He stood there, listening, focusing ahead of him on wherever this void would lead him, and backwards, up the steps and out into the diminishing storm. He moved to the right until he touched a wall, then turned and braced his back against it, comforted by stability. He stood like that for a long time until, glancing in what he thought was the direction of the opening, he saw light filtering in from the outside. He walked towards it, and when he stood in the glow it cast, he held his watch up to his face. Astonished to see that it was still only early evening, he moved closer to the now-illumined steps, drawn by the promise of light and by the silence that spilled down the steps.
He emerged into splendour: to the west, the sun made its languorous way towards the horizon, dipping behind the scattered clouds the passing storm had forgotten to sweep away and dappling the still waters of the laguna with their reflection. He turned to the east and, not far removed from the coast, saw the rear edge of the storm, thrashing its way towards what was left of Yugoslavia, as if eager to see what sort of new damage it could take there.
Brunetti was racked with a sudden chill as hunger, stress and the slow drop in temperature had their way with his body. He wrapped his arms around himself and moved forward. Again, he called Bonsuan's name, and again he heard nothing in response. From what he could see, the land around him was surrounded on three sides by water with a thin trail of narrow beach leading off to the north. His recent study of the map of the laguna told his memory that this must be the sanctuary of Ca' Roman, though whatever wildlife was meant to be protected here was nowhere in evidence, no doubt battered into flight or cover by the recent storm.
He turned and saw the ruined fort behind him. He went back to it: perhaps there were other doors or other entrances in which the pilot might have taken shelter. To the left of the doorway he'd used there was another one, leading up. He climbed up a single flight of stairs, hoping that the movement would bring some relief to his chilling body, but he found neither warmth nor Bonsuan. He went back outside and returned to where he had started, seeing nothing. Still farther along to the left, he found another door, also leading down.
At the entrance he called the pilot's name. A noise, perhaps a voice, answered him, and he went down the steps. Bonsuan sat against the wall just at the bottom, his head leaning back against it, his huddled body illuminated by the sun that cascaded down the steps. When he reached the older man, Brunetti could make out the paleness of his face, but he could see that the cut on his head had stopped bleeding. Bonsuan, too, had discarded his life jacket.
'Come on, Bonsuan,' he said, making himself sound hearty and in charge. 'Let's get out of here and back to Pellestrina.'
Bonsuan smiled agreement and started to get to his feet. Brunetti helped him up; once he was upright, the older man seemed fairly steady.
'How are you?' Brunetti asked.
'Got a terrible headache,' the pilot said, smiling, 'but at least I've still got a head to ache.' He freed himself from Brunetti's arm and started up the stairs. At the top, he turned and called back down, 'God, what a storm. Nothing like it since 1927.'
Because the shadow cast by Bonsuan's body fell down the stairway, blocking the light, Brunetti looked down at the first step to see where to set his foot. When he looked up, he saw that Bonsuan had sprouted a branch. Even before he registered the impossibility of this, the panic he'd felt during the storm leaped at him.
Men don't grow branches; pieces of wood do not grow out of the chests of men. Not unless they have been pushed in from the other side.
His mind was still processing this information when his body moved. It pushed aside reflection, cause-effect reasoning, and the ability to draw a conclusion, all those things which are said to define humanity. His body pounded up the stairs, he opened his mouth and emitted an animal roar of bare-fanged aggression. Bonsuan turned, very gently and slowly, like a groom about to kiss his bride, and fell down the steps towards Brunetti. He twisted as he fell, his weight so heavy that Brunetti had no hope of supporting him as he crashed past him. The piece of wood jutting from his chest, a thick sliver that could at one time have been an oar, or a sharp piece of tree limb, dragged across Brunetti's legs, snagging the wool of his trousers and leaving a red welt on his thighs.
Instinct registered that Bonsuan was beyond help and propelled Brunetti up the stairs and into the fading light of a tranquil spring evening. In front of him stood a short, barrel-chested man, one of the men he'd seen in Signora Follini's store, his hands raised in a wrestler's expectant grasp. He'd been momentarily stunned by Brunetti's shout and now by his sudden appearance, but now he recovered and moved towards Brunetti on wide-spread legs, his thick body compressed with menace. His left hand glowed red in the light of the setting sun.
Brunetti was unarmed. As an adult, words and wit had always served him as sufficient weaponry, and he had seldom, since becoming a policeman, been called upon to defend himself. But he had been raised a Venetian, in a poor family, with a father given to violence and drink. He had learned early how to defend himself, not only against his father but against anyone who mocked him for his father's behaviour. Civilization dropped from him, and he kicked the man between the legs.
Spadini crumpled, collapsed to the ground with a howl, his hands helplessly clutching at himself. He lay there, moaning and sobbing, paralysed with pain. Brunetti ran down the steps and turned Bonsuan gently on to his back; the pilot looked back at him with surprised eyes. Brunetti flipped Bonsuan's jacket open and pulled his clasp knife from the right pocket of his uniform trousers, where he'd seen the pilot put it a hundred times, a thousand times, for more years than Chiara had been alive. Brunetti ran back up the stairs.
The man still lay on the ground; his moans had not decreased. Looking around him, Brunetti saw a plastic shopping bag lying on the ground; he picked it up and, using Bonsuan's knife, sliced it into strips. He yanked the man's hands away from his body and pulled them behind him. Roughly, wanting to hurt him, Brunetti tied his wrists together, then found another bag and repeated the process, careless of how tightly he drew the strips. He tested them by trying to pull the man's arms apart, but they held fast. He found a third bag, cut it into more strips, and tied the man's ankles together. Then, remembering something he'd once read in a report from Amnesty International, he threaded a strip between the wrists and the ankles and yanked the man's legs up until he was anchored in a backward curve that Brunetti hoped was even more painful than it looked.
More slowly this time, he went back down the steps and over to Bonsuan. Knowing that the bodies of murder victims must not be touched until the medical examiner has declared them dead, he nevertheless bent down over Bonsuan and pressed his eyes closed, keeping his fingers pressed against the lids for long seconds. When he took his hands away, the eyes remained shut. He searched the pockets of Bonsuan's jacket, then of his thermal vest, bloody now, until he found the pilot's telefonino.
He went back outside and dialled 112. The phone rang fifteen times before it was answered. Too tired to comment, he gave his name and rank and explained where he was. He gave a brief account of the situation and asked that either a launch or a helicopter be sent immediately.
'This is the Carabinieri, Commissario,' the young officer explained. 'Perhaps it would be better if you called your own commander with your request'
The chill that had worked itself into Brunetti's bones washed into his voice. 'Officer, it is now 6.37. If your phone log doesn't show you placed a call for a launch or helicopter within the next two minutes, you will regret it.' As he spoke, he began to spin wild plans: to find out this man's name, to have Paola's father use his position to threaten his commander into dismissing him, tell the other pilots who had refused to help Bonsuan.