Brunetti excluded them all, as he did a young man next to the poker player, who was drinking what looked like a gingerino. There were four tables against the back walclass="underline" at one of them sat three women, each with a cup and a pot of tea. They were handing around photographs and exclaiming in enthusiasm that sounded genuine enough for it to be a baby and not a vacation. At the last table, in the angle behind the bar, sat a man who glanced in Brunetti's direction. He had a glass of water in front of him, and as Brunetti moved towards him, the man raised the glass in his left hand and saluted him with it.
The man got to his feet and extended his hand. 'Tassini,' he said. He was tall, perhaps in his mid-thirties, with large dark eyes set wide apart and a nose that seemed too small to fill the space left for it. He had an untrimmed beard with some grey in it that covered, though it did not hide, the hollowness of his cheeks. Brunetti had seen that face on countless icons: the suffering Christ. 'Commissario Brunetti?' Tassini asked.
Brunetti took his hand and thanked him for agreeing to speak to him. 'What would you like to drink?' Tassini asked when Brunetti was seated, raising his hand to catch the attention of the barman.
'Since I'm here’ Brunetti said with a smile, 'I should have a cappuccino, don't you think?' He sat, and Tassini called the order to the barman. For some time, neither man spoke.
Brunetti finally said, 'Signor Tassini, as I told you on the phone, we'd like to speak to you about Giovanni De Cal, your employer.' Before Tassini could ask, Brunetti added, using his gravest voice, 'And, of course, about your complaint.'
'So you're beginning to believe me, eh?' Tassini asked, using the plural.
'We're certainly interested in listening to what you have to say,' Brunetti said. He was spared the need to elaborate by the arrival of the barman with his cappuccino. As he anticipated, the foam had been poured in a swirling motion that created a heart on the surface. He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it in. He stirred the coffee around, and broke its heart.
'What about my letters, then?' Tassini asked.
"That's certainly part of the reason I'm here, Signor Tassini,' Brunetti said and took a sip of his coffee. It was still too hot to drink, so he set the cup back in the saucer to let it cool.
'Did you read them?'
Brunetti gave him his most direct look. 'Ordinarily, if this were part of an official investigation, I'm afraid I'd lie here and say I had,' he said, trying to sound faintly embarrassed by the confession. 'But in this case, let me deal frankly, right from the start.' Before Tassini could reply, he went on. 'They're in a file held by another division. But I've been told about them by people who have read them, and some excerpts have been passed on to us.'
'But they were addressed to you’ Tassini insisted. 'That is, to the police.'
'Yes’ Brunetti acknowledged with a nod, 'but we're detectives, and such things don't get sent on to us automatically. The letters were given to the complaints department and a file was opened. But before those files are processed and passed on to the people who actually will conduct an investigation, months can pass.' He saw the anguished look on Tassini's face, saw him open his mouth to protest, and added, lowering his face in feigned embarrassment again, 'or even longer.'
'But you know about them?'
'I've been told about them, as I've said, but it's come to me third hand.' Brunetti looked across at Tassini and opened his eyes wider as if to suggest that some new possibility had suddenly occurred to him. 'Would you be willing to tell me, in your own words, so that I'd finally understand what's in them? That might help things move more quickly'
At the sight of Tassini's dawning relief, Brunetti felt faintly soiled by what he had just done: it was too simple, too effortless: human need was just too easy to take advantage of. He picked up his cappuccino and took a few sips.
'It's about the factory’ Tassini began. 'You know at least that much?'
'Of course’ Brunetti said with a little deceitful bow of his head.
'It's a death trap,' Tassini said. 'All sorts of things: potassium, nitric acid and fluoric acid, cadmium, even arsenic. We work around this stuff; we breathe it in; we probably even eat it.'
Brunetti nodded. Any Venetian knew this much, but even Vianello had never suggested there existed any significant risk for the workers on Murano. And if anyone would know, it was Vianello.
"That's why it happened,' Tassini said.
'Why what happened, Signor Tassini?'
Tassini's eyes contracted in a look replete with what Brunetti knew was suspicion. But still he said, 'My daughter.'
'Emma?' Brunetti supplied seamlessly. And then, filled with something close to disgust at himself, he said, 'Poor little girl.'
That did it: Tassini was his. He watched as all reservation, all suspicion, all discretion fled from Tassini's face. "That's why it happened,' Tassini said, voice hot with conviction. 'All those things. I've been working there for years, breathing them, touching them, spilling them on me.' He drew his hands together in tight fists. "That's why I keep writing those letters, even when no one will pay attention to what I say.' He looked up at Brunetti with a face made soft by hope, or love, or some emotion Brunetti chose not to identify. 'You're the first one who's paid any attention to me.'
'Tell me about it’ Brunetti forced himself to say.
'I've read a lot’ Tassini began. 'I read all the time. I've got a computer and I read things on the Internet, and I've read books about chemistry and genetics. And it's all there, it's all there.' He rapped his left fist three times on the table as he repeated, 'It's all there.'
'Go on.'
'These things, especially the minerals, can damage the genetic structure. And once the genes are affected, then we can pass the damage on to our children. Damaged genes. You know about the letters, so you know what I've described. When you see the medical reports, you'll know what the doctors say is wrong with her.' He looked at Brunetti. 'Have you seen the photos?'
Even though Brunetti had seen the child so could have continued to lie, he could not bring himself to do so: all the rest, but not this. 'No.'
'Well’ Tassini said. 'Maybe that's better. Besides, you know what's wrong, so there's no need for you to see them.'
'And the doctors? What do they say?'
Tassini's enthusiasm disappeared abruptly; apparently mention of the doctors took him back into the land of the unbelievers. 'They don't want to get involved.'
'Why's that?' Brunetti asked.
'You've seen what's happened at Marghera, with the protests and people wanting to shut it all down. Imagine if it became public, what's going on on Murano.'
Brunetti nodded.
'So you see why they have to lie’ Tassini said with growing heat. 'I've tried to talk to the people at the hospital, tried to get them to test Emma. To test me. I know what's wrong. I know why she's the way she is. All they have to do is find the right test, find the right thing that's in me and in her, and then they'd know what happened. If they admitted what happened to Emma, then they'd have to look at all the other damage, all the other people who are sick, all the people who have died.' He spoke with conviction and urgency, willing Brunetti to understand, and agree.
Brunetti was suddenly aware that, though he had known how to get himself into this one, he had no idea how to get out.
'And your employer?'
'De Cal?'
'Do you think he knows?'
Tassini's face changed again and he moved his mouth into something that resembled a smile but was not. 'Yes, he knows. They both do, but they have to cover it all up, don't they?' he asked, and Brunetti wondered in what way Assunta could be involved in this.