Donna Leon - Blood from a stone

When he returned to the Questura, he found the general mood oppressive, as if everyone there were suffering the after-effects, both physical and moral, of prolonged overeating. Further, someone appeared to have forgotten to turn the heating down while the offices were closed, and the rising temperature had sunk into the walls, which were warm to the touch. The first day back was bright and unseasonably warm, so opening the windows helped very little: the heat seeped from the walls, and people had no choice but to work in their shirtsleeves.

There were the usual reports of break-ins and burglaries from people returning from vacations; these kept the crime squads in and out all day. It soon began to appear that there had been two gangs at work: professionals who went after only the most expensive pieces, and what must have been drug addicts, who took only the quickly resaleable. The rich suffered most at the hands of the first gang; the less wealthy suffered at the hands of the other. Two bizarre reports at least relieved Brunetti’s mood: the professionals had offended an ageing film star who lived on the Giudecca by going through her house and scorning her paste jewellery, leaving her home without taking anything, while the addicts had walked past a de Chirico and a Klimt as they left an apartment carrying a five-year-old laptop and a portable CD player.

Because it was soon to be a new year, time for resolute behaviour, Brunetti went downstairs after lunch and, seeing that Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, knocked at Patta’s door.

‘ Avanti ,’ Patta called out, and Brunetti entered.

‘Ah, Brunetti,’ he said, ‘I hope you had a happy Christmas and that it will be a successful new year.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Brunetti answered, not a little taken aback, ‘and the same to you.’

‘Yes, let’s hope it will be,’ Patta said. He waved Brunetti to a chair and pushed himself back in his own. Brunetti, as he seated himself, glanced at his superior and was surprised to see that he had not brought his usual vacation tan back with him this year. Nor, he noticed, the usual supplement to his embonpoint. In fact, the collar of Patta’s shirt looked a bit loose, or else he had not knotted his tie tightly enough.

‘Did you have a pleasant vacation?’ Brunetti asked, hoping to get Patta to talk and thus provide him with more opportunity to observe his superior’s state of being.

‘No, we decided not to go away this season,’ Patta said, then hastened to explain, as though such dereliction of consumption needed an excuse, ‘Both of the boys were home, so we decided to enjoy the time with them.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. Having met Patta’s sons, Brunetti was doubtful as to the joy to be had from their company, but still he added, ‘That must have made your wife happy.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Patta said and adjusted one of his cufflinks. ‘What can I do for you, Brunetti?’

‘I’d like to know if we should think about clearing up some of last year’s cases, sir,’ he began. As a ruse, it was pathetically transparent, but Brunetti was dulled by the heat and could think of nothing better.

Patta looked at him for a long time before saying, ‘It’s not like you to think so much like a bookkeeper, Brunetti. Cases sometimes do run over from year to year.’

Brunetti stopped himself from saying that most criminal cases ran over far longer than that and contented himself with answering, ‘I’d still like to see if we could get some of the outstanding cases settled.’

‘That’s not going to be so easy,’ Patta said, ‘not now, while we’re short-staffed.’

‘Are we, sir?’ Brunetti asked. This was news to him.

‘Lieutenant Scarpa,’ Patta explained. ‘He’ll be away until the end of January, and there’s no one to cover his workload while he’s away.’

‘I see, sir,’ Brunetti said, thinking it better not to ask. ‘But we should still try to settle some things,’ he insisted.

‘For instance?’ Patta answered, leaning the least bit forward.

There was no sense in flirting with it or flirting with Patta. ‘The murder in Campo Santo Stefano. It’s the only outstanding murder case we have.’

‘It’s not,’ Patta said instantly.

‘What?’ Brunetti asked shortly, then thought to add, ‘sir.’

‘It’s not our case, Brunetti, as I made clear to you. The case has been handed over to the Ministry of the Interior for investigation.’

‘With no explanation?’

‘I am not in the habit of questioning the decisions of my superiors,’ Patta said. Only with difficulty did Brunetti prevent himself from gasping outright or from making a sarcastic response.

Forcing himself to remain calm, he said, ‘I’m hardly questioning their decisions, sir. But I would like to know if the case has been solved. If so, we can close it here.’

‘That’s already been done, Commissario,’ Patta said calmly.

‘Closed?’

‘Closed. All copies of documents have been forwarded to the Ministry of the Interior.’

‘And the records on the computer?’ Brunetti asked, immediately regretting it.

‘They have been forwarded, as well.’

‘Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said with a voice he forced to remain amiable and calm, ‘I don’t know much about computers, but I do know that working with them is different from working with actual pieces of paper. When something like an email is forwarded, the original remains on the computer.’

Patta smiled, as if to compliment and applaud this very bright student. ‘That corresponds with my own understanding of the process, Commissario.’

‘But is it the case here?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Are the originals of the documents still on our computer?’

‘Ah, I don’t think I can answer that for you, Commissario.’

‘Who could?’

‘The computer people from the Ministry who were in here during the holidays. They came here on the order of the Minister.’ The heat. The heat. He should have known.

Brunetti could think of nothing to say. He got to his feet, asked if he should start interviewing the people whose homes had been robbed, and when Patta said he thought that would be an excellent use of his time, Brunetti excused himself and left the office.

Signorina Elettra was at her desk. She looked up at Brunetti, saw his expression, and stopped herself from saying whatever it was she was about to say.

Speaking in a conspiratorially low voice, Brunetti said, ‘The Vice-Questore just told me that some people, computer people, from the Ministry of the Interior were in here during the vacation. He said that they were,’ he continued, emphasis on the next word, ‘ forwarding the files about the murder of the man in Campo Santo Stefano to their office, which is now in charge of the case.’ As he said the last phrase, he realized how close he was to losing control even of this soft voice he was using. He forced himself to relax and said, ‘Could you have a look?’

She pulled her lips tight, something she did when stressed or angry. ‘I’ve already done that, sir. In fact, that’s what I wanted to tell you, just now. It’s all gone.’ He had to lean forward to hear her.

‘All? Aren’t there things like backup and. . other things?’ he asked.

‘There are. And they’re all gone from there, too. It’s been wiped clean.’

‘Is that possible? I thought you were. .’ He didn’t know the words to express what he thought she was.

‘I am,’ she said. ‘Usually. But these people, from what you tell me, had almost a week in here. They could have found anything.’

‘Did they?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Luckily, the only things I keep on here are the current cases, and that was the only one I had.’

‘Really the only one?’ he asked, utterly confused. ‘But the, what’s it called, hard disc or hard drive,’ he said, waving a hand at her computer. ‘Aren’t there traces of other things in there?’

‘There would be. Ordinarily. But this is a new computer. I had to get it before Christmas, so the only. . the only delicate information on there was about the man in Campo Santo Stefano, and not even all of that.’

He thought of all the things she had used her computer to help him with in the past, all the codes she had broken, to make no mention of the laws, and he closed his eyes in a relief he could not fully comprehend. But then he asked, ‘Had to?’

‘In my capacity as the Vice-Questore’s administrative assistant,’ she said with overweening humility.

‘The old one?’

‘Vianello has it.’

‘In his office?’ Brunetti asked in a voice close to panic.

‘No, at home.’

‘Just like that?’ he asked. Was this a confession of abuse of office or merely of simple theft?

‘No, he had to pay the Questura for it. There’s a procedure for the transfer of office supplies to private persons, so long as they are not employees of a government agency.’

‘Aren’t the police a government agency?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course. But his mother-in-law isn’t on the police force.’

He had to know. ‘How much did he — she — have to pay for it?’

‘Ten Euros.’

‘Planned obsolescence?’ he asked.

‘Hardly, sir. It developed a problem with the hard drive, and the technician I called said it could not be repaired and should be sold for scrap.’

‘Presumably he wrote this out for you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And then?’

‘And then Vianello’s mother-in-law offered to buy it, to save us having to pay for someone to come and take it away.’

He waited for her to continue, but she did not. As if her story were a loose tooth, he prodded at it: ‘And?’

‘And then I just happened to be there one evening and Nadia asked me to have a look at it, to see if I could think of anything, and, well, I saw what the problem was and got it working again.’ She smiled happily at the memory of this triumph.

‘I’m sure you were all surprised.’

‘Simply astounded, sir.’

The near-miss with the Ministry of the Interior, even though Brunetti had no idea what might have been discovered among Signorina Elettra’s records if they had found her old computer, left Brunetti shaken. At any time, they had just been shown, the information she stored could be unearthed and looted by some other agency of the government. His mind shied away from the risks he had taken in the last years and from the realization that proof of all of it lay in the hard disc of the computer now in Vianello’s possession. His career would not last a day, nor would Vianello’s, nor would Signorina Elettra’s, if the wrong people at the Questura came to learn what information the three of them had accumulated over the years and the means they had used to acquire it.

His memory went to the rich garment that Medea had sent to Jason’s bride: no matter what she or her father did, no matter how they tried, they could not put out the flames that burst from it the instant she put it on. Similarly, once information was stored in a computer, it seemed that nothing except complete destruction could reliably extinguish it.

He told himself not to exaggerate the dangers and that he really did not know enough about computers to be sure that this was true; further, the only information that had been detected concerned a crime which he had every reason to be investigating. Rizzardi’s addendum with its terrible photos was safely lodged in his phone book. When he got to his office, he hung up his coat the way he always did, checked the surface of his desk for messages or post, and with the strange sensation that unseen viewers could see what he was doing, opened his bottom drawer and pulled out the phone book. Lodged in the Ps he found the photos. He removed them and folded them into three before slipping them into the inside pocket of his jacket. As he did so, he was swept by a wave of relief so strong he felt his shirt grow damp under his arms.