A Noble Radiance Part 14

'Yes.'

'What sort of things?'

'What sort of man he was. What sort of jokes he liked. What sort of work he did for the company. Things like that.'

Though it sounded like an odd list of questions to Brunetti himself, Lorenzoni seemed not at all surprised at them. 'He was...' Lorenzoni began. 'I'm not sure how to say this gracefully. He was not at all a complicated person.'

He stopped. Brunetti waited, curious to see what other euphemisms the young man would use.

'He was useful to the company in that he always presented una bellafigura, una bellafigura, so my uncle could always send him anywhere to represent the company.' so my uncle could always send him anywhere to represent the company.'

'In negotiations?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, no,' Lorenzoni answered immediately. 'Roberto was better at social things, like taking clients to dinner or showing them around the city.'

'What other things did he do?'

Lorenzoni thought about this for a few moments. 'My uncle would often send him to deliver important papers: if he had to be sure a contract would get somewhere in a hurry, Roberto would take it.'

'And then spend a few days there?'' 'Yes, sometimes' Lorenzoni answered. 'Did he attend university?' 'He was enrolled in the facolta facolta of of economia commerciale.' economia commerciale.' 'Where?' 'Where?'

'Here, at Ca Foscari'

'How long had he been enrolled?'

'Three years'

'And how many exams had he taken?'

The truth, if Lorenzoni knew it, never made it past his lips. 'I don't know.' This last question had broken what-ever rapport Brunetti had established by his response to Lorenzoni's confession of fear. 'Why do you want to know all this?' Lorenzoni asked.

1 want to get an idea of what sort of person he was,' Brunetti answered truthfully.

'What difference is that supposed to make? After all this time?'

Brunetti shrugged. 1 don't know if it will make any difference at all. But if I'm going to spend the next few months of my life with him, I want to know something about him.'

'Months?' Lorenzoni asked.

'Yes.'

'Does that mean the investigation of the kidnapping is going to be reopened?'

'It's not just kidnapping any more. It's murder.'

Lorenzoni winced at the word but said nothing.

Is there anything else you can think of to tell me about him that might be important?'

Lorenzoni shook his head and turned towards the steps that led to the front door of the villa.

'Anything about the way he was behaving before he was kidnapped?'

Lorenzoni shook his head again but then stopped and turned back to Brunetti. 'I think he was sick.'

'Why do you say that?'

'He was tired all the time and said he didn't feel right. I think he said he was having trouble with his stomach, diarrhoea. And he looked like he had lost some weight.'

'Did he say anything else about this?'

'No, no, he didn't. Roberto and I hadn't been all that close in the last few years.'

'Since you started to work for the business?'

The look Lorenzoni gave him was as devoid of friendliness as it was of surprise. 'What do you mean by that?'

'It would seem perfectly natural to me if he resented your presence in the business, especially if your uncle seemed to find you useful or placed trust in you or your judgement.' - Brunetti was expecting Lorenzoni to comment on this, but the young man surprised him by turning away silently and starting up the three broad steps that led to the villa. To his retreating back, Brunetti called, 'Is there anyone else I could talk to about him?'

At the top of the steps, Lorenzoni turned towards them. 'No. No one knew him. No one can help.' He turned back towards the door and went into the villa, closing the door behind him.

18.

Because the following day was Sunday, Brunetti left the Lorenzonis to themselves and returned his attention to the family only the next morning, when he attended Roberto's funeral, a rite as solemn as it was grim. The ma.s.s was celebrated in the church of San Salvador, which stood beyond one end of Campo San Bartolomeo and which, because of its proximity to Rialto, received a constant flux of tourists during the day and hence during the ma.s.s. Brunetti, seated at the back of the church, was conscious of their invasive arrival, overheard the buzz of their exchanged whispers as they discussed how to photograph the t.i.tian Annunciation Annunciation and the tomb of Caterina Cornaro. But during a funeral? Perhaps, if they were very, very quiet and didn't use the flash. The priest ignored their whispers and continued the millennium-old ritual, speaking of the transitory nature of our time upon this earth and of the sadness which must surround the parents and family of this child of G.o.d, cut off so soon from this earthly life. But then he enjoined his listeners to think of the joy which awaited the faithful and the good, gone to find their home with their Heavenly Father, He the source of all love. Only once was the priest distracted from his duties: a crash sounded from the back of the church as a chair fell over, this followed by a muttered exclamation in a language other than Italian. and the tomb of Caterina Cornaro. But during a funeral? Perhaps, if they were very, very quiet and didn't use the flash. The priest ignored their whispers and continued the millennium-old ritual, speaking of the transitory nature of our time upon this earth and of the sadness which must surround the parents and family of this child of G.o.d, cut off so soon from this earthly life. But then he enjoined his listeners to think of the joy which awaited the faithful and the good, gone to find their home with their Heavenly Father, He the source of all love. Only once was the priest distracted from his duties: a crash sounded from the back of the church as a chair fell over, this followed by a muttered exclamation in a language other than Italian.

Ritual swallowed up the interruption; the priest and his servers walked slowly around the closed coffin, chanting prayers and sprinkling it with holy water. Brunetti wondered if he were the only one moved to consider the physical state of what lay beneath that elaborately carved mahogany lid. No one within the church had actually seen it: Roberto's ident.i.ty rested upon nothing more than some dental X-rays and a gold ring, recognition of which, Commissario Barzan had told Brunetti, reduced the Count to choking sobs. Brunetti himself, even though he had studied the autopsy report, had no idea of how much of the physical substance that had once been Roberto Lorenzoni actually lay there at the front of the church. To have lived twenty-one years and to have left so little behind save parents burdened with grief, a girlfriend who had already borne another man's child, and a cousin who had quickly manoeuvred himself into the position as heir. Of Roberto, son to both earthly and heavenly fathers, so little seemed to remain. He had been a common type, the indulged only son of wealthy parents, a boy of whom little had been asked and less expected. And now he lay, a pile of clean bones and tatters of flesh, in a box in a church, and even the policeman sent to find his killer could summon up no real grief at his early death.

Brunetti was spared from further reflection by the end of the ceremony. Four middle-aged men carried the coffin from the altar towards the back of the church. Close behind them followed Count Ludovico and Maurizio, the Contessa supported between them. Francesca Salviati was not present. Brunetti was saddened to realize that almost all of the mourners who trailed out of the church were elderly people, apparently friends of the parents. It was as if Roberto had been robbed not only of his future life but of his past, for he had left behind no friends to come and wish him farewell or to say some prayer for his long-departed spirit. How immeasurably sad, to have mattered so little, to have his pa.s.sing marked by no more than a mother's tears. His own death, Brunetti realized, would pa.s.s unmarked even by those: his mother, bound within her madness, was long beyond the time when she could distinguish between son or father, life or death. And what if the coffin were to hold all that remained of his own son?

Brunetti stepped suddenly into the aisle and joined the trickle of people making towards the door of the church. On the steps, he was surprised to see the sunlight pouring down on the campo, campo, the people trailing past on their way to Campo San Luca or Rialto, utterly unmoved by thoughts of Roberto Lorenzoni or his death. the people trailing past on their way to Campo San Luca or Rialto, utterly unmoved by thoughts of Roberto Lorenzoni or his death.

He decided not to follow the coffin to the water's edge and see it placed upon the boat that would carry it to the cemetery. Instead, he went back towards San Lio and the Questura, stopping on the way for a coffee and a brioche. He finished the coffee but could eat only one bite of the brioche. He put it down on the counter, paid, and left; He went up to his office, where he found a postcard from his brother on his desk. On the front was a photo of the Fountain of Trevi and on the back, in Sergio's neat square lettering, this message: 'Paper a success, both of us heroes' followed by his scrawled name, and then a scribbled addition: 'Rome dreadful, squalid.'

Brunetti tried to see if the cancellation of the stamp bore a date. If it did, it was too smeared for him to be able to read it He marvelled that the postcard could have arrived from Rome in less than a week, he had had letters take three to get to him from Torino. But perhaps the post office gave priority to postcards, or perhaps they preferred them, as they were smaller and lighter. He read through the rest of his mail, some of it important, none of it interesting.

Signorina Elettra was at the table by her window, arranging irises in a tall vase that stood in a bar of light that splashed across the table and the floor. She wore a sweater almost the same colour as the flowers, stood as slim and straight as they.

'They're very beautiful' he said as he came in.

'Yes, they are, aren't they? But I've always wondered why the cultivated ones have no scent.'

'Don't they?'

'Very little' she answered. 'Just smell them.' She moved to one side.

Brunetti bent forward. They had no scent at all, other than a faintly generic odour of vegetable.

Before he could remark on this, however, a voice behind him asked, 'Is that a new investigative technique, Commissario?'

Lieutenant Scarpa's voice purred with curiosity. When Brunetti straightened up and glanced towards him, Scarpa's face was a mask of respectful attention.

'Yes, Lieutenant,' he answered. 'Signorina Elettra was just telling me that, because they're so pretty, it's very difficult to tell when they're rotten. So you have to smell them. And then you know.'

'And are they rotten?' Lieutenant Scarpa asked with every appearance of interest.

'Not yet,' interrupted Signorina Elettra, moving in front of the Lieutenant and back towards her desk. She paused a short distance from Scarpa and ran her eyes up and down his uniform. 'If s harder to tell with flowers' She stepped past him and went back to her desk. Then, with a smile as false as his, she asked, 'And was there something you wanted. Lieutenant?'

'The Vice-Questore asked me to come up,' he answered, voice thick with emotion.

Then by all means go in,' she said, waving towards the door to Patta's office. Saying nothing, Scarpa walked in front of Brunetti, knocked once on the door, and went in without waiting to be told to do so.

Brunetti waited for the door to close before saying, 'You should be careful of him'

'Him?' she asked, no attempt made to disguise her contempt.

'Yes, of him' Brunetti repeated. 'He's got the Vice-Questore's ear.'

She reached forward and picked up a brown leather notebook. 'And I've got his appointment book. That cancels things out.'

'I wouldn't be so sure' Brunetti insisted. 'He could be dangerous.'

'Take his gun away and he's no different from any other "terron maleducato"'.' "terron maleducato"'.'

Brunetti wasn't sure if it was correct for him to countenance both disrespect for a lieutenant's rank and racist remarks about his place of origin. Then he recalled that it was Scarpa they were talking about and let it pa.s.s. 'Signorina, did you ever speak to your boyfriend's brother about Roberto Lorenzoni?'

'Yes, I did, Dottore. I'm sorry but I forgot to tell you.'

Brunetti found it interesting that she appeared more troubled by this than about her comments on Lieutenant Scarpa. 'What did he say?'

'Not much. Maybe that's why I forgot. All he said was that Roberto was lazy and spoiled and that he got through school by reading other students' notes.'

'Nothing else?'

'Only that Edoardo told me Roberto was always getting into trouble because he kept putting his nose into other people's business - you know, going to other students' houses and opening drawers and looking through their things. He sounded almost proud of him. He said once Roberto arranged to get locked into the school building after school one day and went through all the teachers' desks.'

'Why did he do that, to steal things?' 'Oh, no. He just wanted to see what they had.' 'Were they still in touch when Roberto was kidnapped?'

'No, not really. Edoardo was doing his military service. In Modena. He said they hadn't seen one another for more than a year when it happened. But he said he liked him.'

Brunetti had no idea what to make of any of this, but he thanked Signorina Elettra for the information, decided against warning her again about Lieutenant Scarpa, and went back up to his office.

He looked down at the letters and reports on his desk and pushed them aside. He sat and pulled the bottom drawer open with the toe of his right foot, then crossed his feet on top of it. He folded his arms on his chest and glanced off at the s.p.a.ce above the wooden wardrobe that stood against one wall. He tried to summon up some emotion for Roberto, and it was at the thought of him locked into school and poking through his teachers' desks that Brunetti finally began to have a real sense of this dead boy. It took no more than that, a consciousness of his inexplicable humanity, and Brunetti finally found himself moved to that terrible pity for the dead with which his life was too often filled. He thought of the things that could have happened in Roberto's life; he might have found work he liked, a woman to love; he might have had a son.

The family died with him; at least the direct line from Count Ludovico. Brunetti knew that the Lorenzonis could trace themselves back into the dim centuries where history and myth blended and became one, and he wondered what it must be to see it end. Antigone, he remembered, said that the chief horror of her brothers' deaths lay in the fact that her parents could never again have children, and so the family died with those bodies rotting under the walls of Thebes.

He turned his thoughts to Maurizio, now the presumptive heir to the Lorenzoni empire. Though the boys had been raised together, there was no evidence of any great affection or love between them. Maurizio's devotion seemed entirely directed at his aunt and uncle. That would make it unlikely he would deliver such a terrible blow as to rob them of their only child. But Brunetti had heard enough of the limitless self-justification of criminals to know that it would be the work of an instant for Maurizio to convince himself it would be an act of charity and love to provide them with a diligent, devoted, hard-working heir, someone who would so fully live up to their expectations of what a son should be, that the loss of Roberto would soon cease to pain them. Brunetti had heard worse.

He called down to Signorina Elettra to ask if she had found the name of the girl whose hand Maurizio had broken. She told him it was given on a separate page at the end of the list of the Lorenzoni financial holdings. Brunetti turned to the final pages. Maria Teresa Bonarnini, with an address in Castello.

He called the number and asked for Signorina Bonamini, and the woman who answered said she was at work. When asked, making no attempt to discover who was calling, she told Brunetti that she worked as a salesgirl at Coin, in women's clothing.

He decided he would prefer to speak to her in person and so, telling no one what he was doing, he left the Questura and headed back in the direction of the department store.

Since the fire, almost ten years ago now, he had found it difficult to enter the store; the daughter of a friend of his had been one of the victims killed when a careless worker set fire to sheets of plastic that had, within minutes, turned the entire building into a smoke-filled h.e.l.l. At the time, the fact that the girl had died from smoke inhalation and not from fire had seemed some consolation; years later, only the fact of her death remained.

He took the escalator to the second floor and found himself enveloped in brown, Coin's choice that year for summer's colour: blouses, skirts, dresses, hats - all blended together in a swirl of earth tones. The saleswomen, unfortunately, had decided or been told to wear the same colours, so they blended in, almost invisible in this sea of umber, chocolate, mahogany, chestnut. Luckily, one of them moved towards him, distinguis.h.i.+ng herself from the rack of dresses in front of which she had been standing. 'Could you tell me where I might find Teresa Bonamini?' Brunetti asked.

She turned and pointed towards the back of the store. 'In furs,' she said and moved off towards a woman in a suede jacket who raised a hand in her direction.

Brunetti followed her gesture and found himself moving between racks of fur coats and jackets, a hecatomb, of fauna, the sale of which was apparently not affected by the season. There was longer furred fox, glossy mink, and one particularly dense pelt he couldn't identify. Some years ago, a wave of social consciousness had swept the Italian fas.h.i.+on industry, and for a season women had been enjoined to buy 'la peilliccia ecologica', 'la peilliccia ecologica', wildly-patterned and coloured furs that made no attempt to disguise the fact that they were fake. But no matter how inventive the design or high the price, they could never be made to cost as much as real furs, and so the call of vanity was not sufficiently satisfied. They were symbols of principle, not of status, and they quickly pa.s.sed out of fas.h.i.+on and were given to cleaning ladies or sent to refugees in Bosnia. Worse, they had turned into an ecological nightmare, vast swatches of bio-undegradable plastic. So real fur had returned to the racks. wildly-patterned and coloured furs that made no attempt to disguise the fact that they were fake. But no matter how inventive the design or high the price, they could never be made to cost as much as real furs, and so the call of vanity was not sufficiently satisfied. They were symbols of principle, not of status, and they quickly pa.s.sed out of fas.h.i.+on and were given to cleaning ladies or sent to refugees in Bosnia. Worse, they had turned into an ecological nightmare, vast swatches of bio-undegradable plastic. So real fur had returned to the racks.

'Si, Signore' the salesgirl who approached Brunetti asked, pulling him back from reflections upon the vanity of human wishes. She was blonde, blue-eyed, and almost as tall as he. the salesgirl who approached Brunetti asked, pulling him back from reflections upon the vanity of human wishes. She was blonde, blue-eyed, and almost as tall as he.

'Signorina Bonamini?'

'Yes,' she answered, giving Brunetti a careful look instead of a smile.

'I'd like to talk to you about Maurizio Lorenzoni, Signorina' he explained.

The transformation of her face was immediate. From pa.s.sive curiosity, it changed instantly to irritation, even alarm. 'All of that's settled. You can ask my lawyer.'

Brunetti stepped back from her and smiled politely. 'I'm sorry, Signorina, I should have introduced myself.' He took his wallet from his pocket and held it up so that she could see his photo. 'I'm Commissario Guido Brunetti, and I'd like to talk to you about Maurizio. There's no need of a lawyer. I merely want to ask you a few questions about him.'

'What sort of questions?' she asked, the alarm still in her voice.

'About what sort of man he is, what sort of character he has.'

'Why do you want to know?'

'As you probably know, his cousin's body has been found, and we've reopened the investigation of his kidnapping. So we have to start all over again, gathering information about the family.'

'It's not about my hand?' she asked.

'No, Signorina. I know about the incident, but I'm not here to talk about it'

'I never made una denuncia, una denuncia, you know. It was an accident.' you know. It was an accident.'

'But your hand was broken, wasn't it?' Brunetti asked, resisting the impulse to look down at her hands, which hung at her sides.

Responding to his unspoken question, she raised her left hand and waved it in front of Brunetti, opening and closing the fingers. 'There's nothing at all wrong with it, is there?' she asked.