'From the Questura?'
'I'll be more careful with this one,' she said, slipping a curved branch into place. Brunetti had a friend who worked for Venini and so knew the cost of such a vase: no less than three million.
'How is it that the Questura came to buy this one?' he asked, careful of his phrasing.
'Office equipment,' she answered. She put the last branch in place and stepped aside to allow him to lift it for her. With a languid hand, she pointed to a spot on the windowsill, and Brunetti set it gently down just where she indicated.
'Is Pucetti smart enough for you?' he asked.
'That sweet young man with the moustache?' she asked in a voice that ignored the fact that Pucetti was probably no more than five years younger than she. 'The one with the Russian girlfriend?' she added.
'Yes. Is he bright enough for you?'
'To do what with?' she asked.
'To be out on Pellestrina.'
'Doing what?'
'Working in a restaurant but keeping an eye on you.'
'May I ask how you are going to bring this about?'
"The waiter who gave us the first information about Bottin has disappeared. He called the owner and gave him some story about having to go and take care of a sick friend, and there's been no sign of him since then. So they need a waiter.'
'What does Pucetti have to say about this?' she asked, sitting down behind her desk.
'I haven't asked him yet. I wanted to ask you first.'
'That's very kind of you, sir.'
'He'd be there to protect you, so I wanted to be sure you thought he was capable of doing that.'
She considered this for a moment and said, 'Yes, I think he'd be a good choice.' She glanced at the forsythia, then back at Brunetti. 'Shall I take care of scheduling him?'
'Yes,' Brunetti answered but then couldn't resist the temptation to ask, 'How will you do it?'
'He'll be put on something I think I'll call "Ancillary Duty".'
'What does that mean?'
'It means anything I want it to mean.'
‘I see,' Brunetti said and then asked, 'What about Marotta? Isn't he in charge next week? Isn't it his decision?'
'Ah, Marotta,' she said with barely disguised contempt. 'He never wears a tie to work.' So much, thought Brunetti, for Marotta's chances of permanent promotion at the Venice Questura.
'While you're here, sir,' she said, pulling open a drawer and taking from it a few sheets of paper, 'let me give you this. It's everything I could find out about those people. And the autopsy report.'
He took the papers, and went back to his office. The autopsy, performed by a pathologist at the hospital whose name Brunetti did not recognize, stated that Giulio Bottin had died as the result of any one of three blows to his forehead and skull, the pattern of bone shattering consistent with the use of a cylindrical object of some sort, a metal pipe or pole, perhaps. His son had bled to death, the blade having sunk so deep as to nick the abdominal aorta. The absence of water in their lungs and the fact that Giulio Bottin would have taken some time to die made it unlikely that they had been killed soon before the sinking of the boat.
Brunetti had just finished reading the autopsy report when Vianello knocked and came in. ‘I called Chioggia, sir,' the sergeant said, not bothering to sit down, 'but they had no details whatsoever.'
Brunetti set the papers aside. 'As you said, they don't seem to be the sort of people who expect the police to solve their problems for them.'
He half expected Vianello to ask if anyone did, any more, but the sergeant made no reply. Brunetti took this opportunity to tell Vianello about his plan to send Pucetti to Pellestrina.
'What about recommendations?' Vianello asked.
'Pucetti said he worked in his brother-in-law's pizzeria. He can call the place in Pellestrina and say he's heard they're looking for a waiter, then recommend Pucetti. All in the family.'
'What if someone recognizes him?' Vianello asked, echoing Brunetti's own fear.
'Not likely to happen, is it?' Brunetti asked by way of response, conscious as he did of how much he sounded like Signorina Elettra.
Reading the signs of Brunetti's reluctance, Vianello didn't object; excusing himself without asking for new orders, he went downstairs.
Brunetti returned to the papers Signorina Elettra had given him. If the Alessandro Scarpa Brunetti was curious about was in his thirties -which distinguished him from the other Alessandro Scarpa who lived on Pellestrina, who was eighty-seven - then he had been arrested three years before for threatening a man with a knife. The other man had, the next day, changed his story and retracted the accusation, so there was nothing in the police files against Scarpa, though the Maresciallo of Carabinieri on the Lido said that Scarpa was known to cause trouble when he drank.
No information could be gathered about anyone with the surname Giacomini.
Signora Follini, it turned out, was a horse of a different colour. Follini was not her married name, for Signora Follini, though she had often enjoyed the company of men, had yet to do so under benefit of clergy. Her given name was Luisa, and she had been born on Pellestrina fifty-two years before.
Her familiarity with the police, or perhaps it would be more exact to say theirs with her, began when she was nineteen, when she was arrested for soliciting. A first offender, she had been reprimanded and released, only to be arrested for the same offence at least three times during the next year. There was a long gap then, suggesting either that Luisa Follini had come to some accommodation with the local police or had moved from the area. She did not reappear in Pellestrina until twelve years ago, when she had been arrested under the still-stringent drug laws for possession, use and attempted sale of heroin as well as for prostitution.
Luckily for her, she had been accepted at a drug rehabilitation centre near Bologna, where she had spent three years, returning to Pellestrina, it seemed, cured of both her addiction to heroin and her occupation. Her parents had died during her absence, and she had taken over the small store they owned in the village, where she had remained until the present time.
Reading the report, Brunetti remembered that her dress had had long sleeves, and he wondered where the money for her surgery had come from and when she had had the operations done. Who had paid for them? The small store he had seen could in no way provide for the work evident in her face; nor, for that fact, could casual prostitution or the sale of heroin in a place as small as Pellestrina.
He thought back to the two occasions he had spoken with her. The first time, she had been flirtatious and wryly theatrical about the limitations of living in a place like Pellestrina. With the history she trailed behind her, she would surely know the full cost of that, he reflected. But she had given no sign of the nervous energy of the addict. Nor had her nervousness the second time seemed related to drugs: it had been the nervousness of fear, and it had peaked with the entrance of those two men.
He had no idea how late she would keep her store open. He pulled out the phone book and checked the listings for Pellestrina. Follini, Luisa was given. He dialled the number, and the phone was picked up on the third ring. She answered, giving her name.
'Signora,' he began, 'this is Commissario Brunetti. I spoke to you earlier.' He heard a soft click as the receiver was replaced.
He put the phone book back in the drawer, put the file to the left of his desk, and went downstairs to talk to Pucetti.
13
Pucetti could barely contain his delight at the assignment. At the mention of Signorina Elettra's name he smiled, and at Brunetti's explanation that it would be his chief duty to protect her, he seemed almost to glow. When the young officer asked whose idea it was to send her there, Brunetti hedged and answered, instead, that he hoped Pucetti's girlfriend would have no objection to the special assignment, that is, Ancillary Duty.