A Sea of Troubles

'Must be difficult for him’ Vianello interrupted, 'not being the owner any more.'

Bonsuan shrugged. 'Depends on the son, I suppose.'

'And Signora Follini?' Brunetti asked, again bringing the conversation back to his immediate concern.

'It had been going on for about two years,' Bonsuan said. 'Ever since he lost the boat' Feeling that this wasn't sufficient explanation, Bonsuan went on. 'He doesn't have to get to sea so early any more, only when he wants to.'

'And the wife?' Vianello asked.

All of Italy and all of its history and culture went into the shrug with which Bonsuan dismissed this question. 'She's got a home, and he pays the rent. They've got three children, all married and on their own. What has she got to complain about?'Anything else he might have said was lost in the sound of the engine, which sprang to life at his command.

Not wanting to discuss this, Brunetti was content that they should return to the city, to their own homes and to their own children.

19

Brunetti had been in his office for less than an hour the following morning when he answered the phone to hear Signorina Elettra's voice.

'Where are you?' he asked brusquely, then moderated his tone and added, ‘I mean how are you?'

Her long silence suggested how she felt about being questioned in this manner. When she did answer, however, there was no sign of resentment in her voice. 'I'm on the beach. And I'm fine.'

The far-off cries of the gulls spoke to the truth of the first, the lightness in her voice to the second.

'Signorina,' he began with little preparation and less thought, 'you've been there more than a week now. I think it's time you began to think about coming back.'

'Oh, no, sir, I don't think that's a good idea at all.'

'But I do,' he insisted. ‘I think you should say your farewells to your family and report for work tomorrow.'

'It's the beginning of the week, sir. I'd planned to stay until at least the weekend.'

'Well, I think it would be better if you came back. There's a lot of work that's piled up since you left.'

'Please, sir. I'm sure it's nothing one of the other secretaries couldn't handle.'

'I need to get some information,' Brunetti said, realizing how close his voice came to pleading. 'Things I don't want the secretaries to know about.'

'Vianello can handle the computer well enough now to get you what you want.'

'It's the Guardia di Finanza,' Brunetti said, playing what he thought would be a trump card. ‘I need information from them and I doubt that Vianello would be able to get it.'

'What sort of information, sir?' He heard noises in the background: gulls, a horn of some sort, a car engine starting, and he remembered how narrow the beach of Pellestrina was and how close to the road.

‘I need to know about tax evasion.'

'Read the newspaper, sir,' she said, laughing at her own joke. When there was no response, she said, the laughter gone and her voice less rich for that, 'You can call their main office and ask. There's a maresciallo there, Resto, who can tell you everything you need to know. Just tell him I told you to call.'

He had known her long enough to recognize the polite inflexibility he was dealing with. ‘I think it would be better if you handled it, Signorina.'

All pleasantness dropped from her voice as she said, 'If you keep this up, sir, I'll be forced to take a week of real vacation, and I'd rather not do that because it would take a lot of time to adjust the timetables.'

He wanted to cut it short and simply ask her who the man was he had seen her with yesterday, but their relationship had ill prepared him for such a question, especially in the tone he knew he would be incapable of preventing himself from using. He was her superior, but that hardly gave him the authority to act in loco parentis. Because the difference in their positions precluded the intimacy of friendship, he could not ask her to tell him what was going on between her and the handsome young man he had seen her with. He could not think of a way to express concern that would not sound like jealousy, and he could not explain, even to himself, which it was he actually felt.

"Then tell me if you've learned anything,' he said in a voice he forced himself to make less stern, hoping that this would be viewed as compromise rather than the defeat it so clearly was.

'I've learned to tell un sandolo from un puparin, and I've learned to spot a school of fish on a sonar screen’ she said.

He avoided the lure of sarcasm and asked, voice bland, 'And about the murders?'

'Nothing’ she admitted. 'I'm not from here, so no one talks about them in front of me, at least not to say more than the sort of things people say.' She sounded wistful at the confession that the Pellestrinotti did not treat her like one of their own, and he wondered about the lure of the place, or the people, that could cause this response. Yet he would not ask.

'What about Pucetti? Has he learned anything?'

'Not that I know, sir. I see him in the bar when he makes me a coffee, but he's given no sign that he has anything to tell me. I don't see that there's any sense in keeping him out here any longer.'

She was not alone in that sentiment: Brunetti had already had three questions about Pucetti from Lieutenant Scarpa, Patta's assistant, who had noticed the absence of the young officer's name from the regular duty roster. With the ease of long habit, Brunetti had lied and told Scarpa that he had assigned the young officer to the investigation of suspected drug shipments at the airport. There was no reason for his lie beyond his instinctive suspicion of the lieutenant and his desire that no one at all should learn of Pucetti's presence, nor that of Signorina Elettra, on Pellestrina.

'The same goes for you, Signorina’ he said, aiming at lightness and humour. 'When are you coming back?'

‘I told you, sir. I want to stay a bit longer.'

Above the cries of the gulls, a man's voice called out, 'Elettra.' He heard her sudden intake of breath, and then she said into the phone, 'Ti chiamero. Ciao Silvia,' and then she was gone, leaving Brunetti strangely unsettled that, in order finally to use the familiar tu with him, she had had to call him Silvia.

Signorina Elettra had no trouble whatsoever in addressing Carlo as tu. In fact, there were times when she thought that the grammatical intimacy did little justice to the sense of ease and familiarity she felt with him. Not only had something about him seemed familiar when they first met; it had continued to grow as she listened to him talk and came to know him better. They both loved mortadella, but they also loved, of all improbable things, Asterix and Bracio di Ferro, sugarless coffee and Bambi, and both confessed that they had cried when they learned of the death of Moana Pozzi, going on to say they'd never felt so proud to be Italian as when they saw the spontaneous outpouring of sympathy for the death of a porno star.

They'd spent hours talking during this week, and it had pained her, in the face of his openness, to maintain the lie that she was working for a bank. He'd expanded on his brief history of his life and told her he'd studied economics in Milano before abandoning his studies and returning home when his father died two years ago. There was, as neither of them needed to be told, no suitable work for a man who still had to pass two exams before finishing his degree in economics. She admired his honesty in telling her that he had no choice but to become a fisherman, and she delighted in hearing the pride with which he spoke of his gratitude to his uncle for having offered him a job.

The work on the boat was so heavy and exhausting that he had twice fallen asleep in her company, once while they sat in their cave on the beach and once as he sat beside her in the bar. She didn't mind either time, as it gave her the chance to study the small hollow just in front of his ear and the way his face relaxed and grew younger as he slept. She often told him he was too thin, and he replied that it was the work that did it. Though he ate like a wolf, and she had seen proof of this at every meal, she saw no trace of fat on his body. When he moved, he seemed to be composed of flexing lines and muscles; the sight of his bronzed forearm had once brought her close to tears, so beautiful did she find it.