The Waters of Eternal Youth (7 page)

‘Is that all you wanted, Lieutenant?' Signorina Elettra asked, this time not wasting any energy in a smile.

‘For the moment, yes, Signorina,' the Lieutenant said and took his leave.

When he was sure that Scarpa had started up the stairs, Brunetti asked, ‘Did he catch you reading his emails?'

‘Good heavens, no,' she said, voice rich with astonishment at the very idea. ‘But someone else has been in there, looking around.'

‘Who?' Brunetti inquired.

She shook his question away and said, ‘It might be the same person who's been looking at the ­Vice-­Questore's.'

‘Someone from the Ministry?' he asked, wondering what could be going on if the Ministry were spying on its own internal correspondence. ‘Is he good enough,' Brunetti asked, tilting his head towards the door Scarpa had just used, ‘to detect it?'

‘Perhaps,' she said, and Brunetti had to confess that the admission came to her grudgingly.

‘Do you have any idea what they might be after?'

She raised her chin, as though to provide herself with a better view of the ceiling. Or the stars. The only sign that she had not lapsed into a profound coma was her mouth. Her lips drew together as though about to sip at a mountain pool, pulled back in a grimace of mild exasperation, then relaxed completely as she continued her communion with something Brunetti would never grasp.

Without warning, her Higher Power released her, and she looked across at Brunetti to say, ‘Giorgio will find out.'

Giorgio, Brunetti thought, the cyber equivalent of the
deus ex machina
. ‘Do you need his help for this?'

She propped her chin on her left palm and poked idly at her keyboard: a pianist in search of a better tune, a small bird pecking for something to eat.

‘Yes, I do, Commissario,' she said and looked up at him. ‘It matters enough to involve him. What happened to the ­Vice-­Questore's mail was not a friendly thing: it was attempted burglary. So if we can find out who did it, we can perhaps get an idea of what they're looking for. It's always good to know what even the enemies of your enemies are after.'

‘Do you think the ­Vice-­Questore and the Lieutenant have enemies?' he asked, goading her into a startled look.

When she refused to answer, he asked, ‘Is there any reason they'd have enemies?'

She smiled. ‘Let me count the ways.'

‘And Contessa ­Lando-­Continui?' he asked,

Rather than answer, Signorina Elettra turned away from him and hit the keys of her computer, eyes riveted to the screen. ‘Have a look,' she said eagerly, waving at Brunetti to come around and stand behind her.

He saw what looked like the first page of
Il Gazzettino
. The page layout was the one they'd long ago abandoned; the date was fifteen years before. ‘Young Noblewoman Injured in Accident,' he read. ‘Last night, near midnight, Manuela ­Lando-­Continui, daughter of Teodoro Lando-­Continui and Barbara ­Magello-­Ronchi and granddaughter of the late Conte Marcello ­Lando-­Continui and Contessa Demetriana ­Lando-­Continui, was rescued from the waters of the Rio San Boldo. A ­passer-­by who saw her struggling dived into the dark waters of the canal and pulled the girl to safety before himself collapsing.

‘Another man rushed to the assistance of both and administered artificial respiration to the girl, who was later taken to the Ospedale Civile, where her prognosis is reported as “critical”. The police, who arrived at the scene, are treating the incident as an accident.'

Just as Brunetti finished reading it, Signorina Elettra, who had taken his position on the windowsill, said, ‘The next two articles continue the story.'

He scrolled the page down and saw the photo of a young girl dressed in a white shirt, perhaps a man's, the bottom almost reaching the knees of her faded jeans. She stood with her left arm hanging loose in front of her, the ends of the reins woven around her fingers, her right arm draped over the shoulder of a dark horse whose head was lowered and pressed into her stomach, showing only one eye and ear. The horse's mouth was open, and it appeared to be nibbling at one of the buttons on her shirt.

The girl's hair, long and dark, was brushed back from a broad forehead. She smiled happily at the camera, fresh-­faced, caught just at the point in her life when she would begin the change from a pretty girl to a beautiful woman. Her expression asked the person taking the photo if this weren't perhaps the most wonderful day of their lives? She wore riding boots and stood on tiptoe the better to embrace her horse.

‘Pretty girl,' Brunetti comented, only then realizing this was the first time he had seen a photo of her.

‘Yes, she was, wasn't she?' Signorina Elettra asked.

‘ “Was?” ' Brunetti inquired.

‘It was a long time ago; maybe she's changed,' Signorina Elettra said, then, ‘Read the articles.'

The first, which was dated two days after the previous one, gave the name of Pietro Cavanis, Venetian, as the man who had saved the girl's life, and named her parents, both of whom were at the girl's bedside, waiting for her to emerge from the coma in which she had been since being pulled from the water.

The next had appeared the same day in the other local paper and described the girl as a promising
­
equestrian – which explained the photo with the horse. Manuela was well known at her riding club near Treviso, although for some time she had not participated in competitions.

‘That's all?' Brunetti asked as he looked away from the screen.

‘Yes,' Signorina Elettra answered. ‘What do you make of it?'

He couldn't let this go on any longer. ‘I've spoken to her grandmother.'

‘What?'

‘I was at dinner with her – she's a friend of my ­mother-­in-­law – and she said she wanted to talk to me.' He pointed to the screen. ‘About her.'

‘When did you see her?'

‘Yesterday. I came up to tell you about it.' It seemed strange to Brunetti to be sitting at her computer, she at his usual place, but he didn't want to break the mood of their conversation by suggesting they move.

‘What did she tell you?'

‘About the accident,' he said, waving at the screen, where the barest facts of the story were given. ‘The girl's never been the same. She was under the water so long the oxygen to her brain was cut off.' Brunetti let her consider that and then added, ‘The word she used was “damaged”.'

‘Poor girl,' Signorina Elettra whispered.

‘Poor everyone,' Brunetti added and then went on with his story. ‘The man who dived into the canal and pulled her out was drunk when he did it. Didn't think about it, just went in after her.' He remembered what the Contessa had told him and added, ‘It sounds like he was the local drunk.'

‘The article didn't say he was drunk,' she said. ‘But I suppose they wouldn't.'

‘She said the police told her about him. She also said that when the police arrived, he reported that he'd seen a man throw Manuela into the water, but he was so drunk they paid no attention to him. And they were probably right because the next morning, when he woke up, he had no memory of it.'

Signorina Elettra hopped down from the windowsill and came over to her desk. She picked up a notebook and pencil and immediately went back to where she had been sitting and asked, ‘What's his name? I saw it in the article, but I don't remember it.'

‘Pietro Cavanis.'

She nodded and wrote it down. ‘Did she say anything else about him?' she asked.

‘Only that she gave him some money, and he stayed drunk for a month on it.'

‘I see,' she said, writing in the notebook. ‘What do you think we did?'

‘We?'

‘The police.'

It could have been anything, Brunetti realized, but it was more likely nothing. The uncorroborated story of a man known to be the local drunk, given at a time of great stress, a story he retracted the day after: no one would have paid attention to it. Brunetti shrugged.

She jabbed at her computer with the eraser on the pencil. ‘The date's there. I'll see if I can find a record of the incident.' She wrote a bit more and stopped to look across at him. ‘What do you make of it?' she asked.

Brunetti had been considering this since the Contessa spoke to him. A drunken witness who didn't remember his own story? ‘I don't know. If he didn't remember anything the next morning, there was nothing for them to do.' She waited, forcing him to admit he had not answered her question. ‘The most likely thing is that the girl fell into the water,' he continued. ‘Or it would be if it weren't for her phobia.' Her glance was a question; he went on. ‘Her grandmother told me the girl almost drowned when she was a child: after that, she was terrified of the water and never went anywhere near it, which means she wouldn't be walking along a
riva
, especially alone and especially in the dark.' Before she could ask, he continued, ‘Her grandmother said she managed to live in the city by knowing which
calli
didn't run along a canal. And she looked at the pavement when she had to go over bridges.' Her expression showed that she, as any Venetian would, found this improbable if not impossible.

‘More importantly, she told me the girl had grown reserved and unhappy in the months before the incident, so there's the possibility of drugs or drink,' Brunetti added. ‘If she were using them, then she might have walked along the
riva,
' he added.

‘Ummm,' was Signorina Elettra's response as she continued to write. ‘What about the fact that she hadn't ridden in competitions for some time?' Was that an inquisitorial note in her voice?

‘She still had the horse,' he answered. ‘Her grandmother was paying for it.' He was conscious of how inadequate this sounded, even to himself.

Signorina Elettra raised a hand in a gesture that could mean anything. ‘I don't know,' she said, looking down at her feet. She swung them away from the wall one by one, then looked over at Brunetti. ‘The story's caught you, hasn't it?'

Brunetti accepted that it had, but he had no idea what might have caught Signorina Elettra's attention in this sorry tale: lost youth, lost possibility, bad luck? It might be no more than an interest in the unfortunate destinies of the noble names of her native city, or just as easily it could be her heightened sensibility to the fate of women. He switched the screen back to the photo of the girl and studied it for a while. ‘She could have been away from riding because of a fall,' he suggested. ‘Or it could be – we don't know how old she was when this photo was taken – that, like many girls, she forgot about horses when she discovered boys.' He glanced over to see her response, but she seemed occupied with seeing just how high she could raise her feet.

‘Her horse could have been injured,' Brunetti added. Paola having long ago declared their family an Animal Free Zone, he had no ­first-­hand information about the relationships between young girls and their horses. He had read, however, that they could be very strong.

She pushed herself off the windowsill and landed silently. Brunetti got to his feet as she moved towards the desk, leaving the chair and computer to her. He thought he knew her well enough to ask, and so said, ‘Has it caught you, too?'

She turned to look at him. ‘Of course.' She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, then sat and tapped at the keyboard with one finger. ‘There's something wrong about it all. Let me see if I can find the original reports and witness statements, for example.'

‘She'd be how old now – more than thirty?'

‘Yes, just a bit,' Signorina Elettra said. ‘But if what her grandmother said is true, then she hasn't had the last fifteen years in any real sense.'

‘The grandmother wasn't precise,' he explained, ‘but she spoke of Manuela as though she were a child.'

He watched her hit a few more keys, but she didn't bother to look at the screen: it must be a nervous habit, the way a smoker rolls a pencil in his hand, just to keep his fingers nimble.

He stood there for a long time, but she said nothing. Finally he asked, ‘What are you going to do?' as if she were another commissario, and they were planning strategy together.

‘I'll start with the stables and see if anyone there remembers her. Same with her school.'

‘And when you've done that?' he asked.

‘Then I tell you what I've learned.'

‘And then?'

‘And then we'll see.'

That afternoon, Brunetti spent some hours writing ‘perform­ance assessments' for six members of the uniformed branch. When he was finished, he allowed himself to leave the Questura, took the Number One to the Lido, and went for a long walk on the beach. Autumn was in the air and visible on the whitecaps, and by the time he got home, he was tired and chilled and very hungry.

After dinner, he and Paola moved into the living room, and he told her about his conversation with Contessa ­Landi-­Continui and her request – entreaty, really – that he find out what had happened to her granddaughter.

‘Even though this happened fifteen years ago?' Paola asked.

‘The Contessa said she needs to know. Before she dies.'

Paola stopped to consider that. ‘Yes, I suppose she does. A person would, wouldn't they?'

‘Would what?'

‘Need to know they weren't responsible, if nothing else.'

She had chosen to sit in one of the armchairs that faced the sofa, leaving him to stretch out on it. It was late and they were drinking verbena tisane, Brunetti having opted not to have a grappa and Paola fighting a sore throat.

‘But why would she be responsible?' he asked, moving around until his head and shoulder were at the perfect angle on the arm of the sofa. ‘The girl was living with her mother, and the Contessa didn't see much of her in the last months before it happened.'

‘She probably thinks that she should have.'

‘She's her grandmother, not her guardian angel.'

‘Guido,' she said, putting hard emphasis on the first syllable, the way she did when she was calling the children to account.

‘What?'

‘You're being heartless. The girl was her granddaughter.' That said, Paola sipped at her tisane.

Brunetti realized her voice sounded rougher than it had at dinner. Apparently the verbena had not succeeded in helping her throat, which meant the ­centuries-­old Falier remedy had been bested by the germ theory.

He took the empty cup from her hand, carried it into the kitchen and put it into the sink. When he came back, Paola sat with her head resting against the back of the chair, eyes closed, no book in her hands.

‘I think it's time we went to bed,' Brunetti said.

She made no response. He studied her face and noticed that her long nose was red at the end. With that and the two ­euro-­coin-­sized red circles on her cheekbones, Paola had the look of a clown, a very tired one. He leaned down and touched her shoulder. ‘That's it for tonight,' he said and helped her to her feet.