With no explanation of how he had learned about it, Brunetti asked the concierge to send the file from the video camera that filmed the door of the men’s room to his private email address so that he could have a look himself. When he got home, he poured himself a glass of white wine, sat in front of Paola’s computer, and opened the file attached to the email. He moved the timer at the bottom of the screen to six o’clock of the night of the murder and settled down to watch.
He had had no idea of how tedious it would be to keep his eyes on a door that repeatedly opened to allow a man to pass through it, either entering or leaving. After less than half an hour, he found himself agitated at the constant flash of the faces and heads of men entering and leaving the men’s room, as if he were looking at an American comic film from the Twenties played at double speed. Viewing turned to something approaching pain. Each man was visible for, at the most, three seconds and was replaced instantly. No matter how much the flashing images troubled Brunetti, he could not take his eyes from the screen. If he wanted to glance away or close his eyes, even for an instant, he had to stop the tape and stare at the far distance for a moment, then resume. Twice, he had to stop the video and move it back to see the last man to come through the door, only to discover that he could not remember if he had seen the face or not. At one point, he stopped the video and went to the window to study the tree in the courtyard below their apartment, then went back to the computer.
He heard the front door open and close and Chiara call out, ‘Who’s home?’
‘I am,’ Brunetti called out, feeling a bit like Papa Bear.
She came in, carrying her backpack, and walked over to kiss him on the top of his head. She looked at the screen and asked in her sweetest voice, ‘Have they demoted you to watching surveillance films?’
‘You watch too much television,’ Brunetti said in his roughest voice.
She kissed him again and went back towards the kitchen.
He was vaguely aware that she later passed down the hall to her room. He stopped the video and got up to turn on the lights and saw that it was after seven. He went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water, wished he had the patience to make himself a coffee or that they lived on the first floor and he could go down to Rizzardini to get one.
He sat again and was about to continue when he heard the front door open and close and light footsteps come down the hall. Paola was at the door, smiling, curious. ‘You? At the computer?’ She laughed, then asked, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for a killer,’ he said.
‘Same old work day, eh?’ she asked as she came across the room. Like Chiara, she kissed him on the head and looked at the screen. ‘But there’s nothing there,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Just a door.’
‘I had to stop,’ he confessed.
‘Why?’ Paola asked, coming around to stand beside him.
‘You’ll see,’ he said and clicked on the arrow.
After three minutes of watching the continual in and out of men through the door, Paola said, ‘It’s a good thing you keep your pistol locked up in the wardrobe somewhere.’
‘Because I’d shoot myself?’ Brunetti guessed.
‘Exactly,’ she said and then asked, ‘What is this?’
‘It’s a video of the door to the men’s room at a hotel.’
She leaned to the side and dragged a chair over beside him and sat. ‘Tell me why you’re watching this.’
Brunetti repeated what the bartender and waiter had explained about the video.
‘And you’re waiting for Gonzalo’s young man to come through the door?’ she asked. ‘Or hoping?’
It took him a moment to think about that. ‘No, I’m not hoping.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t want Gonzalo to be responsible for her death.’
‘Ah,’ she said and went silent for a long time, until she added, ‘I see.’
Brunetti leaned forward and started the video again. They sat, silent, side by side, for ten minutes until Paola said, ‘I find this frightening.’
‘What?’
‘Look at their faces,’ she said, voice surprisingly sober. ‘These are men on their own for a few minutes, with no one to talk to, no one to boast to, no one to tell their stories to. And just look at their faces. Have you ever seen such misery in your life?’
With newly-focused eyes, Brunetti observed what he now saw as a cavalcade of sadness and woe. He studied the faces of the men entering and those leaving: they could have been on their way to their own funerals, so grim were their expressions, so dejected their posture. Why had he not noticed that before? He watched two more case studies in despair, and stopped the video. ‘Why don’t you sit on the sofa and read, and I’ll watch this until the end?’ he asked Paola.
‘Why don’t I make dinner, instead?’ Paola asked and patted his shoulder.
‘Bless you,’ Brunetti answered, though not to any of the men who were passing through the door.
A few minutes later, Chiara brought him a glass of wine and then came back after what seemed a long time to tell him dinner was ready. Brunetti emerged from the room red-eyed and exhausted, battered down by the sight of so many hard-faced men. Dinner helped, but he was in front of the computer as soon as he finished eating, refusing Paola’s offer of a grappa.
He started anew, fighting off food-induced drowsiness. And then, when the clock at the bottom of the screen read 23:22, the door opened and Attilio Circetti, Marchese di Torrebardo, walked into the men’s room. He made no attempt to lower his head or put his hand over his face: he was a man in a man’s world and held himself up straight and proud. Three minutes later, he walked out: Brunetti noticed the light-coloured coat he was wearing and the dark blue scarf around his neck. Brunetti clicked off the video and decided he would have the grappa.