By Its Cover (17 page)

Inside, an officer he recognized, whose name he thought was Staffelli, stood in the corridor beside an open door on the third floor. He saluted Brunetti, then pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows in an expression that could signify anything from surprise at human behaviour to acceptance of the way the world functioned. Brunetti raised a hand to acknowledge his salute as well as whatever message he was trying to transmit. There was no sign of Vianello.

Inside, he saw Bocchese, the head of the scientific team, dressed in his white paper suit and shoes, standing in an open doorway, looking into a room from which came the occasional flash of light.

‘Bocchese,’ Brunetti said.

The technician turned and looked at him, raised a hand in greeting, then turned back just as another quick series of flashes shot past him. Brunetti took a few steps, but was stopped by a hiss from Bocchese. The technician reached into his pocket for two transparent plastic envelopes. ‘Put these on,’ he said, handing them to Brunetti.

Familiar with Bocchese’s rules, Brunetti backed out into the hall. He held the railing with one hand while he slipped the paper coverings over his shoes, then put on the plastic gloves. He handed the empty envelopes to Staffelli and went back into the apartment.

Bocchese was no longer in the doorway, so Brunetti took his place there. Men’s voices filtered towards him from
some other place in the apartment: one of them sounded like Vianello’s. Two white-suited technicians were moving their camera equipment to the other side of the room, away from the man’s body that lay against the wall.

So that was Tertullian, he thought, looking across at the surprisingly small sprawled form. Had there not been so much blood, he could have been a drunk who had passed out in his home while trying to find his way to bed or lost his balance and slithered down to lie with his head and one shoulder resting against the wall. This could have been the case, indeed, had not the alternative scenario been drawn on the wall behind him. Three bloody right-hand prints climbed the wall, as if the man had braced himself as he got to his feet, but a descending red hand-streak had cancelled them as it raced to the floor, like the central red brushstroke at the heart of a Shiraga.

The dead man lay with one shoulder lodged against the wall, his arms spread open, head at an unlikely angle, one knee bent under his other leg. Had there been a sign of life, any person seeing him would have acted on pure animal instinct and shifted him away from the wall to free his neck and straighten his trapped knee. A moment’s reflection, however, would have convinced even the most optimistic that there was no life left in this inert, diminished thing.

Brunetti had observed the same phenomenon more times than he liked to recall, how the spirit seemed to take mass and substance with it when it fled the body, leaving behind a smaller being than the one it had inhabited. This man had been young once, had been a priest, a believer, a reader, and now he was a twisted form with a blood-streaked face and a jacket bunched under his shoulders. The sole smiled loose from his left shoe: above was a dark grey sock and above that a slice of the pasty white skin of an old man.

Two pools of dried blood darkened the parquet a metre from the body. One of them had been squashed by a foot, and from it three partial bloody footprints, all of the right foot, came directly towards him. There was no fourth.

A flash burst, and Brunetti shied away from it, instinctively raising one hand in surprise. He turned to the two technicians. ‘Who’s coming?’

‘Probably Rizzardi,’ the taller of them answered but did not explain his uncertainty.

‘When did you get here?’ Brunetti asked.

The man shoved up the sleeve of his white suit with the edge of a gloved hand. ‘About twenty minutes ago.’

‘What else is there?’ Brunetti asked.

‘He was in the other room,’ the second one interrupted, shifting the tripod that held their camera a bit to the left.

‘Why do you say that?’

He clicked a few photos. Brunetti, accustomed to the flash now, did not bother to shield his eyes. Shifting the camera further left, the technician said, ‘Take a look, Commissario,’ pointing towards the door to his left. ‘You’ll see what I mean.’

Brunetti walked to the door and looked into the room, curious about what story he would read there. An easy chair covered in dark green corduroy sat in one corner, behind it a reading lamp with a white glass shade. Beside the chair stood a round table with a smaller lamp. Both lamps were turned on, and beside the one on the table a book lay face down, as though the person reading it had been momentarily interrupted and had placed it there while he went to answer the phone, or the door. Behind the chair stood a large bookcase with every shelf filled.

An acoustical trick carried the men’s voices, now recognizable as Vianello’s and Bocchese’s, to him. ‘You taking prints in every room?’ Brunetti heard Vianello ask. ‘Of
course,’ Bocchese answered, but then they must have moved because their voices grew muffled and indistinct.

Brunetti turned back to the first room and saw Dottor Rizzardi, the pathologist, at the door. They exchanged quiet greetings. Tall, slender, his hair greyer than the last time Brunetti had seen him, Rizzardi looked at Brunetti but could not keep his attention from drifting to the broken package that had once held Franchini’s life.

Rizzardi was already wearing plastic booties and was just pulling the second glove on to his left hand. He walked over to the corpse and stood above it for some time, and Brunetti wondered if he were saying a prayer for the man’s spirit or wishing him peace on his journey to the next world, until he remembered that Rizzardi had once said he couldn’t believe in a next world, not after what he had seen in this one.

The pathologist went down on one knee and leaned closer to the dead man. He reached and took his wrist. Punctilious to a fault, Rizzardi was checking his pulse. Brunetti looked away for a moment, and when he returned his attention, the pathologist had moved closer to the body and was lowering Franchini’s shoulder to the floor, where it flopped to one side. He tried to straighten the bent knee but failed.

Rizzardi rose and, still crouching, stepped to the head of the body. He knelt again and examined the back of the head, tilting it to provide a better look. He got to his feet and approached Brunetti.

‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Someone kicked him. Someone wearing heavy shoes or boots.’

‘In the head?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes: that’s what killed him. But also in the face. His right cheek is cut almost all the way through, and at least
four teeth are broken. But it’s the ones in the back of his head that killed him.’ He turned and gestured back to the scene. ‘He tried to stand – God knows how – but he couldn’t. Or the other one pulled him down.’

‘But he was an old man,’ Brunetti protested.

‘Old people are better victims,’ Rizzardi said, stripping off his gloves. He placed the gloves carefully face to face, then slipped them into the transparent package they came in before putting them into his pocket. ‘They’re weak and can’t defend themselves.’

‘You’d think people would respect them,’ Brunetti said. ‘That people would be … different.’

Rizzardi looked at Brunetti. ‘You know, Guido, at times I find it difficult to believe you do the sort of work you do.’

Brunetti had observed for years the respect, almost reverence, with which Rizzardi treated the dead he was called to view, and so said nothing.

‘It’s hard to tell how many times he was kicked,’ Rizzardi said. ‘I’ll be sure … later.’

‘“The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain”,’ Brunetti found himself repeating.

‘Excuse me?’ Rizzardi asked.

‘It’s something Tertullian wrote,’ he explained.

‘Tertullian?’

‘The theologian.’

Rizzardi gave a sigh he tried to make sound as patient as possible. ‘I know who Tertullian is, Guido. I don’t know why you’re quoting him just now.’

‘That’s what he was called,’ Brunetti said, nodding towards the dead man.

‘You knew him?’

‘I knew about him,’ Brunetti said.

‘Ah,’ was Rizzardi’s only response.

‘He spent his time reading the Fathers of the Church at the Merula Library.’

‘Why?’

‘Maybe because they had them in Latin. And it was a place to go.’

‘So are cinemas and restaurants,’ Rizzardi observed.

‘He used to be a priest,’ Brunetti explained. ‘So perhaps he felt more at home reading than going to see
Bambi
.’

‘Do people still go to see
Bambi
?’ Rizzardi asked.

‘I didn’t mean it literally, Ettore. It was the first film I thought of.’

‘Oh.’

Brunetti thought that was the end of the conversation. The silence drew out, and just as he decided it was time to go back and talk to Franchini’s brother, Rizzardi said, ‘And now he’s dead.’ That said, the pathologist patted his pockets again, nodded to Brunetti, and left the room.

14

After telling Vianello to remain there until the boat came to take the body away, Brunetti went downstairs and started across the
campo
. As he approached the two men on the bench, he saw the back of Pucetti’s head next to Franchini’s. When he saw that they were turned towards one another, he stopped to observe them. Pucetti’s shoulders moved minimally in synchrony with his hands as he gestured while saying something to the older man. Franchini nodded, then both of his shoulders moved as he folded his arms across his chest. Pucetti raised a hand and pointed at one of the buildings on the other side of the
campo
, and Franchini nodded again.

Brunetti grew nearer and heard Pucetti’s voice: ‘From the time I was seven until I was eleven.’

He could not make out Franchini’s reply.

‘To Santa Croce. Down by San Basilio. The apartment was bigger, and there were three of us kids by then.’ Pucetti paused for a long time. ‘I got my own room then, for the first time.’

Franchini then said something else Brunetti could not hear.

‘I had two sisters, so they got to stay together. It would have been nice to have a brother.’ Then, remembering, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Signore. I …’

Brunetti watched Franchini turn as he gave Pucetti’s knee a fleeting tap, but again couldn’t hear what he said. He saw that Pucetti’s neck had flushed red, and was relieved at this proof that the young man was still capable of embarrassment. He moved off to the left and came upon them from the side.

Pucetti got to his feet and saluted; Franchini looked at him with no sign of recognition.

Brunetti told Pucetti he could go back upstairs and took his place beside Franchini.

He let a minute pass, until finally Franchini asked, ‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes, I did, Signore. I’m sorry such a thing could happen to him. And to you.’

Franchini nodded, as if words would take too much effort.

‘You said you were close, the two of you.’

Franchini leaned back and folded his arms, then seemed to find that posture uncomfortable and leaned forward to resume his study of the pavement between his feet. ‘Yes, I said that.’

‘You said you studied the same things and were religious when you were young,’ Brunetti reminded him. ‘Were you still close enough to tell each other about your lives?’

After some time, Franchini said, ‘There’s not a lot to tell. I’m married, but we don’t have children. My wife’s a doctor. Paediatrician. I still teach, but I won’t for much longer.’

‘Because of your age?’

‘No. Because students aren’t interested in studying Greek or Latin any more. They want to learn about computers.’ Before Brunetti could speak, Franchini went on. ‘That’s what they’re interested in, in this world. What good are Greek and Latin?’

‘They discipline the mind,’ Brunetti said as if by rote.

‘That’s nonsense,’ Franchini answered. ‘They show an ordered structure, but that’s not the same as disciplining the mind.’

Brunetti had to admit the truth of this; nor, for that fact, did he really see why a mind should be disciplined in the first place. ‘Did your brother marry?’ he asked.

Franchini shook his head. ‘No, when he left, it was too late for that sort of thing.’

Brunetti decided not to inquire about that judgement and, instead, asked, ‘Was his pension enough to let him live comfortably?’

‘Yes,’ Franchini replied. ‘He had very few expenses. I told you: the house was ours, so he could live there. All he had to do was pay the gas and light.’ He nodded at the ground a few times, trying perhaps to persuade the pavement that his brother’s life had been comfortable.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘Do you know if he had friends here, Signor Franchini?’ When he saw the man’s hands tighten, Brunetti said, ‘I’m sorry to ask you these things, but we need to know as much as we can about him.’

‘Will that bring him back?’ Franchini asked, as had so many other people in the same circumstances.

‘No. Nothing will, I’m afraid. We both know that. But things like this can’t be allowed to happen …’

‘It already has,’ Franchini interrupted.

The Latin came to Brunetti unsummoned. ‘“
Nihil non ratione tractari intellegique voluit
.”’

The words washed over Franchini, who moved to the
side and turned to take a better look at Brunetti. ‘’There is nothing God does not wish to be understood and investigated by reason.’’ He failed to hide his astonishment. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I learned it in school, years ago, and it seems to have remained with me.’

‘Do you think it’s true?’

Brunetti shook his head. ‘Too many people already tell us what God wishes or wants. I don’t have any idea.’

‘But you quoted it. Did you think we still have to obey Tertullian?’

‘I don’t know why I said it, Signor Franchini. I’m sorry if it offended you.’

The man’s face softened into a smile. ‘No, it surprised me; it didn’t offend me. It was the sort of thing Aldo was always doing. Not only from Tertullian, but from Cyprian and Ambrose. He had a quotation for everything,’ he concluded and then had to wipe his eyes again.