Brunetti put his hand on the young man’s arm and left it there. Duso stood immobile, frightened at the sound of what he had just said.
‘Come back here with me,’ Brunetti told him, walking towards the guard. The man saw them coming and, responding to a gesture from Brunetti, unlocked the door to the small office next to his, where the translators listened to and transcribed the recordings of the interrogations where they had assisted the police in questioning suspects who did not speak Italian. As he had hoped, the room was empty. Table, four chairs, a locked cabinet with the tape recorders, and rows of files containing the transcripts.
Brunetti pulled out a chair for Duso and waited until he sat, head bowed, then moved around the table to sit opposite him. The young man had not shaved that morning and looked as though he had slept badly. Long experience had taught Brunetti to wait out the time that would ensue before the other person found the energy or courage to speak. He sat, folded his hands on the table in front of him, and looked down at them, not ignoring Duso but certainly not paying him over-much attention.
Footsteps passed beyond the door. The larger door to the riva, and to freedom, opened with a double squeak and closed with three. Brunetti, hearing it only a few times, realized that the sound would drive him mad if he sat near it all day. He looked at his wedding ring, twirled it around once or twice with his thumb. What pleasure it gave him to touch it, as though it were some sort of cult object, invested with magic powers, always near at hand, like a friendly spirit.
‘I went to see him yesterday,’ Duso said with no introductory noises or hesitation.
Brunetti nodded but made no mention of having been to the hospital himself that morning.
‘He looked awful and couldn’t stop moving around,’ Duso said. ‘He shifted from side to side, like he was trying to make the pain go away.’
Again Brunetti nodded.
‘I asked him if I could call a nurse or help him get up. I even asked if he needed to go to the bathroom,’ Duso said in a small voice, as though he were confessing some breach of the rules concerning intimacy between male friends.
‘He said no, that he was all right, but then he said he was frightened and didn’t know what to do.’
After some time had passed, Brunetti asked, ‘Did he say what he was frightened of?’
‘No, not at first. He changed the subject and asked me what I was doing, but it was obvious he wasn’t interested, not really.’ Duso threw his hands in the air, then clasped them together and allowed them to drop on his lap.
‘We’ve been best friends since we were kids,’ he said in a pleading voice, as though he wanted Brunetti to judge that Vio thus had the obligation to confide in his friend.
‘What did you do?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I stood up and said I’d leave unless he told me what was wrong, and he said I was free to go, but that wasn’t how friends were supposed to behave.’
Brunetti was struck by how young Duso sounded as he spoke, arguing about who was a best friend, then offended that his best friend was not playing by the rules.
Brunetti nodded. Time passed, but no matter how long Duso stared at his hands, they did not speak, nor did he. Finally Brunetti asked, ‘What happened?’
‘I went back and sat down again and just waited for him to talk.’ He looked up at Brunetti then, who smiled his approval.
‘Did he finally tell you?’
Duso nodded, but then changed the motion and shook his head. ‘I thought he did, but now I don’t know.’
Brunetti sat and waited.
Both men examined their hands, Brunetti’s fingers now intermeshed, Duso kneading the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. The door to the riva opened and closed: once, twice.
‘He said that he was in trouble, bad trouble, and he didn’t know what to do.’ Before Brunetti could ask, Duso said, ‘No, not because of the accident – well, sort of, but not really. I told you the truth about that. So did Marcello. I rang what I thought was the alarm button, and I thought they’d be there in a minute, so we got away as fast as we could. Marcello was terrified they’d call the police: if they stopped us, they’d find out whose boat it was.’
‘If it’s not the accident, what is it he’s afraid of?’ Brunetti insisted.
Duso pressed his hands so hard that Brunetti could hear the joints cracking. He looked at Brunetti, then looked away. ‘I just told you,’ Duso said shortly. ‘He’s afraid of his uncle and going back to work for him.’
‘Did his uncle find out his boat was involved in the accident?’
Duso shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. When we got back to the Giudecca that night, Marcello moored it at the dock behind the office. It’s his uncle’s oldest boat – that’s why he let Marcello use it – so there were already a lot of dents and scratches, but it’s solid. There was no way anyone could tell the dent in the prow was new,’ he said, his relief audible. As memory came back he said, ‘There wasn’t much blood, really. I worked fast.’ He paused, remembering.
‘That’s when Marcello began to feel the pain.’ Duso grew thoughtful and added, ‘I think we were both so frightened we didn’t notice much until then, when it looked like it was all over, and we were safe.’ Perhaps it was that last word that stopped him short: for a long time Duso did no more than repeat the word: ‘Safe’.
Now that Duso had begun talking, Brunetti knew it was necessary to keep him from stopping. Screwing his face up in confusion, Brunetti said, ‘Since you were both safe, why is he afraid?’
Duso threw his hands up in the air. ‘I don’t know. Marcello loves his uncle because he took him in when his father died. Pietro has only the two daughters,’ Duso said and closed his eyes. ‘Maybe Marcello is some sort of substitute for the son he didn’t have. I don’t know.’
But still his nephew was not to be his heir, Brunetti thought. Of course, that didn’t mean he loved Marcello any less, only that he had weighed his nephew in the balance and found him wanting.
Duso shook his head wildly. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know. All Marcello said was that his uncle had found out that we’d been questioned at the Questura.’ Bracing his elbows on the table, Duso put his face in his hands and shook his head.
‘Did he see his uncle?’
‘No. His cousin who lives here came to visit him in the hospital, and she said her father was angry with Marcello because he’d talked to the police, really angry. Her father’s worried it could get him into trouble.’
‘Who?’ Brunetti asked, ‘Marcello or his uncle?’
Duso at first seemed confused by the question, but closed his eyes as if listening again to what his friend had told him. ‘His uncle,’ he said, surprised to hear himself say it.
A long pause radiated from that and lasted until Brunetti asked, ‘Do you know the uncle?’
Duso’s manner changed. He pushed his chair back from the table, as though wanting to establish a greater distance between Brunetti and himself. His face moved, but he said nothing. Brunetti thought he was trying to find the right way to answer the question.
Finally Duso said, ‘I met him once.’
‘When?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Ten years ago.’
‘And not since then?’
‘No.’
‘If I might speak as a father,’ Brunetti said with an easy smile, ‘that sounds very strange.’
Duso’s voice was nervous as he asked, ‘Why?’
‘Because my son has a lot of friends. I don’t know all of them, but I know his closest friend very well: he’s even come on vacation with us a few times.’
Duso stared across at Brunetti, as though assembling a new way of examining human relationships. ‘How long have they been friends?’
‘Since they began school. They sat in the same row then, and they still sit near one another at university,’ Brunetti said, as if ignorant of any other way for best friends to sit during the same class.
Duso looked down at his hands again, then pushed his chair even farther back to allow him to look at his shoes. Head still bowed, he asked, in a very low voice, ‘They’re only friends?’
Pieces of the puzzle slipped into place in Brunetti’s mind and he said, ‘They’re both heterosexual, if that’s what you mean.’ Then, after a pause, Brunetti added, ‘Not that I see it would make any difference.’
‘To you?’ Duso asked.
‘To me. To Raffi. To Giorgio,’ he said and watched Duso try to contain his surprise. ‘They love one another. Well, they’re friends, so they should, don’t you think?’
Duso opened his mouth to speak, but no words emerged. Finally he managed to ask, ‘And if it was more?’ unable to say what that ‘more’ would be but leaving no doubt about what he meant, ‘you wouldn’t mind?’
Brunetti thought about it for a moment, never having questioned his son’s preference but thinking of the other possibility now. ‘No, I wouldn’t mind. Yet,’ he began and saw Duso grow suddenly more alert. ‘Yet I’d worry that it might complicate his life or make it difficult.’ He gave himself time to follow this idea, then finished by saying, ‘But not as difficult and painful as it would be if he pretended to be heterosexual and wasted his life with that.’ The thought ran along with itself until Brunetti said, with finality, ‘That would cause me limitless pain.’
‘I see,’ Duso said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Could this be the reason Marcello’s frightened?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Maybe,’ Duso answered. He glanced at Brunetti and added, ‘Everyone’s afraid of Pietro.’
‘Are you?’
‘Why do you think I haven’t seen him for ten years?’ Duso asked and gave a smile that transformed his face, the sort of easy smile a person gives when slipping off a pair of too-tight shoes. ‘He doesn’t believe Marcello and I are just friends. Like brothers.’
He looked at Brunetti, who said, ‘You’re both lucky to have that bond.’
‘You think it’s a good thing?’ Duso asked, his voice as neutral as he could make it.
‘One of the best things that can happen, I’d say,’ was Brunetti’s response. Seeing that Duso had trouble masking his relief at hearing this, Brunetti risked saying, ‘His uncle’s afraid you’ll . . . influence him?’
Duso nodded, then smiled and said, ‘That’s why we go to Santa Margherita, so people can see us picking up girls and maybe go and tell his uncle.’
Brunetti laughed. ‘That’s very clever of you.’
‘It was Marcello’s idea. His uncle didn’t believe him when he said we went out looking for girls, so then we’d go to Campo Santa Margherita on the weekends, and sometimes his cousin would see us there, with girls.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Excuse me, I don’t understand.’
‘With the girls.’
‘Oh, we’d have a drink with them and talk, and then Marcello would ask them if they’d like to go out into the laguna for a ride. He always left the boat on the other side of the bridge. So we’d go there with the girls, and the word got around about it, and lots of people thought we were picking them up – you know – but all we did was go out into the laguna. Sometimes we’d go out to Vignole and have the grilled chicken at that place there.’
‘And then?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Then we’d take the girls home. Marcello always took them to the riva nearest where they lived or where their hotel was.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘No, but the next day Marcello made sure to brag about it at work, without ever giving any details: he’d just boast about it and say how easy it was to pick up girls if you have a boat.’ Duso smiled and again grew handsome.
Brunetti remained quiet, aware that they’d arrived at the point in this conversation where Duso would have to reveal more, especially about why Marcello was so afraid.
Neither spoke for a long time, Brunetti determined to make that time grow longer by not speaking. He sat calmly, trying to imagine what it must be like for Vio to be trapped between his uncle and his friend.
Duso leaned forward and said, ‘His uncle’s been violent with him in the past.’
Brunetti nodded but said nothing.
‘Once he was making a delivery in one of the small boats – I think it was going to Caputo. It was electrical stuff: microwave ovens and blenders, and small things like that. While he was taking the first load to the shop – just down the calle by the Ponte delle Paste – someone must have jumped down into the boat and stolen a carton of telefonini: the little Nokia ones, before everyone got an iPhone. This was years ago, when people still used them.’
‘What happened?’
‘Marcello told me he called his uncle.’
‘Not the police?’ Brunetti asked.
Duso shook his head. ‘He said his uncle told him never – but NEVER – to call the police.’
Brunetti let that pass without comment.
‘So he called his uncle and told him what had happened.’
‘And the uncle?’
‘He told him to get back to the office.’
‘And?’
‘And that’s what Marcello did. He got the papers signed for the delivery and went back to the Giudecca, just the way his uncle told him to do.’ Duso’s voice staggered through the last words, stopped for a moment, and then went on. ‘When he got there, he tied up the boat and started up the ladder. His uncle was waiting for him at the top.’
Duso’s breath had tightened as he spoke. ‘He told me . . . he told me that, when he got near the top, his uncle stamped on his hand and then put his foot against his forehead and kicked him off the ladder, into the boat.’ Duso stopped here and looked at Brunetti, who remained silent.
After a few breaths Duso continued, speaking very quickly. ‘Two of the men who work there saw what happened.’
‘They didn’t try to stop him?’
Surprised, Duso said, ‘He’s their boss.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said, then asked, ‘What happened?’
‘As soon as Pietro was gone, one of them climbed down the ladder and helped Marcello up to the dock. Two of his fingers were broken: he’d twisted around and broken his fall with his hands. But they had to take him to the hospital.’
‘What did he do?’ Brunetti asked.
‘What could he do? After he got back from the hospital – he lives with his uncle – he said he apologized to him for leaving the boat unguarded for so long.’
‘And?’
‘His uncle said the price of the telefonini would come out of his salary, and he was to be at work the next day.’
Brunetti was at a loss for what to say about this. Duso waited a bit, and when Brunetti still said nothing, added, ‘That was the end of it.’
‘And now?’
‘He told me he’s afraid to go back to his uncle’s place when he gets out of the hospital.’
‘Could he stay with you?’ Brunetti asked.
Duso froze. His hands fell into his lap. Brunetti had the feeling that, had Duso been able to do it, he would have got up and left the room, but he seemed incapable of motion.
‘He’d kill me,’ Duso said. Hearing himself, he raised his hand halfway to his lips in the hope of stuffing those three short words back into his mouth.
Ignoring what Duso said, Brunetti asked, ‘Then could he stay with some other friend? Or leave the city for a while?’
Duso shook his head. ‘It’s impossible. Where could he work? All he knows is boats.’
‘Will his uncle calm down if they don’t see each other for a while?’ Brunetti asked.
This time Duso shrugged. ‘Marcello says he never knows what his uncle will do. It could be that he’ll need him for a job and tell him to come back to work. God knows.’
Well, Brunetti thought but did not say, he’s a Giudecchino, after all.
Both men sat silent for a long time, Brunetti bereft of ideas or suggestions to give Duso. ‘How much longer will they keep him in the hospital?’ Brunetti finally asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I want to talk to his uncle, and after what you say about him, I’d like Marcello to be in a safe place when I do.’