CB14 Blood From A Stone (2005) by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online

that no one else was going to add anything, Brunetti asked, ‘Can any of you recall anything else about either of these men?’
    His question was met with silence and a general shaking of heads.
    ‘If I assure you that you will not be kept here to answer further questions and will not be called back to Italy as a result of anything you tell me, will that make it easier for you to answer?’ Brunetti had no idea if foreigners feared getting caught up in the machinery of the judicial system as much as Italians did, but he still thought it wise to assure them that they would not be, even if he was not certain this was true.
    None of them said a word.
    Before he could attempt to rephrase the question, Dottoressa Crowley said, ‘It’s kind of you to put it that way, Commissario, but you don’t have to do that with us. If we’d seen anything, we’d tell you, even if it meant we had to stay here longer.’
    Her husband said, ‘We asked the others when we got back last night, but no one seems to have noticed these men.’
    ‘Or is willing to say they do,’ added Lydia Watts.
    The waiter arrived with their coffee and his caffè . Brunetti added sugar and drank it quickly. He stood and took a number of his business cards from his wallet and handed them around, saying, ‘If you should remember anything at all about what happened, please do get in touch with me. Phone or fax or email. Anything at all that comes to you.’ He smiled and thanked them for their time and their help, and left the hotel without bothering to get their addresses. The hotel would have them, anyway, should he need to confirm anything, not that they had said anything that he could imagine would need confirmation. A thickset, Mediterranean man with hairy hands and another, shorter, one no one could describe, but no witness who had seen either one of them fire a gun.
    The mist had not cleared. In fact, it appeared to have grown thicker, so Brunetti was careful to keep the façades of the buildings on his left in sight as he walked down the riva . The mist caused him to pass through the rows of bacharelle without seeing them. This added to the uneasiness he always felt when he walked past them and their vendors, so unlike the comfortable familiarity he felt in the rest of the city. He did not bother to analyse this sensation, was aware of it only in some atavistic, danger-sensing part of his mind. Once beyond them and past the façade of the Pietà, the feeling disappeared, just as the mist was beginning to do.
    Brunetti arrived at the Questura a little after nine and asked the man on the switchboard ifanyone had called with information about the dead man. He was told that no calls had come in. On the first floor he found Signorina Elettra’s office empty, which caused him some surprise. The fact that her – and his – immediate superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, had not arrived at his place of work, on the contrary, came as no surprise whatsoever. Brunetti stopped in at the officers’ room and asked Pucetti, who was alone there, to come upstairs with him.
    Once in his office, Brunetti asked the young officer where Ispettore Vianello was, but Pucetti had no idea. Vianello had come in just after eight, made a few phone calls, then left, saying he would be back before lunchtime.
    ‘No idea?’ Brunetti asked when they were both seated, unwilling to compromise the young man by asking him outright if he had eavesdropped on Vianello’s conversations.
    ‘No, sir. I was taking a call, so I couldn’t hear what he said.’ Brunetti was relieved to see that Pucetti no longer sat stiffly erect when speaking to him; sometimes he even went so far as to cross his legs. The young officer had begun to look at home in his uniform, less like some fresh-faced schoolboy dressed for Carnevale.
    ‘Was it about this dead man, do you know?’
    Pucetti thought a moment, then said, ‘I’d guess not, sir. He seemed very relaxed about whatever it was.’
    Changing