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

laughed.

6
    An hour later, Pucetti and Brunetti had shown the photos to most of the officers at the Questura. Halfway through the process, Brunetti began to notice an unsettling correlation between their political affiliations and their responses. Most of those he knew to be sympathetic to the current government displayed little sympathy for, indeed, little interest in, the dead man. The further left on the political spectrum, the more likely it was that people would display sympathy for the man in the photo. Only two officers, both of them women, showed real sorrow that a man so young should have been killed.
    Gravini, who had been in the squad that had made the last raid on the ambulanti , thought herecognized the man in the photo but also said he was sure he had never seen him among the vu cumprà he had arrested.
    They were down in the officers’ squad room, so Brunetti gave an inquiring glance around and asked, ‘Do you have photos of those who have been?’
    ‘Rubini has all the papers in his office, sir,’ the sergeant answered. ‘Arrest reports, copies of their passports, their permessi di soggiorno , at least for those who have them, and copies of the letters we send them.’
    ‘Letters?’ interrupted Pucetti. ‘Why do we bother to send them letters?’
    ‘We don’t actually send them,’ Gravini answered. ‘We give them to them, saying they have forty-eight hours to leave the country.’ He snorted at the absurdity of this, then added, ‘And then we arrest them a week later and give them another copy of the same letter.’
    Brunetti waited for his next comment, which he assumed would be much in line with what the old man on the vaporetto had said that morning. Gravini shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know why we bother. They aren’t hurting anyone, just trying to make a living. And no one forces people to buy the bags from them.’
    Pucetti interrupted suddenly, ‘Gravini, you’re one of the ones who went into the canal, aren’t you?’
    Gravini lowered his head, as if embarrassed at having been caught at some folly. ‘What was I supposed to do? He was new, the one who fellin. It was probably the first time he’d been caught in one of our raids. He panicked, really just a kid, and he ran. What else would he do, with cops all over the place, running at him? It was over by the Misericordia, and he ran up that bridge that doesn’t have a parapet. Lost his footing or something and fell in. I could hear him screaming all the way back by the church. When we got there, he was flailing around like a madman, so I did the first thing that came into my head: I went right in after him. Didn’t realize until I was in the water that it wasn’t very deep, at least not near the sides. I don’t know what he was making all the fuss about.’ Gravini tried to make himself sound angry but without much success. ‘Ruined my jacket, and Bocchese spent a day cleaning the mud out of my pistol.’
    Brunetti chose not to comment on this. ‘Any idea where you might have seen this one, then?’ he asked, tapping his forefinger on the full-face photo.
    ‘No, sir. It doesn’t come to me, but I know I’ve seen him somewhere.’ He took the photos and looked through the series. At last he said, ‘Can I take these, sir? And maybe show them to some of the men I’ve arrested?’
    Brunetti was not sure how to refer to the other vu cumprà . ‘Colleagues’ of the dead man would sound strange, suggesting as it did an ordered world of work. He finally decided on, ‘His friends?’
    ‘Yes. There’s one I’ve arrested at least five times; I can ask him.’
    ‘But what if he sees you coming?’ Pucetti asked.
    ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that,’ Gravini insisted. ‘A bunch of them live in an apartment off Via Garibaldi, down near where my mother lives, so I see them when I go to visit her, when . . .’ he trailed off, seeking a way to say it. ‘Well, when we’re both off work. He says he used to be a teacher,