Sea of troubles by Donna Leon

Author:Donna Leon [Leon, Donna]
Language: nld
Format: epub

16

Brunetti, far from sitting by the waves and dipping fresh strawberries into mascarpone, found himself trapped in his office and buried under the waves of paper generated by the organs of the state. He had thought that, during Patta's absence and Marotta's withdrawal, it would fall to him to make decisions that would affect the way justice was pursued in Venice. Even if he could see to nothing more than assigning incompetent officers to work on minor cases such as complaints about over-loud televisions, thus freeing the better ones to work on more serious crimes, he would at least be working for the general good. But he had no time for things even as simple as this. In the absence of what he now realized must be the

daily filtering done by Signorina Elettra, papers flooded into his office and soaked up all of his working hours. It seemed that the Ministry of the Interior was capable of producing volumes of regulations and announcements every day, making determinations on subjects as diverse as the necessity of providing a translator when foreign suspects were questioned or the height of the heels on the shoes of female officers. His eyes passed over them all; it would be untrue to say he read them, for that act implies at least a minimum of comprehension, and Brunetti quickly passed beyond that possibility into a numbed state where he read words and words and set the pages aside with no idea of what those words signified.

He could not stop his imagination from drifting off to Pellestrina. He found time to speak to Vianello but was disappointed to hear how little the other man had learned. He was intrigued, however, when Vianello mentioned the strong sense he'd had when speaking to the people on Pellestrina that they all considered Bottin not to be one of them, for this confirmed a suspicion Brunetti had formed, he no longer remembered why. When Brunetti gave Vianello's remarks further thought, he found it even stranger. It was unusual in his experience for members of a community as tightly closed as that of Pellestrina to voice collective disapproval of one of their own. The secret of their survival had always lain in maintaining a united front against strangers, and no force was as alien as the police. He was struck by the repeated disparity between what was said about Giulio and what was said about Marco. Everyone mourned the boy's death, but no one on Pellestrina seemed to shed any tears for Giulio Bottin. What was even stranger was how careless they had been in making this known.

The rising tide of paper swept these thoughts from Brunetti's mind for the next two days. On Friday he had a call from Marotta, who told him he'd be back from Turin on Monday. Brunetti did not ask if he had testified in the trial; he cared only that the other commissario take his turn at dealing with the papers.

He and Paola were invited to

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