He pulled a cloth from the sink, wrung it out, and wiped at the counter.
Brunetti pulled out some coins and the barman said, ‘One Euro ten for the coffee,’ and then added with a broad smile, ‘L’acqua non si paga.’
They both smiled as at Christmas, thanked him, and went to the door to wait for Foa. The barman, apparently having said what he needed to say, returned to his newspaper.
They stood side by side, waiting for the sound of the boat, saying nothing. Brunetti thought of how common the expression ‘terrone’ still was, how casually people tossed it around without giving a thought to how offensive it was. How many times had Griffoni – blonde and blue-eyed, speaking Italian better than he did – heard it used? How many times had she heard, ‘Did I ever tell you the one about the Neapolitan who …?’? And how many times had he assumed that a person from the South was to be viewed through a different optic than someone from the North?
A noise from the right announced Foa’s approach, but neither of them was willing to move out into the sun until the boat was in front of them. A minute passed, the motor grew louder, and the white prow slid up to and stopped at the bottom of the steps leading down to the water.
They emerged together, saw the word POLIZIA painted on the side, and waved to Foa: jacket abandoned, in short sleeves, white captain’s hat, and sunglasses with lenses the size of saucers to protect his eyes from the reflection from the water. The pilot saluted them and then smiled and made a joke of revving the engine.
Brunetti stepped down into the boat and held out a hand to help Griffoni. Both thanked Foa and opted to sit inside the cabin; it was at least out of the sun. As they pulled away from the riva, Brunetti saw the barman at the door of the café, staring after them, the newspaper held protectively above his eyes against the sun.
The windows were open. Brunetti latched back both sides of the doors at the front and the back of the cabin, telling himself this was bound to help. When they were seated opposite each other, he asked, ‘Well?’
Raising her voice over the hum of the motor, Griffoni said, ‘We’ve got the combination of money that someone called “bad” and a death that might not have been an accident. I don’t like it when those two words are used in the same sentence.’ She slid back on the leather seat and moved her head closer to the breeze from the window. She put her arms behind her and lifted her hair away from the back of her head. It seemed not to help, so she let it fall back again and moved forward on the leather seat. The linen had failed to do its job against the heat and was irredeemably wrinkled.
‘She was in another clinic, where payment was necessary, but moved to the hospice, presumably when whatever the clinic was doing failed to work,’ she added, then paused to wait for what Brunetti might have to contribute.
‘Or the money ran out,’ he suggested.
Griffoni nodded and, after a moment’s thought, said, ‘It should be easy enough to find the report on a Vittorio Fadalto who died roughly two weeks ago.’
Realizing the direction of their minds, Brunetti said, ‘We’re dealing with an accident report, nothing else. There’s been no murder in the Veneto in months.’
‘In Naples, we’d declare a holiday at that news,’ Griffoni said. She propped her elbows on her knees and sank her head into her hands, and Brunetti wondered if it was this Neapolitan reality that was causing her reaction or merely the heat.
Finally she said, her distress audible, ‘The heat feels so different here.’
‘The last few summers haven’t been as bad as this,’ Brunetti said by way of agreement. ‘Go to the mountains for your vacation, why don’t you?’
Head still lowered, she answered, ‘I’m going home.’
‘Naples.’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘I’d go now if Foa would take me that far,’ she said, then straightened up, smiling. ‘So what do we do?’
‘Let’s find the accident report.’
Griffoni looked out the window of the boat. ‘You think the doctor will let us see her again?’
Brunetti considered her question for some time and finally said, ‘If she thinks it will help her patient to talk to us, probably.’
‘It didn’t look like it was doing her much good today,’ Griffoni said.
‘Maybe dying people have different needs,’ Brunetti surprised himself by saying.
Griffoni nodded, then turned aside and stuck her arms out of the window of the boat. The breeze apparently failed to help, so she pulled them back inside and said, ‘It’s worth a look.’ He thought she was finished, but then she added, ‘Besides, it will distract us from the heat.’
‘As if anything could,’ was the best Brunetti could offer by way of response.
5
After about five minutes, Brunetti suddenly realized that the motor was louder than it should have been here in the canals. He looked away from Griffoni to check where they were: Foa, knowing that Griffoni adored the sight of the palazzi lining the Grand Canal, always tried to use at least part of that route.
Brunetti saw the cemetery ahead on their left and went up to the deck to ask the pilot what had happened. They were just overtaking a number 5.2 vaporetto that was pulling into the Madonna dell’Orto stop. Foa kept the boat at an even speed while passing, then accelerated when the stop was behind them.
‘We in a hurry?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No, sir.’
‘But we’re going back this way,’ he said, waving an arm at the cemetery.
‘I know, sir,’ Foa said, then continued, ‘I’d like to take the Commissario up the Grand Canal. But I can’t.’ In response to Brunetti’s expression, the pilot explained. ‘A friend called me while I was coming to get you and told me that two tourists dived off the Rialto, and traffic is stopped. Nothing’s moving either way.’
‘Can’t they find them?’
‘They found them, sir, but they won’t get on to the boats, keep swimming away.’
‘Oddio,’ Brunetti muttered. ‘Just what we need. More idiots.’
‘It was no better this morning, sir,’ Foa said, sounding weary. ‘It’s Tuesday, so I took Signorina Elettra to the market to get flowers. I’ve never seen so many boats in the Canal. So many tourists means so much stuff has to be brought in. Or taken out. It’s all done in the morning, so it’s chaos. It took us almost half an hour to get to Rialto.’
‘Half an hour?’ asked an astonished Brunetti. It would be faster to walk, he knew: he did it every day.
‘Yes, sir. There were at least thirty taxis, all filled with Chinese tourists; they rode beside one another and wouldn’t move into single file so I could get past them.’
‘You could have used the siren,’ Brunetti suggested reasonably. Then, before Foa could object, he added, ‘It’s police business, after all. Well, sort of.’
‘We had a call from the mayor’s office, sir. Last week,’ Foa said uneasily.
‘Saying what?’
‘That we can use the siren only in cases of great emergency or when we’re responding to a call where there’s a danger of violence.’ He removed both hands from the wheel to raise them in a gesture of incomprehension.