Uniform Justice by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online Page B

have responded with condescension to Pucetti’s childlike faith in Signorina Elettra’s powers, as one would to the excesses of the peasant believers in the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro. Himself presently numbered among that unwashed throng, he made no demurral.
    ‘Why don’t you tell the Commissario what you’ve told me?’ Vianello asked Pucetti, drawing him back from his devotions and Brunetti back from his reflections.
    ‘The
portiere
told me that the gate is kept locked after ten at night,’ the young officer began, ‘but most faculty members have keys, and students who stay out later than that have to ring him to let them in.’
    ‘And?’ Brunetti asked, sensing Pucetti’s reservations.
    ‘I’m not sure,’ Pucetti answered, then explained. ‘Two of the boys I spoke to, separately, that is, seemed to make fun of the idea. I asked why, and one of them smiled and went like this,’ Pucetti concluded, raising the thumb of his right hand towards his mouth.
    Brunetti registered this but left it to Pucetti to continue. ‘I’d say the boys are right and he’s a drunk , the
portiere
. It was what – eleven in the morning when I spoke to him, and he was already halfway there.’
    ‘Did any of the other boys mention this?’
    ‘I didn’t want to push them on it, sir. I didn’t want any of them to know just what I had learned from the others. It’s always better if they think I already know everything there is to know: that way, they think I’ll know when they lie. But I got the feeling that they can get in and out when they please.’
    Brunetti nodded for him to continue.
    ‘I’m not sure I learned much more than that, sir. Most of them were so shocked that all they could do was ask more questions,’ Pucetti answered.
    ‘What exactly did you ask them?’ Brunetti inquired.
    ‘What you told me to, sir: how well they knew Moro and if they had spoken to him in the last few days. None of them could think of anything special the boy had said or done, nor that he had been behaving strangely, and none of them said that Moro had been a particular friend.’
    ‘And the faculty?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘Same thing. None of the ones I spoke to could remember anything strange about Moro’s behaviour in the last few days, and all of them said he was a fine, fine boy but were quick to insist that they really didn’t know him very well.’
    All three of them recognized the phenomenon: most people refused to know anything. It was rare for any person who was subject to questioning or interrogation to admit to familiarity with the subject of police inquiries. One of the texts Paola had dealt with in her doctoral thesis was a medieval one entitled
The Cloud of Unknowing
. For an instant Brunetti pictured it as a warm, dry place to which all witnesses and potential witnesses fled in lemming-like terror and where they huddled until no single question remained to be asked.
    Pucetti went on. ‘I wanted to speak to his roommate, but he wasn’t there last night, nor the night before.’ Seeing interest in their faces, he explained, ‘Twenty-three boys, including Moro’s roommate, were on a weekend trip to the Naval Academy in Livorno. Soccer. The game was Sunday afternoon, and then they spent yesterday and this morning going to classes there. They don’t get home until this evening.’
    Vianello shook his head in tired resignation. ‘I’m afraid this is all we’re going to get from any of them.’ Pucetti shrugged in silent agreement.
    Brunetti stopped himself from remarking that it was what they could expect from a public which viewed authority and all who attempted to impose it as adversaries. He had read enough to know that there were countries whose citizens did not perceive their government as an inimical force, where they believed, instead, that the government existed to serve their needs and respond to their wishes. How would he react if someone he knew were to maintain this to be true here, in this