Chapter Nine

When commissario Brunetti of the Venice police arrived at the scene of the murder of the director of the most important museum in the city, he carried in his right hand a white plastic shopping bag which bore in red letters the name of a supermarket. Inside the bag were a pair of size ten rubber boots, black, which he had bought at Standa three years before. The first thing he did when he arrived at the guards’ station at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the museum was hand the bag to the guard he found there, saying he’d pick it up when he left.

As he placed the bag on the floor beside his desk, the guard said, ‘One of your men is upstairs, sir.’

‘Good. More will be coming soon. And the coroner. Has the press showed up yet?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What about the cleaning woman?’

‘They had to take her home, sir. She couldn’t stop crying after she saw him.’

‘That bad, is it?’

The guard nodded. ‘There’s an awful lot of blood.’

A head wound, Brunetti remembered. Yes, there’d be a lot of blood. ‘She’s bound to make a stir when she gets there, and that means someone will call Il Gazzetino. Try to keep the reporters down here when they arrive, will you?’

‘I’ll try, sir, but I don’t know if it’ll do any good.’

‘Keep them here,’ Brunetti said.

‘Yes, sir.’

Brunetti looked down the long corridor that led to a flight of stairs at the end. ‘Is the office up there?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir. Turn left at the top. You’ll see the light at the end of the passage. I think your man is in the office.’

Brunetti turned away and started down the corridor. His steps echoed eerily, reverberating back at him from both sides and from the staircase at the end. Cold, the penetrating damp cold of winter, seeped out from the pavement below him and from the brick walls of the corridor. Behind him, he heard the sharp clang of metal on stone, but no one called out, so he continued down the corridor. The night mist had set in, painting a slippery film of condensation on the broad stone steps under his feet.

At the top, he turned left and made towards the light pouring from an open door at the end of the passage. Halfway there, he called out, ‘Vianello?’ Instantly, the sergeant appeared at the door, dressed in a heavy woollen overcoat, from under the bottom of which protruded a pair of bright yellow rubber boots.

‘Buona sera, signore,’ he said, and raised a hand in a gesture that was part salute, part greeting.

‘Buona sera, Vianello,’ Brunetti said. ‘What’s it like in there?’

Vianello’s lined face remained impassive when he answered, ‘Pretty bad, sir. It looks like there was a struggle: the place is a mess, chairs turned over, lamps knocked down. He was a big man, so I’d say there had to be two of them. But that’s just first impressions. I’m sure the lab boys can tell us more.’ He stepped back as he spoke, leaving room for Brunetti to follow him inside.

It was just as Vianello said: a floor lamp pitched forward against the desk, its glass dome shattered across the surface; a chair sprawled on its side behind the desk; a silk carpet lying in a bunched heap in front of the desk, its long fringe caught around the ankle of the man who lay dead on the floor beside it. He lay on his stomach, one arm trapped under the weight of his body, the other flung out ahead of him, fingers cupped upward, as if already begging mercy at the gate of heaven.

Brunetti looked at his head, at the grotesque halo of blood that surrounded it, and he quickly looked away. But wherever his eye rested, he saw blood: drops of it had fallen on the desk, a thin trickle of it led from the desk to the carpet, and more of it covered the cobalt blue brick which lay on the floor half a metre from the dead man.

‘The guard downstairs said it’s Dottor Semenzato,’ Vianello explained into the silence that radiated out from Brunetti. ‘The cleaning lady found him at about ten thirty. The office was locked from the outside, but she had a key, so she came in to check that the windows were closed and to clean the room, and she found him here. Like that.’

Brunetti still said nothing, merely moved over to one of the windows and looked down into the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale. All was quiet; the statues of the giants continued to guard the staircase; not even a cat moved to disturb the moonlit scene.

‘How long have you been here?’ Brunetti asked.

Vianello shot back his cuff and looked at his watch. ‘Eighteen minutes, sir. I touched his pulse, but it was gone, and he was cold. I’d say he’d been dead at least a couple of hours, but the doctor can tell us better.’

From off to the left, Brunetti heard a siren shriek out and shatter the tranquillity of the night, and for a moment he thought it was the lab team, arriving in a boat and being stupid about it. But the siren rose in pitch, its insistent whine ever louder and more strident, and then it wailed its slow way down to the original note. It was the siren at San Marco, calling out to the sleeping city the news that the waters were rising: acqua alta had begun.

The noise of their actual arrival camouflaged by the siren, the two men of the lab crew set their equipment down in the hall outside the room. Pavese, the photographer, stuck his head into the room and saw the dead man on the floor. Apparently unmoved by what he saw, he called across to the other two, voice raised to be heard above the siren, ‘You want a whole set, Commissario?’

Brunetti turned from the window at the sound of the voice and walked over towards him, careful not to go near the body until it had been photographed and the floor around it checked for fibres and hairs or possible scuff marks. He wondered if this caution served any real purpose: Semenzato’s body had been approached by too many people, and the scene was already contaminated.

‘Yes, and as soon as you’re done with them, see what there is in the way of fibres and hairs, then we’ll have a look.’

Pavese displayed no irritation at having his superior tell him to do the obvious and asked, ‘Do you want a separate set of the head?’

‘Yes.’

The photographer busied himself with his equipment. Foscolo, the second member of the team, had already assembled the heavy tripod and was attaching the camera to it. Pavese bent down and rummaged in his equipment bag, pushing aside rolls of film and slim packets of filters, and finally pulled out a portable flash that trailed a heavy electrical cord. He handed the flash to Foscolo and picked up the tripod. His quick professional glance at the body had been enough. ‘I’ll get a couple of the whole room from here, Luca, then from the other side. There’s an electrical outlet under the window. When I’m done with the shot of the entire room, we’ll set up there, between the window and the head. I want to get a few of the whole body, then we’ll switch to the Nikon and do the head. I think the angle from the left would be better.’ He paused for a moment, considering. ‘We won’t need the filters. The flash is enough to get the blood.’

Brunetti and Vianello waited outside the door, through which burst the intermittent glow of the flash. ‘You think they used that brick?’ Vianello finally asked.

Brunetti nodded. ‘You saw his head.’

‘They wanted to make sure, didn’t they?’

Brunetti thought of Brett’s face and suggested, ‘Or perhaps they liked doing it.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Vianello said. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

A few minutes later, Pavese stuck his head out. ‘We’re finished with the photos, Dottore.’

‘When will you have them?’ Brunetti asked.

‘This afternoon, about four, I’d say.’

Brunetti’s acknowledgement of this was cut off by the arrival of Ettore Rizzardi, medico legale, there to represent the state in declaring the evident, that the man was dead, and then to suggest the probable cause of death, in this case not hard to determine.

Like Vianello, he was wearing rubber boots, though his were a conservative black and came only to the hem of his overcoat. ‘Good evening, Guido,’ he said, as he came in. ‘The man downstairs said it’s Semenzato.’ When Brunetti nodded, the doctor asked, ‘What happened?’

Rather than answer, Brunetti stepped aside, allowing Rizzardi to see the unnatural posture of the body and the bright splashes of blood. The technicians had been at work, and now strips of bright yellow tape surrounded two rectangles the size of phone books in which faint scuff marks were visible.

‘Can we touch him?’ Brunetti asked Foscolo, who was now busy sprinkling black powder on the surface of Semenzato’s desk.

The technician exchanged a quick glance with his partner, who was placing tape around the blue brick. Pavese nodded.

Rizzardi approached the body first. He set his bag down on the seat of a chair, opened it, and removed a pair of thin rubber gloves. He slipped them on, crouched beside the body, and stretched his hand towards the dead man’s neck, but, seeing the blood that covered Semenzato’s head, he changed his mind and reached, instead, for the outflung wrist. The flesh he touched was cold, the blood inside it forever stilled. Automatically, Rizzardi shot back his starched cuff and looked at the time.

The cause of death was not far to seek: two deep indentations penetrated the side of his head, and there seemed to be a third on his forehead, though Semenzato’s hair had fallen forward in death to cover it partially. Bending closer, Rizzardi could see jagged pieces of bone within one of the holes, just behind the ear.

Rizzardi dropped on to both knees to get greater leverage and reached under the body to shift it over on to its back. The third indentation was now clearly visible, the flesh around it bruised and blue. Rizzardi reached down and lifted first one dead hand and then the other. ‘Guido, look at this,’ he said, indicating the back of the right hand; Brunetti knelt beside him and looked at the back of Semenzato’s hand. The skin on the knuckles was scraped raw, and one of the fingers was swollen and bent brokenly to one side.

‘He tried to defend himself,’ Rizzardi said, then looked down the length of the body that lay below him. ‘How tall would you say he is, Guido?’

‘One-ninety, certainly-taller than either of us.’

‘And heavier, too,’ Rizzardi added. ‘There’d have to have been two of them.’

Brunetti grunted in agreement.

‘I’d say the blows came from the front, so he wasn’t surprised by them, not if he was hit with that,’ Rizzardi said, pointing to the bright blue brick that lay inside its taped rectangle less than a metre from the body. ‘What about noise?’ Rizzardi asked.

‘There’s a television in the guards’ office downstairs,’ Brunetti answered. ‘It wasn’t on when I came in.’

‘I should think not,’ Rizzardi said, getting to his feet. He stripped the gloves from his hands and stuffed them carelessly in the pocket of his overcoat. ‘That’s all I can do tonight. If your boys can get him out to San Michele for me, I’ll take a closer look tomorrow morning. But it seems pretty clear to me. Three hard blows to the head with the corner of that brick. Wouldn’t take more than that.’

Vianello, who had been silent through all of this, suddenly asked, ‘Would it have been quick, Dottore?’

Before he answered, Rizzardi looked down at the body of the dead man. ‘It would depend on where they hit him first. And how hard. It’s possible that he could have fought them off, but not for long. I’ll check to see if there’s anything under his nails. My guess is that it was fast, but I’ll see what shows up.’

Vianello nodded and Brunetti said, ‘Thanks, Ettore. I’ll have them take him out tonight.’

‘Not to the hospital, remember. To San Michele.’

‘Of course,’ Brunetti answered, wondering if his insistence meant some new chapter in the doctor’s on-going battle with the directors of the Ospedale Civile.

‘I’ll say goodnight then, Guido. I should have something for you by tomorrow afternoon, but I don’t think there are going to be any surprises here.’

Brunetti agreed. The physical causes of violent death seldom revealed secrets: they lay, if anywhere, in the motive.

Rizzardi exchanged a nod with Vianello and turned to go. Suddenly he turned back and looked down at Brunetti’s feet. ‘Didn’t you wear boots?’ he asked with real concern.

‘I left them downstairs.’

‘Good thing you brought them. It was already way above my ankles in Calle della Mandola when I came. Lazy bastards hadn’t got the boards up yet, so I’m going to have to go back to Rialto to get home. It’ll be above my knees by now.’

‘Why don’t you take the Number One and get off at Sant’ Angelo?’ Brunetti suggested. Rizzardi lived, he knew, by the Cinema Rossini, and he could get there quickly from that boat stop without having to use Calle della Mandola, one of the lowest parts of the city.

Rizzardi looked at his watch and made quick calculations. ‘No. The next one leaves in three minutes. I’ll never make it. And then I’d have to wait twenty minutes at this time of night. Might as well walk. Besides, who knows if they’ve bothered to put the boards up in the Piazza?’ He started towards the door, but his real anger at this latest of the many inconveniences of living in Venice drew him back. ‘We ought to elect a German mayor some time. Then things would work.’

Brunetti smiled and said goodnight and listened to the doctor’s boots slapping on the stones of the corridor until the noise disappeared.

‘I’ll talk to the guards and have a look around downstairs, sir,’ Vianello said and left the office.

Brunetti went over to Semenzato’s desk. ‘You finished with this?’ he asked Pavese. The technician was busy with the telephone, which had ended up on the other side of the room, smashed against the wall with such force that it had gouged a chunk from the plaster before falling in pieces to the floor.

At Pavese’s nod, Brunetti pulled open the first drawer. Pencils, pens, a roll of cellophane tape and a packet of mints.

The second held a box of stationery engraved with Semenzato’s name and title and the name of the museum. Brunetti found it interesting that the name of the museum was in smaller type.

The bottom drawer held a few thick manila files, which Brunetti pulled out. He opened the top file on the desk and began to leaf through the papers.

Fifteen minutes later, when the technicians called across the room that they were finished, Brunetti knew little more about Semenzato than he had when he came in, but he did know that the museum was planning to mount, two years from now, a major show of Renaissance drawings and had already arranged extensive borrowings from museums in Canada, Germany and the United States.

Brunetti replaced the files and closed the drawer. When he looked up, he saw a man standing in the doorway. Short and sturdily built, he wore a rubber parka which hung open to reveal the white jacket of the hospital staff. Below this, Brunetti saw that he wore high black rubber boots. ‘You finished here, sir?’ he asked, giving a vague nod in the direction of Semenzato s body. As he spoke, another man, similarly dressed and booted, appeared at his side, a rolled canvas stretcher balanced on his shoulder as casually as if it were a pair of oars.

A nod from one of the technicians confirmed this, and Brunetti said, ‘Yes. You can take him now. Out to San Michele directly.’

‘Not to the hospital?’

‘No. Dottor Rizzardi wants him at San Michele.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the attendant said with a shrug. It was all overtime for them, and San Michele was further than the hospital.

‘Did you come through the Piazza?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, sir. Our boat’s over by the gondolas.’

‘How high is it?’

‘About thirty centimetres, I’d say. But the boards are up in the Piazza, so it wasn’t too bad getting here. Which way are you going when you leave here, sir?’

‘Over towards San Silvestro,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I wondered how bad Calle dei Fuseri is.’

The second attendant, taller and thinner, with wispy blond hair that stuck out under the edges of his watch cap, answered, ‘It’s always worse than the Piazza, and there weren’t any boards there when I went through two hours ago, on the way to work.’

‘We can go up the Grand Canal,’ the first one said. ‘We could drop you at San Silvestro,’ he offered, smiling.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Brunetti said, returning his smile and, like them, not unaware of the existence of overtime. ‘I’ve got to go back to the Questura,’ he lied. ‘And I’ve got my boots downstairs.’ That was true enough, but even if he had not brought them, he would have refused their offer. He did not relish the company of the dead and would have preferred to ruin his shoes than to share his ride home with a corpse.

Vianello came back in then and reported that there was nothing new to learn from the guards. One of them had admitted that they had been in the small office, watching television, when the cleaning lady came screaming down the stairs. And those steps, Vianello assured him, were the only access to this part of the museum.

They stayed until the body was removed, then waited in the corridor while the technicians locked the office and sealed it against unauthorized entry. The four of them went down the stairs together and stopped outside the open door of the guards’ office. The guard who had been there when Brunetti came in looked up from reading Quattro Ruote when he heard them come in. It always surprised Brunetti that anyone who lived in a city where there were no cars would read an automobile magazine. Did some of his sea-locked fellow citizens dream of cars the way men in prison dreamed of women? In the midst of the absolute silence that reigned over Venice at night, did they long for the roar of traffic and the blare of horns? Perhaps, less fantastically, they wanted no more than the convenience of being able to drive home from the supermarket, park the car in front of the house and unload the groceries, rather than carry the heavy bags along crowded streets, up and down bridges, and then up the many flights of stairs that seemed, inevitably, to lurk in wait for all Venetians.

Recognizing Brunetti, he asked, ‘Are you here for your boots, sir?’

‘Yes.’

He reached under the desk to pull out the white shopping bag and handed it to Brunetti, who thanked him.

‘Safe and sound,’ the guard said and smiled again.

The director of the museum had just been beaten to death in his office and whoever did it had walked past the guards’ station unseen, but at least Brunetti’s boots were safe.

* * * *