'And?' he asked when Bonsuan sat down. ‘I decided to have trouble with the engine,' the pilot answered.
'Decided?' Vianello asked.
'That way I'd have to ask someone for help.'
'What did you do?'
‘I sawed through one of the distributor wires with a file and left it hanging, then tried to start up. Couldn't. So I opened the engine again, saw what was wrong, and went into the village to see if someone would give me a piece of wire.'
'And?' Brunetti asked.
'And I found a man I know from the Army, when I did my military service. His son has a boat out here, and my friend takes care of the engines for him. He came along with me, saw the wire, went back to his workshop and found me a piece, then came back and helped me change it.'
'Did he realize what you'd done?' Vianello asked.
'Probably. I was hoping to get someone who didn't know much about engines, well, as much as I do. But Fidele probably saw what I'd done. Doesn't matter. I took him down to the bar to thank him and he was willing to tell me about them.'
'The Bottins?' Brunetti asked. 'Yes.'
'What did he say?'
Brunetti found it interesting, the way Bonsuan distanced himself from the information he'd managed to obtain. It was what Brunetti wanted or what Vianello wanted. It was probably no more than Bonsuan's way of remaining loyal to the other fisherman, the tribe he was so soon going to rejoin.
'Anything you're looking for, it was the father,' Bonsuan finally explained.
'Who told you that?' Vianello asked.
At the same time Brunetti asked, 'What did he do?'
Bonsuan answered both questions with the same shrug, then said, 'No one told me anything exact, but it was clear that no one liked him. Usually they pretend they do, at least they do when they're talking to foreigners like me. But not with Bottin. I figure it's something he did, but that's just a feeling. I don't have any idea what it could have been, but it was as if they didn't consider him one of them any more.'
'Because of the way he treated his wife?' Brunetti asked.
'No,' Bonsuan said with a sudden shake of his head. 'She was from Murano, so she didn't count’ and with that, he dismissed her humanity as easily as the possibility.
There was a long silence. Three cormorants came whizzing past them and splashed down a good distance from shore. They swam around for a while, seemed to confer among themselves as to where the fish might be, then, so smoothly as hardly to disturb the surface of the water, disappeared below it, leaving no trace. Automatically, curious, Brunetti began to hold his breath when he saw them slip under the water, but he was forced to expel it and take three long breaths before the first of them popped up, corklike, quickly followed by the other two.
'Let's go over to Malamocco’ he said, getting to his feet.
The engine of the launch sprang instantly to life. Vianello cast off, and Bonsuan swung them out from the pier and in a broad circle back the way they had come. Hugging the narrow peninsula on his right, he headed towards Malamocco. As they approached the canal that led out into the Adriatic, Brunetti leaned forward to tap Bonsuan on the shoulder. The pilot turned to him, and Brunetti pointed off to the left, where he saw smoke billowing up in the far distance. 'What's that?' he asked.
Covering his eyes with his left hand, Bonsuan followed Brunetti's gesture and said, 'Marghera.'
Seeing nothing of interest, Bonsuan turned his attention back to the waters ahead.
Suddenly, he switched the engine into neutral and then just as quickly into reverse, forcing the boat to glide to a halt. Brunetti, who had been trying to distinguish the source of the smoke, turned when he felt the abrupt change in the motor's rhythm.
'Maria Vergine,' escaped his lips as he saw an enormous ship looming, endlessly high, endlessly threatening, to their right. 'What is it?' he asked Bonsuan. Though they were a few hundred metres away, his perspective was still at an upward slant, and all he could see was the side of the hull, the Plimsoll line, and the left side of the glassed-in control deck, soaring as distant and high as a church tower.
'A tanker,' Bonsuan answered. He might as well have said, 'A rapist' or 'An arsonist', so fierce was his tone.
Their own engine silent, they were enveloped in the roar that issued from the tanker. The universe became noise, a force that battered against them as fiercely as the shock waves from an explosion. Involuntarily, all of them pressed their hands to their ears and kept them there until the tanker had passed them and was continuing up the Canale dei Petroli towards the factories on the mainland. The waves from its wake hit them then, and they were forced to grab at the railings to keep their balance as the launch bobbed up and down and back and forth, the three of them dancing like fools on the deck.
Both hands clenched on the railing in front of him, Brunetti leaned forward and took a deep breath. His gaze fell to the waters below them, and he saw small, button-sized blobs on the surface. There were only a few, and he could not be sure that they had not been there before he saw the ship.
Bonsuan switched the engine back into life. Silent, they continued towards Malamocco.
12
The trip proved useless, as there was no sign of Giacomini at the address the owner of the restaurant had provided. It was too late in the day to continue to Chioggia, so Brunetti decided to contact the police by phone and told Bonsuan to take them back to the Questura.
Whether it was the sight of the tanker or the small dark blobs they had seen on the water, something had darkened their spirits, and they said little on the way back. The light continued to single out the myriad beauties of the city, especially to those who approached it, as people were meant to do, from the sea. It was late afternoon, and the sun still bore down on them; Vianello said something about having forgotten to put on sun screen. Brunetti ignored him.
As they pulled up to the Questura, Brunetti saw that Pucetti was on guard duty that afternoon, and the sight of the young officer gave him the idea. Pucetti saluted as they stepped off the boat. Brunetti told Vianello to call the Chioggia police to see if they had any details on the incident between Scarpa and Bottin and said he'd wait for him in his office but wanted to have a word with Pucetti first.
'Pucetti,' Brunetti began, 'how long are you assigned to guard duty?'
'All this week, sir. Then next week I have night patrol.'
'Would you be interested in a special assignment?'
The young man's face lit up. 'Oh, yes, sir.'
Brunetti appreciated his not complaining about guard duty: having to stand there all day with little to do but open the door or break up the occasional altercation between people waiting in long lines outside the various offices.
'Good, let me go and check the schedules,' Brunetti said and started to walk away. He had taken only two steps when he turned back towards Pucetti. 'Did you ever work as a waiter?'
'Yes, sir,' he answered. 'My brother-in-law has a pizzeria in Castello, and I work there sometimes on the weekends.' Again Pucetti pleased him by asking no questions.
'Good. I'll be back.'
He went immediately to Signorina Elettra's office, where he found her arranging a spray of forsythia in a blue Venini vase. 'Is that yours?' he asked, pointing to the vase.
'No, sir. It belongs to the Questura. The other one, the one I used to use, was stolen last week, so I had to replace it.'
'Stolen?' he asked. 'From the Questura?'
'Yes. One of the janitors left it in the washroom after he washed it out, and it disappeared.'