is a better word to use than private,’ Brunetti said. She glanced up but said nothing, and so he continued, ‘Rizzardi found evidence to suggest he was gay.’
He watched the surprise register, and then he saw her go through the same process of reassessment as she cast her memory back to her brief meeting with Fontana. ‘ “Oh, thou who hast eyes and sees not,” ’ she said, lowering her face into her hands and shaking her head. ‘Of course, of course.’
Brunetti remained silent to allow her to run through all the possibilities. When she raised her head, he asked, ‘This being the case, what do you make now of his adoration of Judge Coltellini?’
Instead of answering him, she cupped her chin in her palm and pressed her fingers against her lower lip, a habit she had when she wanted to drift off into thought. He left her to it and moved over to her window, but the air was dead there, as well.
‘Either she knew something about him and wasn’t telling anyone, or she had done him a favour and he wanted to pay her back in some way,’ he heard her say from behind him. He said nothing, hoping she would continue.
‘It seemed like some exaggerated form of gratitude,’ she added.
‘Could it have been mixed up with the fact that she was a judge?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Perhaps. He sounded like a person who had come from a simple background. So it might have been that the friendship — though I’m not sure that’s the right word for it — with a judge was a sort of social promotion or proof of his status.’ After a pause, she added, ‘Something his mother would like.’
‘Do people still think this way?’ Brunetti asked, turning towards her.
‘Many people think of little else, I’d say,’ came her quick response.
Brunetti remembered that he still had to ask Vianello if he had had any success in finding relatives on the Fontana side of the dead man’s family. Before leaving Signorina Elettra’s office, though, he said, ‘I’d like you to see if there’s any sort of link between Judge Coltellini and Puntera.’
She looked at him with something close to admiration. ‘Ah, yes, I should have thought of that. The rent. Of course.’
He turned to leave but recalled that he had to find a way for his mother-in-law to contact Gorini. ‘I’d also like you to find out how people go about discovering Signor Gorini’s services — whatever they may be — in the first place.’
She made a gracious waving gesture that ended with both hands indicating her computer screen, as if that would explain it all.
Brunetti was uncertain how useful this suggestion would be to his mother-in-law; nevertheless, he thanked her and went back to his office.
19
This computer stuff appeared to be catching: Brunetti found Vianello in front of the screen in the squad room, watching a man lay out cards on a table in front of him. Vianello’s chair was pushed back; his arms were folded, his feet propped up on an open drawer. Slightly behind him stood Zucchero, arms similarly folded, no less intent on the screen. Brunetti came in quietly and stood next to Vianello.
The man on the screen continued to stare at the cards on the table in front of him, showing only the top of his head and a pair of thick shoulders and round torso to the camera. He rubbed at his chin like a farmer studying the barometer, unsure of what to make of it. ‘You say this man has promised to marry you?’ he suddenly asked, his attention still on the cards.
A woman’s voice said from somewhere behind or above or below him, ‘Yes, he did. Many times.’
‘But he’s never named a date?’ The man’s voice could not possibly have been more neutral.