Falling in Love (10 page)

Instead of answering the question, Brunetti said, ‘I’ve got something more interesting.’

They found Signorina Elettra seated at her desk, turned away from her computer and reading a magazine she made no attempt to hide. They would have been no more shocked to see a painting of Eve without Adam, a statue of Saint Cosmas without Saint Damian at his side.

When he noticed that the computer screen was blank, Brunetti’s shock doubled, and he could think only of turning it into a joke. ‘Are you on strike, Signorina?’

She looked up, surprised, and shot a glance at Vianello. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘Nothing,’ Vianello answered.

‘Tell me what?’ Brunetti asked, directing the question at both of them.

‘Then you don’t know?’ she asked, closing the magazine and opening her eyes in feigned innocence.

‘No one’s told me anything,’ Brunetti insisted, although that was hardly true. The young woman had told him she’d been pushed down the steps. Beside him, Vianello folded his arms, making it clear he was going to sit this one out.

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she said and looked back at the magazine.

Brunetti approached her desk.
Vogue
. He’d thought so.

She caught his glance and said, ‘It’s the French edition.’

‘Don’t you read the Italian one?’

She half closed her eyes for an instant and did something with her eyelids that dismissed the worth and accuracy of the Italian edition of
Vogue
at the same time as calling into question the taste of anyone who would ask such a ridiculous question.

‘What may I do for
you
this morning, gentlemen?’ she asked, turning to Vianello, as if she had just noticed them coming in.

‘You can start by telling me,’ Brunetti began, glancing at the still-silent Vianello to include him in the accusation, ‘what’s going on.’

Something he didn’t follow passed between her and Vianello, and then she said, ‘I want Lieutenant Scarpa’s head.’

Over the last few years, the black spite that existed between Signorina Elettra, secretary to Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, and Lieutenant Scarpa, his closest confidant and assistant, had grown more intense. She and the Lieutenant delighted in blocking any initiative put forward by the other, Scarpa with utter disregard for the cost to the rest of the people working at the Questura, and Signorina Elettra handicapped by concern for it. If she suggested compiling a list, not only of the names and convictions of repeat offenders, but of the frequency and severity of their crimes, Scarpa was sure to criticize it as an attempt to stigmatize and discriminate against reformed criminals. If Scarpa recommended someone for promotion, his letter was bound to have attached to it her list of any reprimand the officer had ever received.

‘As an office decoration?’ Brunetti asked, looking around as though to search for the best place to set Scarpa’s head, perhaps there on the windowsill next to the silent Vianello.

‘That’s a charming idea, Commissario,’ she said. ‘I’m amazed it hadn’t occurred to me. But no, I was speaking figuratively, and all I want is that he be gone from here.’

He knew her well enough to hear the clash of iron and steel behind the joking words. He adjusted his voice accordingly and asked, ‘What’s he done?’

‘You know he hates Alvise?’ she asked, surprising him by speaking the truth so candidly. Lieutenant Scarpa, upon his arrival at the Questura some years ago, had at first appeared to court Alvise but had quickly discovered that the officer’s amiability was distributed equally to everyone, not to the new arrival in particular. Thus had things quickly gone wrong, and since then the Lieutenant had not missed a chance to point out Alvise’s many inadequacies. For all his slowness of wit, however, Officer Alvise was generally acknowledged to be decent, loyal, and brave, qualities not shared by some of his more intelligent colleagues. But hate, like love, came even when not summoned and did what it willed.

‘Yes,’ Brunetti finally answered.

‘He’s sent an official complaint about him.’

‘To him?’ Brunetti asked, adding to this breach of protocol by tilting his head in the direction of the office of Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta.

‘Worse: to the Prefetto and to the Questore,’ she said, naming the two highest law enforcement officials in the city.

‘What’s he complaining about?’

‘He’s accusing Alvise of using criminal force.’

Unable to believe this, Brunetti turned to Vianello, who said, ‘Alvise. Criminal force’, as if to allow Brunetti to hear the absurdity of the conjunction of words. The Sergeant looked in Signorina Elettra’s direction to pass Brunetti’s attention back to her.

‘The Lieutenant’s accusing him of assaulting one of the protestors last week,’ she told him.

‘When did he say this?’ Brunetti demanded. He’d been at the protest in Piazzale Roma, a hastily organized thing that involved about a hundred unemployed men who had managed to block all traffic into or out of the city. Because there had been no warning and no request for a permit from the protestors, the police were slow in arriving, and by the time they did, they found drivers and protestors screaming abuse at one another and little way to distinguish between them unless the drivers were still in their vehicles. The arrival of the police, wearing face masks and helmets that turned them into a sinister species of beetle, along with a sudden burst of rain, dampened the spirits of the protestors, who began to disperse.

One of them, however, had fallen or been knocked to the ground, where he’d hit his head on the kerb and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. At the time, a witness had said the man had tripped over one of the flags that had been abandoned by the protestors.

Two days afterwards, four protestors had arrived at the Questura to make a formal statement attesting that their colleague had been knocked to the ground by the nightstick of Officer Alvise – they knew his name – for they had seen it happen. It turned out that they were all members of the same union as the victim of the purported attack. The Vice-Questore, reached by phone, had given the investigation to Lieutenant Scarpa, who had begun by asking that Officer Alvise be suspended without salary until such time as the investigation was completed.

Brunetti heard this with mounting astonishment: when had anything like this ever been done? And how in God’s name was Alvise to pay his rent?

‘An hour after Alvise was informed,’ Signorina Elettra continued, ‘we had three calls from the press, two national editions, and
Il Gazzettino
.’ She glanced at Vianello and then at Brunetti, and continued, ‘None of the reporters would tell me how they’d heard of this, and one asked if it was true that Alvise had a history of violence.’

Brunetti turned at the sound of a hooted laugh from Vianello, who said, ‘Alvise couldn’t be violent if his life depended on it.’ Brunetti, who was of the same opinion, said nothing.

‘When I realized how the press must have learned about Alvise’s supposed history of violence, I decided to go on strike.’ After waiting a moment, she added, ‘But I am not failing to report for work: I am merely limiting the amount of work I’ll accept.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘Then to what extent is it a strike?’

‘As I made clear to the Vice-Questore earlier this morning, I will not do anything that aids the Lieutenant: I will not distribute his memos, I will not transfer calls to him, I no longer speak to him – however much pleasure that might afford him – but chiefly, I will neither search for nor pass on any information to him.’ By the end of this list she was smiling, and her expression became absolutely beatific as she added, ‘I have already told three people who phoned that I have no idea who Lieutenant Scarpa is and suggested they try calling the Corpo Forestale.’

It came to Brunetti that, years ago, she had acquired – to choose the least incorrect term – the Lieutenant’s password to the computer system, but he thought it improper to ask if that fact would be of any importance, or use, at the moment. ‘Might I ask what the Vice-Questore’s response to this has been?’ he asked, instead.

‘Strangely enough, he seemed able to tolerate it, so I had to tell him that, for each day Alvise remains suspended, I will work two hours fewer for him, as well, so by the end of the week I will be doing almost nothing for him, as I am now doing nothing at all for the Lieutenant.’ The woman was calm, but no less terrible for that.

‘What was his response, if I might ask?’

‘Modesty prevents my saying he was appalled,’ she responded with some pride. ‘This forced me to explain that what I was doing was really much kinder than what was done to Alvise: he was tossed out from one minute to the next.’ She smiled the sharkish smile Brunetti had come to appreciate and added, ‘What I am also doing is weaning the Vice-Questore from what has become, over the years, an embarrassing dependence on my abilities.’

‘Did you tell him that, too?’ Brunetti asked, unable to disguise his astonishment.

‘Of course not, Dottore. I think it’s best for us all if he doesn’t realize this.’

11

Brunetti agreed fully with Signorina Elettra’s judgement. ‘You’re on strike only against them?’ he asked, wanting to clear this up before he asked for her help.

‘Of course. If you have something you’d like me to do, I’d be only too happy to abandon this,’ she said, flipping closed the magazine. ‘I don’t know why I bother to read it.’

‘That’s exactly what my wife says about
Muscoli e Fitness
,’ Brunetti said, deadpan.

But Signorina Elettra was not to be trapped. ‘I’m sure she’s interested because those things were so vital to Henry James,’ she said.

‘Have you read him?’ Brunetti asked, not sure if he was astonished or worried.

‘Only in translation. I’m afraid my mind has been so dulled by reading police reports that it’s hard for me to concentrate on such complex prose and psychological penetration.’

‘Indeed,’ Brunetti said in a soft voice. And then, sensing Vianello’s impatience with their quips, said, ‘What I’d like you to do is find out if anyone has
telecamere
in place by Ponte de le Scuole.’

‘Is that the one behind San Rocco?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

It took her only a moment to visualize the place, and when she did, she said, ‘I wouldn’t think so. It’s so far from anything.’ Turning to Vianello, she asked, ‘What do you think, Lorenzo?’

‘We should try the Carabinieri,’ he said, looking very pleased with himself. ‘I remembered one of them, years ago, telling me they were putting up a lot of cameras, and he said they . . .’ he paused here, catching their attention, ‘. . . wanted to put them in places where people didn’t go much.’

‘Is that a Carabinieri joke?’ Signorina Elettra asked.

‘Sounds it, doesn’t it?’ Vianello confirmed. ‘But, no, it’s actually what he said.’ Neither one of them was willing to comment. Then, after a few seconds, he added, ‘And did.’

Vianello was about to continue when, all of a sudden, their heads, like sunflowers towards the sun, turned in unison towards the sound of the opening door of the office of the Vice-Questore, and with the same involuntary phototropism, their faces reddened at the sight of his.

‘You,’ Patta said at the sight of Brunetti, ignoring Vianello, who was in uniform that day and, as such, unworthy of his attention. ‘I want to talk to you.’ At first Patta seemed not to notice Signorina Elettra, but then he gave her a brusque nod and turned back into his office.

Brunetti, his face as stern as the Vice-Questore’s had been, glanced at his colleagues and followed his superior inside.

Patta stood in the middle of the room, a sure sign to Brunetti that their dealings were likely to be, regardless of subject, brief.

‘What do you know about this strike business?’ Patta demanded, waving an angry hand towards the door.

‘Signorina Elettra was just telling me about it, Vice-Questore.’

‘You didn’t know anything?’

‘No, Dottore.’

‘Where have you been?’ Patta asked with his usual gossamer delicacy of manner, then, without bothering to wait for Brunetti’s answer, walked to the window and studied the buildings on the other side of the canal. When he had them memorized, he asked, not turning around, ‘What are you working on?’ It sounded to Brunetti like the kind of pro forma question Patta would ask while he was thinking about something else – the strike, probably.

‘A woman was pushed down the stairs of a bridge last night. She’s in the hospital.’

Patta turned. ‘I thought that sort of thing didn’t happen here.’ Then, in case Brunetti had not been sensitive to his tone or to his heavy emphasis on the last word, he added, ‘In peaceful Venice.’

Although Brunetti had to swallow his immediate reaction, his answer could not have been more bland. ‘That certainly used to be true, Dottore, but we’ve had so many people coming in these last years, it’s no longer the case.’ Having edited his remark to remove ‘from the South’ after ‘people’ and replace it with a long pause, Brunetti considered his response both true and moderate.

As if he had read Brunetti’s mind, Patta’s voice became soft and almost menacing. ‘Does it bother you that so many of us are here, Commissario?’