The Waters of Eternal Youth (24 page)

Brunetti put on a confused smile and asked, ‘ “Someone like that”, Signor Vittori?'

‘A retarded woman, if I might use that antiquated phrase,' Vittori said primly. Then, unable to disguise his spite, ‘A ­seven-­year-­old.'

‘Thank you, Signor Vittori. I'll have to ask her grandmother if she's ever done anything like this before,' Brunetti said, interested that Vittori should be sufficiently familiar with Manuela's history as to gauge her mental age.

‘I'm surprised you didn't take the trouble to do that before asking me to come in here,' Vittori said with the righteous irritation of the persecuted. Then, turning to Griffoni, he said, ‘But it did give me the chance to meet your colleague.' My God, Brunetti thought, do adult men still behave like this?

‘If you'd never met Manuela, how is it that you know so much about the nature of her handicap?' Griffoni asked, allowing her Neapolitan accent to appear.

Had she been a puppy that bit his caressing hand, Vittori could have been no more startled. In fact, he pulled away from her at the question, attempting to distance himself from this most unfeminine behaviour.

‘Everyone knows,' he said. ‘Every Venetian, that is.' Take that, you southerner, he seemed to be saying.

‘Knows what, Signor Vittori?' Brunetti inquired.

‘That she fell into a canal – was drunk or drugged or tried to kill herself – and was under the water so long that her brain was damaged.'

‘And now she's a ­seven-­year-­old?' Griffoni asked mildly, then added, ‘You do seem to know a lot about a person you've never met, Signore.'

‘Everyone in the city knows,' he repeated, and then added, with a ­self-­satisfied smile, ‘As I've already told you.' After thoughtful reflection, he said, ‘Besides, you just have to look at her to know there's something wrong.'

‘You're a very observant man,' she said and smiled.

For a moment, Brunetti watched instinct and habit take over as Vittori smiled at the compliment. But then the smile grew uneasy and forced. ‘You just have to look at her face, those vacant eyes.' Brunetti was surprised Griffoni didn't shudder when she heard this.

Griffoni smiled and raised her chin, as if about to engage in some sort of philosophical speculation: and then did just that. ‘I wonder what sort of woman she'd be if she hadn't gone into the water? If she were a ­thirty-­year-­old instead of a ­seven-­year-­old.' She lowered her eyes and looked at Vittori. ‘Did you ever wonder about that, Signor Vittori?'

Vittori froze, his face a mask of incomprehension, and Brunetti felt a chill at the realization that Vittori had never posed this question to himself. Fifteen years had passed for him, while Manuela had remained trapped in the amber of immutability. And he had never given it a thought.

The silence expanded. Brunetti felt his mind and heart harden against this man; he looked at Griffoni and saw bleak resolution in her eyes. Vittori sat with his mouth slightly open, as if trying to find some new way to breathe.

Finally he said, ‘Why should I think about something like that?'

Rape, attempted murder, murder: Brunetti considered this escalation of crimes. But what appalled him was the fact that Vittori really meant what he said: why should he bother to think about what had been done to Manuela?

Brunetti looked at Vittori and said, ‘I've lived here all my life, and I'd never seen her before.' He paused, as though considering a possibility, then went on, forcing a smile, ‘Of course, it could be that we live in entirely different parts of the city.'

Vittori sat up straighter in his chair, glanced at Griffoni as though she were a person who'd come to sit next to him on the vaporetto when the rest of the boat was empty, and said, ‘I seldom have reason to go to Santa Croce.'

By force of will, Brunetti prevented himself from glancing at Griffoni. He didn't know if she would pounce on Vittori now for admitting he knew where this person he didn't know lived, or would wait until later in the interview.

‘My concern here,' Brunetti began, talking man to man, ‘is that she might make some sort of official complaint against you. Say something to her mother or her grandmother, either of whom would be sure to ask us what we know about the incident. In that case, I'd be obliged to repeat what I saw and heard her say.'

Vittori threw his hands in the air as a sign of his exasperation. ‘How can that be possible, if she's a ­half-­wit? Who'd believe her?'

Brunetti dismissed the possibility. ‘I'm thinking about the effect on your reputation. As you said, her grandmother is your employer. I have no way of knowing what her reaction would be.'

‘But she wouldn't believe her, would she?' asked a scandalized Vittori.

‘Manuela's her granddaughter,' Brunetti said, suggesting that there was no way of calculating the extent to which people would be carried, once the idea of family was involved. Besides, women were so hopelessly sentimental, weren't they?

‘All the more reason for her grandmother not to believe her,' Vittori said. ‘If the Contessa's been with her all these years, she knows what her granddaughter is.' Vittori sat quietly for a few moments and then said angrily, ‘It's not only my reputation, it's my honour that's at stake here.' He took two quick breaths and then burst out, ‘The very idea that I'd assault . . . Why, it's ridiculous.'

I will not look at Claudia. I will not look at Claudia. I will not look at Claudia, Brunetti told himself, forcing his eyes to remain fixed on Vittori.

The other man had risen to the role and now de­­manded, ‘How dare she make an accusation like that? How dare she?'

Brunetti allowed time for sweet reason to come to his aid and said, ‘The difficult thing here is that people today tend to believe the woman.'

‘But she's not a woman. She's just a child,' Vittori said, with no attempt to disguise his anger. ‘No one will believe her.'

Brunetti was about to respond when his phone rang. He saw that it was Signorina Elettra's number, so he picked it up with a curt ‘
Sì.'

‘Giorgio just called me. The last call on one of those cards in Cavanis' garbage was made the morning of the day he was killed to the home number of the man who's with you now. Eight ­forty-­three: it lasted six minutes. It came from a public phone two bridges from Cavanis' home.' And then she was gone.

Brunetti folded his hands just in front of him on his desk, the way he could remember the first Questore he worked for doing when he summoned Brunetti for the yearly evaluation of his performance. He allowed himself a quick glance at Griffoni, who sat with her hands folded in her lap. He noticed a small bulge in the sleeve of her sweater, just at the cuff: Vittori's handkerchief, he assumed. Here were traces that would not be compromised by the rain.

‘Signor Vittori,' he began in a serious and not particularly friendly voice, ‘I'd like to turn your attention away from the vague accusation made on the street yesterday to events in the past.'

‘Not when she went into the water, I hope,' Vittori said, trying for irony but coming just short of belligerence.

‘No, far closer in time,' Brunetti said easily. ‘I refer to the morning on which you received a phone call from Pietro Cavanis.' He looked at Vittori, whose face had been wiped clean of all expression. ‘Could you tell me if you remember that, Signor Vittori?'

Vittori tried to look uninterested in the question, but he was no good at it. His head moved backwards a few millimetres, and his mouth contracted in what, in other circumstances, might have been pique or irritation. Had he not shaved his beard, the tiny moue might not have been noticed by either Brunetti or Griffoni.

Brunetti, imitating his Questore, lowered his head and stared at his hands for a moment. When he glanced at Vittori again, he saw that the man was staring at his own hands, clasped in his lap. Brunetti looked at Griffoni, who nodded, face rigid, then indicated to Brunetti that he was in charge and she'd follow his lead.

‘That was a Thursday, wasn't it?' Vittori asked in a calm voice, head still lowered.

‘No, it was a Sunday,' Brunetti said and gave him the precise date.

‘A Sunday . . . I'd probably have been at home.'

‘Don't you remember?' Brunetti asked.

After pausing for further reflection, Vittori said, ‘I believe I didn't go out that day,' and Brunetti did not call Vittori's attention to the fact that he did not bother to ask who Pietro Cavanis was.

‘I've had a lot of work to finish, so I often take it home with me,' Vittori said. Then, in the manner of one over­burdened bureaucrat speaking to another, he said, ‘You know what it's like.'

Ignoring the question, Brunetti asked, ‘Do you remember speaking to Signor Cavanis?'

Vittori stared at him as though Brunetti had somehow gained access to his brain.

‘I might have, although I have no clear memory of it,' he answered, with no attempt to hide what he attempted to make look like mild indignation.

‘This was a call that lasted six minutes,' Brunetti added, as if hoping to prod his memory.

Vittori studied his hands again, searching for a plausible answer. Brunetti used this opportunity to glance at Griffoni. There could have been a wall between her and Vittori, so little attention did she pay him.

‘I might have,' Vittori finally answered. ‘People feel free to call me very early.'

‘When?' Brunetti inquired.

‘Oh,' Vittori exclaimed, ‘didn't you say?'

‘No, but if it might help you remember, it came at 8.43, which is indeed early,' Brunetti said.

‘Yes, yes,' Vittori answered, dragging out the two words. ‘It is.' He kept his attention on Brunetti, as if afraid of what would happen to him if he looked at Griffoni.

Brunetti was put in mind of a television programme he had watched ages ago, must be thirty years:
Visitors
, which featured ­man-­sized reptiles disguised as humans. When they were killed, their human carapace fell away, exposing the giant reptile within that was already shrinking into death. Vittori was losing his carapace of casual arrogance and seemed, even as Brunetti observed him, to be growing smaller, as if withering away.

Vittori took a deep breath, started to speak, and then took another. He remained silent for a long time, carefully attentive to his joined hands, which were clasped tight, fingers enmeshed.

When he decided that Vittori was not going to speak, Brunetti changed the subject and said, ‘Signor Vittori, we know about your job at the stables, and the letter from Signor degli Specchi.'

Vittori, who had been motionless, froze. Brunetti thought he heard a soft noise, like the sound a man makes when he picks up something heavy.

‘People who were working there at the time,' Brunetti proceeded calmly, ‘are sure to remember you and anything . . . peculiar about your behaviour.' He watched these words thud into Vittori.

Vittori continued in close communion with his hands for some time, then looked back at Brunetti. ‘Someone saw me on television,' he finally said. ‘And he called with some crazy story and said he wanted money from me or he'd call you and tell you.'

‘The police?' Brunetti asked. He watched Vittori as he spoke, amazed at how fear could change the face of a person, exaggerating the bones and shrinking the eyes. ‘Tell us what?' he prompted.

Brunetti had the feeling that Vittori was working out just how to tell his story. Finally he said, ‘He told me if I didn't give him money, he'd call you and say he saw me throw Manuela into the canal.' He waited for Brunetti's response, then added, ‘He'd destroy my honour,' and Brunetti heard a small intake of breath from Griffoni, as though she'd touched something nasty in the dark.

‘What did you do?' Brunetti asked.

Indignation splashed across Vittori's face. ‘What could I do? This was a madman, making a false accusation. I didn't know who he was. His threats were insane.'

Brunetti watched the other man continue to shift the gears of his story until Vittori said, ‘I hung up on him.'

Brunetti looked at Vittori, who was again studying his folded hands, then at Griffoni, who shook her head.

‘And then?' Brunetti asked.

‘And then nothing. He never called back.'

‘You didn't try to trace the call?' Brunetti asked. ‘Use reverse dialling?'

‘No. I was terrified. Accusations like this could destroy my reputation, my career. I'd be dragged through the courts, and that woman would scream her crazy accusations at me. I'd have no chance. Everyone would believe her.'

Brunetti thought it wise not to point out to Vittori that Manuela had not screamed accusations at him, had only screamed. Instead, he asked mildly, ‘Should they believe her?'

‘Of course not,' Vittori said, throwing his hands into the air. ‘She was always following me around, touching me when I helped her into the saddle. She was like one of the mares in heat, begging for it.'

Brunetti glanced quickly at Griffoni, who had grabbed the sides of her chair, as if that were the only way she could keep her hands from reaching for Vittori.

Speaking as though he were a friend of Vittori's, surprised that he had failed to recognize the ­turn-­off to his own street, Brunetti asked, ‘But what were you afraid of?'

‘A false accusation by a woman who was a minor at the time of the . . .' he drew in his breath and spat out with contempt, ‘the supposed attack. Even that would cause me trouble.'

‘But no one would get the chance to listen to her,' Brunetti said, careful to avoid Griffoni.

‘Of course they would,' Vittori insisted petulantly. ‘They always believe the woman.'

‘But there's nothing she could do about it or that we could,' Brunetti insisted in the face of Vittori's failure to understand. ‘The statute of limitations,' he said. ‘It's ten years, and then no accusation can be made. Even if you had done it, you couldn't be charged with it now. It's over. It's gone.'

Vittori's face froze. As Brunetti watched, he struggled to open his mouth, but failed. He broke free of his trance and licked his lips, finally managing to force them open, but he produced nothing more than a bleated ‘uh, uh'. The colour had drained from his face, and for a moment Brunetti thought he was going to faint. Time stopped in the room as Vittori tried to force himself back to life.

Brunetti had read that many people, faced with the end of life, see it all pass before them. For Vittori, only the last weeks mattered: Brunetti believed that.

The voice that finally came from Vittori was an old man's. ‘That can't be true.' If a desert could have spoken, it would have sounded like this. ‘No.'

Griffoni spoke. ‘You must be relieved, Signor Vittori. Nothing she says can hurt your honour now. As my colleague has told you: no matter what you might have done to her, it's over. It's gone.'

Had Vittori been standing, he would have reeled from side to side. As it was, he imitated Griffoni's gesture and clasped the seat of his chair. He took one deep breath and then another and then gave an enormous sigh, as at the end of a valiant feat.

Brunetti was tempted to drag this out and give Vittori the chance to say more, but he had never approved of torture, even for someone like the man sitting in front of him, and so he said, ‘But the murder of Pietro Cavanis is still with us, Signor Vittori, and I am both accusing you of that crime and arresting you for having committed it.'

At this point in the interview with Signor Vittori, Brunetti was later to testify during Alessandro Vittori's trial for the murder of Pietro Cavanis, Commissario Claudia Griffoni got to her feet and left the room.

During that same trial, Signor Vittori testified that Manuela ­Lando-­Continui had begged him to have sex with her but that he had refused because she was underage and he did not want to endanger his job. Two persons who had kept horses at the stable while Signor Vittori was employed there testified that Signor Vittori had, on the contrary, been almost violent in his attentions to Signorina Lando-Continui, who was both troubled and angered by his behaviour.

In the face of Signor Vittori's repeated protestations of his innocence of the crime of murder, the prosecuting magistrate introduced forensic evidence to the contrary. The
DNA
sample taken from Vittori's handkerchief matched that found on the knife with which Pietro Cavanis has been killed. Further, the morning of the murder of Signor Cavanis – and shortly after he had received a phone call made with a phonecard found in Pietro Cavanis' ­possession – Signor Vittori had searched the internet and found newspaper accounts of Manuela ­Lando-­Continui's rescue from the waters of Rio San Boldo, an account which provided the name of Signor Cavanis, who was the only Pietro Cavanis in the phone book and still resident at the address in Santa Croce given in the article.

Unfortunately for him, Signor Vittori had not used the internet to search for the statute of limitations for the crime of rape, which had expired well before Signor Cavanis had phoned him. Had he done so, he might not have been led to murder, for which he was convicted in the first trial, a conviction that is now under appeal.