'What was that? Who told you?'
Vianello shook his head with apparent reluctance, as if to suggest to the waiter that he would gladly have named his informant, but with his superior sitting right there at the table across from him, there was no way he could help his friend the waiter, no matter how much he might want to.
'Was it that bastard, Giacomini? Just tell me that? Was it him?'
Again apparently unable to disguise his surprise at the name, Vianello shot the waiter a quick glance, almost as if to warn him to stop. But beyond caring about caution, the waiter went on, 'He wasn't even here, Giacomini. He just wanted to cause Sandro trouble, the bastard. And he knew there was bad blood between them because of that time off Chioggia. But he's lying; he's always been a liar.' The waiter pushed himself back from the table and got to his feet, as if to stop himself from saying anything more. Suddenly formal, all thought of his brother abandoned, he asked, 'Would you like another grappa?'
Brunetti shook his head, then got to his feet, the sergeant quickly following him. 'Thank you’ Brunetti said, leaving it unclear if he meant for the service or for the information. He paused a moment, making it obvious that Vianello had no choice but to precede his superior from the room.
Outside, Brunetti walked for a few minutes until they stood at the edge of the water, where they were safely away from the restaurant and all of the houses. Looking in the general direction of Venice, he put one foot up on the sea wall and reached down to flick a pebble from inside the sole of his shoe.
'Well?' he asked.
'All news to me’ Vianello said with a small smile. 'No one was willing to tell me a thing.'
"That's what I assumed’ Brunetti said then added, knowing that Vianello would be pleased to hear it, 'You played that very well.'
'It wasn't very hard, was it?' the sergeant asked by way of answer.
'I'd like to know how bad their fight was, especially as he was so eager to convince us it was nothing.' Brunetti continued to gaze off towards the invisible city, but it was clear his remarks were meant for Vianello.
'He was pretty insistent, wasn't he, sir?'
Brunetti had thought so at the time, but now he began to wonder if perhaps the waiter had been smarter than he'd thought and had dropped Giacomini's name and the story of the fight with Bottin in order to deflect them from something else. 'You think he was trying to lead us away from something, Sergeant?'
'No, I think he was genuinely worried’ Vianello answered, as if he'd already considered and dismissed the same possibility. Then, with a scorn typical of those born on the major Venetian islands, he added, 'Pellestrinotti aren't bright enough for something like that, anyway.'
'We're not allowed to say things like that any more, Sergeant,' Brunetti said mildly.
'Regardless of whether they're true?' the sergeant asked.
'Because they're true,' Brunetti answered.
Vianello reflected for a moment upon this and then asked, 'What now, sir?'
'I think we go and see what else we can learn about the fight between Sandro Scarpa and Giulio Bottin.' Brunetti turned away from the laguna and back towards the rows of low houses.
Vianello fell into step beside him, saying, 'There's a kind of general store behind the restaurant. The sign said it opened at three, and someone told me that Signora Follini always opens on time.' He led the way to the left of the restaurant and into a sandy courtyard lined on two sides by doors and on the other left open to provide a long view towards the sea wall and, beyond it, the Adriatic. Because of the height of the distant sea wall, they could not see the water on that side of the island, but there was a sharp scent of iodine in the air and a general moistness that spoke of the presence of the sea.
Brunetti had not been out here for years, perhaps for more than a decade, not since the kids were smaller and he and Paola and his brother Sergio and his family used to crowd together into Sergio's boat on Sunday afternoons, saying they wanted to explore the islands but knowing themselves to be, all the while, in search of good restaurants and fresh fish. He remembered sunburnt, cranky children, asleep in the bottom of the boat like puppies, drugged by too much sun and the endless tedium of adult conversation. He remembered Sergio erupting from the water and hurling himself over the side of the boat, both legs lashed red by an enormous jellyfish that had trailed up against him in the clear waters. And he remembered, with a surge of recalled joy, making love with Paola in the bottom of the boat one August afternoon when Sergio had taken all the children to pick blackberries on one of the smaller islands.
A bell pealed out as Vianello opened the door to the small shop. They went in, uniformed officer first to announce the reason for their visit.
From another room a woman's voice called out, 'Un momento,' followed by the sound of a closing door and then a sharper, smaller sound, something being set down on a hard surface. After that, silence. Brunetti took a look around the shop and saw dusty rows of boxes of rice, double packs of flypaper, an object that looked like an umbrella stand filled with brooms and mops, and a low shelf upon which lay four copies of yesterday's Gazzettino. Everything smelled faintly of old paper and dried legumes.
After the promised moment, a woman emerged, pushing aside the white cotton curtain that separated the shop from the rooms behind it. She wore a short green dress with a scooped neck, and shoes with heels uncomfortably high for a woman who stood behind a counter all day. 'Buon giorno,' she said in their direction, stopping just in front of the curtain. She stood silently for a moment, and Brunetti saw that she was a woman in the most recent flower of her youth, though its apparent blossoming had been much repeated, no doubt at ever shorter intervals.
Her hair was dandelion blonde, though it seemed brighter still because of the deep tan of her skin. Brunetti had once taken a three-day seminar in advanced methods of suspect identification, two hours of which had concerned the means criminals use to disguise their appearance. He had been, quite frankly and perhaps because he spent so much of his life observing women, fascinated by the varieties of plastic surgery by which a face could be transformed and identity disguised. He noted some of those techniques on display here, and it occurred to him that the police could have used this woman's face as an exhibit, for the signs of the work done were so easily detectable.
Her eyes had a faint Oriental cast to them, and she was doomed forever to respond to life with a small smile that parted her lips in perpetual happy anticipation. A butcher could have sharpened his knives on the long line of her jaw. Her nose, pert and upturned, would have done wonders for the face of a woman thirty years her junior. On hers, it struck a note of visual dissonance, placed as it was over a broad, thick-lipped mouth. Brunetti judged her to be a few years older than himself.
'May I help you?' she asked, moving behind the low counter.
'Yes, Signora Follini’ Brunetti answered, stepping forward. 'I'm Commissario Guido Brunetti. I'm here to investigate the accident that took place this morning.' He started to reach for his wallet to show her his warrant card, but she waved him away impatiently.
She glanced at Vianello then returned her attention to Brunetti.
'Accident?' she asked neutrally.
Brunetti shrugged. 'Until we have reason to believe it was something else, that's how it's being treated,' he answered.
She nodded but offered nothing further.
'Did you know them, Signora?'
'Bottin and Marco?' she asked unnecessarily.
'Yes.'
'They came in here,' she said, as if that were enough.
'As customers, you mean?' he asked, though in a place as small as Pellestrina, eventually everyone would be her customer.