Donna Leon - Blood from a stone

‘My God. What happened?’ he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

Cuzzoni looked at the wreckage of ceiling, wall, and floor and quickly away, as if to spare himself a painful experience. He raised a finger to the centre of the ravished ceiling. ‘It happened four days ago. The woman upstairs put a wash in her washing machine and went out to Rialto. The tube that’s supposed to drain the water came loose, so the entire cycle ended up coming down my wall. I had already gone to work, and she was out all morning.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Brunetti said. ‘Water. Nothing’s worse.’

Cuzzoni shrugged and tried to smile, but it was obvious that his heart was not in it. ‘Luckily — for her, at least — the building’s all lopsided, so the water ran towards the wall and came down here. She didn’t have much damage at all.’

As the other man spoke, Brunetti studied the far wall, where he thought he saw rectangles of darker paint. The other walls held paintings and, ominously, prints and drawings, one of which might have been a Marieschi. ‘What was on the wall?’ he finally asked.

Cuzzoni took a deep sigh. ‘The title page of the Carceri. The first impression, and with a signature added that was probably his. And a small Holbein drawing.’

As when someone spoke of serious illness in their family, Brunetti didn’t know how to ask or what to say. ‘And?’ was the best he could think of.

‘Better not to ask.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Brunetti said. He knew better than to mention insurance. Even if Cuzzoni had it or the woman above had it, some things could not be repaired, nor could they be replaced. Besides, insurance companies never paid.

‘Come into my study. We can talk there,’ Cuzzoni said, turning to the right and opening a door. It was only then that Brunetti realized how hot the apartment was. Cuzzoni saw him start to unbutton his overcoat and said, ‘Here, let me take that. I have to keep the heat as high as possible until it’s dried out. The painters can’t do anything until the walls are dry.’

‘And the parquet?’ Brunetti asked, handing over his coat.

Cuzzoni hung it on a coat rack and waved Brunetti towards a long sofa against one wall. Cuzzoni seated himself in a comfortable looking old armchair that faced him and said, ‘The parquet is what I mind most, in a way. It’s cherry, eighteenth century, and I’ll never be able to replace it.’

‘Can it be saved?’

Cuzzoni shrugged. ‘Maybe. I’ve talked to someone who’s worked for me in the past, a retired carpenter, who said he’d come and have a look. If he thinks there’s anything he can do, he’ll pull it up and take it to his workshop. His son’s running the business now, but he still works. He may be able to soak it and put it under a press until it comes straight again. But he said it would be discoloured and he’d probably have trouble getting the same patina back.’

He shrugged again. ‘I keep telling myself it’s just a thing. They’re all just things. But they’ve survived hundreds of years, it seems a shame for anything to happen to them now.’

Though Signorina Elettra had told him that Cuzzoni came from Mira, Brunetti thought it better to seem to know nothing about him and so asked, making a gesture that encompassed the room, ‘Is it your family home?’

‘No, nothing like that. I’ve only been in here for about eight years. But it’s become precious to me, and I hate to see something like this happen to it.’ He smiled and shook his head as if apologizing for his sentimentality, then said, ‘But surely the police aren’t here to ask about my neighbour’s washing machine.’

Brunetti smiled in return and said, ‘No. Hardly. I’m here to ask about a house you have down at the end of Via Garibaldi.’

‘Yes?’ Cuzzoni asked, curious but nothing more.

‘I’d like to know if you’ve rented it to extracomunitari.’

Cuzzoni sat back in the chair, rested his elbows on the arms, and brought his fingers together in a triangle beneath his chin. ‘May I ask why you want to know this?’

‘It has nothing to do with rent or taxes,’ Brunetti assured him.

‘Signor Brunetti,’ Cuzzoni said, ‘I have little fear that an officer of the police would busy himself with whether or not I pay taxes on the rent for my apartments. But I am curious to know why it is you’re interested.’

‘Because of the man who was killed,’ Brunetti said, deciding that he would trust Cuzzoni at least this far.

Cuzzoni lowered his head and rested his mouth on the top of his laced fingers. After some time, he looked back at Brunetti and said, ‘I thought so.’ He allowed more time to pass and then went on, ‘Yes, there are extracomunitari in the building. In all three apartments. But I don’t know if one of them was the man who was killed.’ Brunetti knew that the newspaper account of the killing had not given a name, nor had it supplied a photo of the dead man.

‘Do you know who they are, the men who live there?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I’ve seen their papers, their passports and, in one case, a work permit. But I have no way of knowing if the passports are legitimate or, for that matter, if the work permit is.’

‘And yet you rent to them?’

‘I let them stay in my apartments, yes.’

‘Even though it might be illegal?’ Brunetti asked, his voice curious but entirely without censure.

‘That is not for me to determine,’ Cuzzoni answered.

‘May I ask why you do this?’ Brunetti asked.

Cuzzoni let the question hang in the air for a long time before he answered it with another question, ‘May I ask why you want to know this?’

‘Because I’m curious,’ Brunetti said.

Cuzzoni smiled and unlatched his fingers. He put his hands on the arms of the chair and said, ‘Because we are too rich and they are too poor. And because a friend of mine who works with them told me that the men asking to live in those apartments were decent men in need of help.’ When Brunetti didn’t respond to this, Cuzzoni asked, ‘Does that make sense to you, Signor Brunetti?’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti said without hesitation, and then he asked, ‘Would it be possible for me to go and see these apartments?’

‘To see if the dead man was one of the men living there?’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti said and then added, because he thought it would make a difference, ‘No harm will come to the men living there because of me.’

Cuzzoni considered this and finally asked, ‘How do I know you’re telling me the truth?’

‘You can ask Don Alvise,’ Brunetti said.

‘Ah,’ Cuzzoni answered and sat looking at Brunetti for what seemed a long time. Finally he pushed himself to his feet and said, ‘I’ll get you the keys.’

11

Brunetti left Cuzzoni’s apartment, uncertain as to whether he should go back down to Castello immediately and take a look at the apartments to which the other man had given him the keys. The three separate sets each had two keys, presumably one to the front door of the building and one to each apartment. All the way to the Rialto bridge, he wavered between going and not going. When he reached the top of the bridge, a sudden gust of wind, sent, he was sure, from Siberia and directed specifically and with malice towards him, swept by with such force that he temporarily lost his footing. This could have served as an excuse not to go, had it not occurred to him that this time of day, when the shops were open, was precisely the time when the men who lived in the apartments were likely to be at home and thus able to answer his questions.

He took out his telefonino and dialled the direct line to the officers’ room. Alvise answered and passed the phone to Vianello. ‘Can you meet me at the end of Via Garibaldi in about twenty minutes?’ he asked.

‘Where are you now?’

‘At Rialto, just going to the 82.’

‘Right. I’ll be there,’ the inspector said and hung up.

Better than that, Vianello got on the boat at the San Zaccaria stop, again padded and muffled to twice his normal girth. Briefly, Brunetti told him about his conversation with Cuzzoni and added that he preferred having someone with him when he went to talk to the Africans.

‘You afraid of them?’ Vianello asked.

‘I don’t think so. But they’re likely to be afraid of me.’

‘And you think reinforcements will help?’ Vianello asked.

‘No, not necessarily. But it will limit the ways they can show their fear.’

‘Meaning they won’t get away?’ Vianello asked, indicating with his mittened hands the front of his body, as if to demonstrate the unlikelihood of his being able to give successful chase to far younger and far slimmer men.

Brunetti smiled at the gesture and said, ‘No. Hardly.’ He didn’t know how to tell Vianello that he thought his presence would have a calming influence on the Africans, as it so often did on witnesses. Nor did he know how to tell Vianello that he would himself find his company comforting when going into the presence of an unknown number of young men, most of them illegal immigrants working at illegal jobs and now somehow caught up in a murder investigation.

They got off at Giardini and started down Via Garibaldi; as they walked, Brunetti recounted his conversation with Cuzzoni, though he said nothing more about the man than that he seemed undisturbed to learn that the police were interested in his tenants and indeed seemed almost proud to have them living in his apartments.

‘A do-gooder?’ Vianello asked.

Hearing the term used that way, Brunetti was struck by the paradox that it had become a pejorative. However had that come about, that it was now wrong to want to do good? ‘Not at all,’ he answered, ‘but I think he might be a good man.’

Vianello, as prone as Brunetti to making snap judgements about people’s characters, said nothing.

Brunetti followed the same path he had that morning but this time stopped in front of one of the buildings on the left of the narrow calle. ‘Do we ring and tell them we’re coming or just go in?’ Vianello asked.

‘It’s their home,’ Brunetti said. ‘Seems to me we have to ask them to let us in.’ There were three doorbells; Brunetti rang the lowest one.

After a few moments, a man’s voice inquired, ‘Sì?’

‘We’ve come from Signor Cuzzoni,’ Brunetti answered, deciding it was true enough. After all, he had the keys to prove it.

There was a long pause, and then the voice asked, ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Who?’

‘All of you.’

There followed a long pause. The man at the other end of the speaker phone didn’t bother to cover the mouthpiece, so Brunetti and Vianello heard questions and answers being fired about in some language neither of them recognized. One voice was raised angrily, but then it seemed as if someone talked it into silence. After some time, the first voice returned and said, ‘Come in.’

The door opened for them and they stepped inside. There was a single flight of steps in front of them; at the top, three black men stood abreast, barring the way. Brunetti went first, Vianello behind him. When he was two steps from the top, Brunetti stopped and looked up at the men. The one in the centre was both taller and older than the others, with a broad nose that looked as if it had been made even broader by having been broken. The one on the left was short and stocky and wore a heavy jacket, as though he had just come in or was just going out. The third was painfully thin; his narrow-cut jeans billowed out around his legs. Though his skin was darker than that of the others, his features were finer, with an almost European nose and a thin mouth, tight with disapproval.

‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to me. My name is Commissario Guido Brunetti, from the police,’ Brunetti said.

The man on the right, the thin one, wheeled away from the other two. As he turned, his right arm swung out from his body and around to his back, where his hand banged against his buttock. The one in the centre stepped back, making room on the landing. Brunetti paused at the top of the steps, waited until Vianello was standing beside him, and then put out his hand. ‘Piacere,’ he said, first to one man and then to the other.

Surprised, both of them extended their hands, though they remained silent. Then Vianello stepped forward, gave his name, and also shook hands with both men. That seemed to leave them with no choice but to respond with the habit of politeness. The tall one stepped towards the door and made a graceful gesture, inviting them to enter.

Brunetti went inside but not before muttering a courteous request to do so; Vianello did the same. The first thing Brunetti noticed was the smell: the strong odours of meat and spices — mutton, perhaps, though he could not identify the spices. The other smell was that of men, men who lived close together and who did not or could not wash their clothing often enough.

The man with the limp arm had moved to the back of the room. Four others stood inside, waiting for them. Two of them smiled in Brunetti’s direction while the others nodded; their greeting was cordial and entirely without menace. Brunetti and Vianello nodded towards them and waited to see who would speak.

The tall man, who had followed them inside, seemed to be their leader, or at least the others kept glancing back and forth between him and the white men. Brunetti was conscious of the spareness of the room, which seemed to serve as both kitchen and dining room. A linoleum-topped counter ran along the back wall. On it stood a double gas ring, a rubber tube running down to a squat gas canister. He remembered this sort of stove from the apartment they had lived in when he was a child and wondered where on earth you could still buy those canisters today.

Large cooking pots stood on top of the burners, and the sink, which appeared to have only one tap, was filled with dishes. The counters, however, were clean, as was the table.

‘What is it you want?’ the tall man asked. His Italian was accented in a way Brunetti could not identify, his voice deep but not at all loud.

‘I want to know whatever you can tell me about the man who was killed last night,’ Brunetti said.

Before the tall one, to whom Brunetti had addressed the question, could answer, the one who had turned away on the stairs said, ‘And we must know about him because we’re black, too?’ Though he was knife-thin, his voice was even deeper than the other man’s, a resonant bass, a voice that could fill a concert hall or hold an audience.

How quickly people learn resentment, Brunetti thought. Who did they expect him to ask about the death of an African, the Chinese? He bit back this question, and turned his attention once again to the older man. ‘I came to you because I thought you might work with him or know him.’

Before he answered, the older man pulled a plastic chair away from the linoleum-topped table, another relic from Brunetti’s youth, and turned it towards Brunetti. He indicated another chair, and the man in the jacket pulled it out for Vianello.