"That shouldn't be at all difficult, sir’ she said, pausing at the beginning of the second flight of steps. 'Anything else?'
If anyone could find out, it was she. 'Yes, there's one thing. Lieutenant Scarpa has been asking if anyone knows anything about a foreign woman, and I wondered if he's spoken to you.'
She looked frankly puzzled and said, 'No. He hasn't said a word. Who's the poor person?'
'A Hungarian woman’ Brunetti said. 'Mary Dox.'
'What?' she demanded sharply, coming to a halt. 'What did you say?'
'Mary Dox’ explained a puzzled Brunetti. 'He asked me, and it seems he went into the officers' room this morning to ask them if they knew anything about her.'
'Did he say what he wanted?' she asked, her voice calmer.
'No, not that I know of. When I saw him, he had a folder in his hand.' As he talked, the memory surfaced and he said, 'It looked like one of our files.' He hoped she would volunteer whatever information she had, but when she remained silent, he asked, 'Do you know her?'
After a pause he could describe only as speculative, she said, 'Yes, 1 do.' Her eyes shifted into long focus, as if the reason for Scarpa's curiosity might be found on the far wall. 'She's my father's cleaning woman.'
'The one you spoke to the Vice-Questore about?'
'Yes.'
'Did you give him her name?' Brunetti asked.
'Yes, I did, and the file number.'
'You think he could have passed them on to Scarpa and asked him to find out about her?'
'Possibly’ she said. 'But I left the information on his desk, so anyone could have seen it.'
'But why would Scarpa start asking about her unless Patta told him to do so?'
'I've no idea,' she said. She smiled and tried to dismiss the unease provoked by the idea that Scarpa was involved in something that concerned her, however tangentially. 'I'll ask the Vice-Questore if he needs any other information about her.'
'I'm sure that's what it is’ Brunetti—who wasn't—said.
'Yes, thank you’ she answered. 'I'll go and have a look for the medical records, shall I?'
'Yes’ Brunetti said, leaving her, and went back to his office, his mind a jumble of Scarpa, Heliogabalus, and the mysterious Mary Dox.
14
Most people dread middle of the night phone calls for their presage of loss or violence or death. The certainty that one's family is sleeping peacefully nearby in no way diminishes the alarm; it merely directs it towards other people. Thus Brunetti's fear was no less sharp when his phone rang a little after five the following morning.
'Commissario Brunetti?' inquired a voice he recognized as Alvise's. Had the call reached him at home at any other time of day, Brunetti would have asked the officer what man he expected to find answering the phone at his home, but it was too early for sarcasm: it was always too early for anything other than the literal with Alvise.
'Yes. What is it?'
'We just had a call from someone on Murano.' Alvise stopped, as if to suggest that this information was sufficient.
'What about, Alvise?'
'He found a dead man, sir.'
'Who?'
'He didn't say who he was, sir, just that he was calling from Murano.'
'Did he say who the dead man was, Alvise?' Brunetti asked as sleepiness retreated, to be supplanted by the careful, plodding patience one had always to use with Alvise.
'No, sir.'
'Did he say where he was?' Brunetti asked.
'Where he works, sir.'
'Where is that, Alvise?'
'At a fornace, sir.'
'Which one?'
'I think he said De Cal, sir. I didn't have a pen. Anyway, it's on Sacca Serenella.'
Brunetti pushed back the covers and sat up. He got out of bed and looked at Paola, who had one eye open and was looking at him. 'I'll be at the end of the calle in twenty minutes’ Brunetti said. 'Send a launch.' Before Alvise could begin to explain why this would be difficult, Brunetti cut him off by saying, 'If we don't have one, call the Carabinieri, and if they can't come, call me a taxi.' He replaced the phone.
'Dead man?' Paola asked.
'On Murano’ he said, glancing out the window to see what sort of promise the day might hold.
When he looked back at her, her eyes were closed, and the thought struck him that she had fallen asleep. But before disappointment could register, she opened her eyes again and said, 'God, what a terrible job you do, Guido.'
He ignored the remark and went into the bathroom.
When he emerged, shaved and showered, the bed was empty, and he smelled fresh coffee. He dressed, remembering to put on heavy shoes in case he was going to spend time in the fornace, then went down to the kitchen and found her seated at the table, a small cup of coffee in front of her and a large cup of coffee with milk ready for him.
'There's sugar in it already’ she said as he reached for it. He studied his wife of more than twenty years, conscious that something was wrong with her but unable to recognize what it was. He studied her and she looked back at him, smiling quizzically.
'What's wrong?' Paola asked.
The fact that she had heard him say someone was dead should have been enough, but he continued to study her, trying to figure it out. Finally he saw it and blurted out, 'You're not reading.' There was no book, no newspaper, no magazine in front of her: she simply sat there, drinking her coffee and, it seemed, waiting for him.
I'll make more coffee when you're gone and go back to bed and read until the kids are up’ she said. Order returned to Brunetti's universe. He finished his coffee, kissed Paola, and said he had no idea when he'd be home but would call when he knew.
When he turned into the calle that led to the canal, the silence told him that the boat had not arrived. If he had given the order to anyone but Alvise, Brunetti would have thought this nothing but a short delay; as it was, he wondered if he would end up having to call a taxi. Occupied with these thoughts, he reached the edge of the canal and looked to the right. And saw what he had seen only in photos taken in the early part of the last century: the mirror-smooth waters of the Grand Canal. Not a ripple stirred the surface, no boats passed, not a puff of wind, no gulls paddled around. He stood transfixed and looked on what his ancestors had seen: the same light, the same facades, the same windows and plants, and the same vital silence. And, as far as he could distinguish the reflections, it all existed in double.
He heard the drone of the boat's approaching motor, and then it swept around the curve in front of the university and headed towards him. As it came, it destroyed the stillness ahead of it and left in its wake those many wavelets that, minutes after it passed, would still be splashing against the steps of the palazzi on both sides of the canal.
Brunetti saw Foa at the wheel and raised a hand in greeting. The pilot slid the launch towards the twin pilings, slipped the motor into reverse, and glided up to the dock with a touch as gentle as a kiss. Brunetti stepped aboard, wished the pilot good morning, and asked him to take him to the De Cal factory on Sacca Serenella.
Foa, like most pilots, had the grace of silence and did nothing more than nod to acknowledge Brunetti's request. He seemed to feel no need to fill up the journey with words. By the time they reached Rialto, the broad-beamed boats that hauled produce to the market had turned the stillness into memory. Foa swung into Rio dei SS Apostoli and directly past the palazzo in which some distant ancestor of Paola's had lived before being beheaded for treason. They shot out into the laguna where the first thing Brunetti saw, off to the right, were the walls of the cemetery and, behind it, banks of clouds scuttling towards the city.