'Even us?' Brunetti asked. "The police?'
'Yes’ Vianello answered. 'Can you imagine Alvise with a crossbow?'
Laughter put an end to their conversation, and the matter lapsed, merging into the stream of gossip that flowed through Venice, much of it no cleaner than the water that flowed in the canals.
When they were back at the Questura, Brunetti went to Signorina Elettra's office to see if the staffing list had been prepared for the Easter holiday. 'Ah, Commissario’ she said as he entered the office, 'I've been looking for you.'
'Yes?' he asked.
'It's the lottery, you see’ she said easily, as if he should know what she was talking about. 'I wondered if you'd like to buy a ticket.'
Even before he considered what sort of a lottery she was referring to, whether related to Easter or to one of Vianello's green projects, he answered, 'Of course', reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. 'How much?'
'Only five Euros, sir’ she said. 'We figured we'd sell so many tickets that we could keep the price down.'
'Fine, then’ he said, taking out a note, only half listening.
She thanked him and drew a block of notepaper towards her. 'What date would you like, sir?' She looked around her desk, hunting for a pen, then looked up at him again. 'Any time after the first of May, sir.'
For a moment, Brunetti toyed with the idea of choosing the tenth of May, Paola's birthday, and not inquiring further, but curiosity overcame him and he said, 'I don't think I understand, Signorina.'
'You have to choose a date, sir. The person who gets the right date wins everything that's been bet.' She smiled, adding, 'And yes, you can choose more than one date, so long as you pay five Euros for each one.'
'All right,' Brunetti said. 'I confess. I don't know what you're talking about.'
Signorina Elettra put her hand to her mouth, and he thought he saw a faint blush cross her cheeks. 'Ah . . .' she let escape a long sigh, as though she were a soccer ball and someone had let the air out of her. He watched the play of expressions on her face, saw her toy with the idea of lying, then opt for the truth. Brunetti knew all of tins, but didn't know why or how he knew it.
'It's about the Vice-Questore, sir,' she said.
'What about him?' Brunetti asked without impatience.
'About the Interpol job.'
'You mean he applied?' Brunetti asked, unable to contain his surprise that Patta had actually done it. It is perhaps more accurate to say that he was surprised that he had not been told that
Patta had applied for the position—at Patta's level, jobs were called positions.
'Yes, sir. Four months ago.'
Brunetti could no longer remember the precise nature of the position his superior had been interested in. He had a vague memory that it involved working with—or, as people with positions said, 'liaising' with—the police of some other nation the language of which Patta did not speak, but he could no longer recall which one.
Into his silence, she supplied the answer. 'In London, sir. With Scotland Yard, as their expert on the Mafia.'
As so often happened when he learned of developments in Patta's professional life, Brunetti found himself without suitable words. 'And the lottery?' he finally asked.
"The date he gets the rejection letter,' she said, voice implacable.
He cared nothing for the details, but he wanted to know. But how to put it? 'You seem rather certain of that outcome, Signorina.' Yes, that was how to put it.
'I am,' she said but offered no explanation. Smiling, she waved the pen over the block of paper. 'And the date, sir?'
'May the tenth, please.'
She wrote the date on the top of a small sheet of paper, tore it off, and handed it to him. 'Don't lose it, sir.'
'In the case of a tie?' he asked as he slipped the paper into his wallet.
'Oh, that's already decided, sir. There are a few dates a number of people want, but it's been suggested that, in the case of a tie, we give all the money to Greenpeace.'
'He would, wouldn't he?' Brunetti asked.
'Who would what, sir?' she asked with every appearance of confusion.
He let out a little puff of air, as if to suggest that even the blind could see the mind at work behind that suggestion. 'Vianello.'
'As a matter of fact, sir,' she said, no change in the sweetness of her smile, 'the idea was mine.'
'In that case,' he picked up seamlessly, 'I'll live in the single hope that I win in a tie so that I can be a part of the money's going to such a noble cause.'
She looked at him, her expression neutral, but then the smile returned and she said, 'Ah, just listen to the falseness of the man.'
Brunetti was surprised by how flattered he felt and went back to his office, all thought of holiday staffing forgotten.
4
Spring advanced, and Brunetti continued to measure it florally. The first lilacs appeared in the flower shops, and he took an enormous bouquet home to Paola; the little pink and yellow flowers made their full appearance in the garden across the canal, were succeeded by random daffodils, and then by ordered rows of tulips at the side of the path bordering the garden. And then one Saturday Paola commandeered him into moving the large terracotta vases from the cool, dark sottotetto where they spent the winter back onto the terrace, where they would remain until November. From the terrace, he noticed that the flower boxes on the balcony on the other side of the calle and one floor below had been planted with the red geraniums he so much disliked.
Then there was Palm Sunday, which he was aware of only when he saw people walking around with olive branches in their hands. And then Easter and explosions of flowers in the windows of Biancat, displays so excessive that Brunetti was forced to stop every evening on the way home from work to consider them.
On Easter Sunday, they had lunch with Paola's parents; this year her aunt Ugolina was also in attendance, wearing a straw hat covered with tiny paper roses that saw the light of day, perhaps, once a year. They took with them—because there was nothing to take to the Faliers that they did not already have and did not already have in a superior form—flowers. The palazzo was already filled with them, but this did not prevent the Countess from gushing over the roses as though they heralded a new species. The excess of flowers also set Chiara off into an impromptu lecture on the ecological wastefulness of hothouse flowers, a discourse she found no one willing to listen to.
The floral note was continued on an invitation Paola received to a gallery opening that was to present the work of three young artists working in glass. From what Brunetti saw from the photos in the invitation, one produced flat panels using gold leaf and coloured glass; the second made vases with lips that resembled the petals of the flowers that would be put inside; and the third used a more traditional style to create cylindrical vases with smooth lips.
The gallery was new, run by the friend of a colleague of Paola's at the university who suggested that they attend. The level of crime in Venice was as low as the waters of that year's spring tides, and so Brunetti was happy to accept; because the gallery was on Murano, he wondered if he would get to meet Ribetti and his wife: he hardly thought a gallery opening was the sort of place where he would re-encounter De Cal.
The opening was scheduled to begin at six on a Friday evening, which would allow people time to see the artists' work, have a glass of prosecco, nibble on something, and then go out to dinner or go home on time to eat. As they boarded the 41 at Fondamenta Nuove, Brunetti realized that years had passed since he had been out to Murano. He had gone there as a boy, when his father had worked in one of the factories for a time, but since then he had been there infrequently, since none of their friends lived on Murano, and he had never had reason to go there professionally.