Uniform Justice Read online

  where he had come from, "He's up here, sir."

  Brunetti glanced at Moro, whose attention was now directed at Vianello.

  He stood rooted to the spot, his mouth still roundly open and his

  breathing still audible to Brunetti.

  He stepped forward and took the. doctor's arm in his. Saying nothing,

  Brunetti led him up the stairs after the retreating back of the slowly

  moving Vianello. At the third floor, Vianello paused to check that

  they were following, then moved down a corridor lined with many doors.

  At the end he turned right and continued down an identical one.

  Vianello opened a door with a round glass porthole. He caught

  Brunetti's glance and gave a small nod, at the sight of which Moro's

  arm tightened under Brunetti's hand, though his steps did not falter.

  The doctor passed in front of Vianello as though the Inspector were

  invisible. From the doorway, Brunetti saw only his back as he walked

  toward the far end of the bathroom, where something lay on the floor.

  The cut him down, sir," Vianello said, putting a hand on his superior's

  arm. "I know we're not supposed to touch anything, but I couldn't

  stand the idea that anyone who came to identify him would see him like

  that."

  Brunetti clasped Vianello's arm and had time to say only "Good', when a

  low animal noise came from the back of the room. Moro half lay, half

  knelt beside the body, cradling it in his arms. The noise came from

  him, beyond speech and beyond meaning. As they watched, Moro pulled

  the dead boy closer to him, gently moving the lolling head until it

  rested in the hollow between his own neck and shoulder. The noise

  turned to words, but neither Vianello nor Brunetti could understand

  what the man said.

  They approached him together. Brunetti saw a man not far from himself

  in age and appearance, cradling in his arms the body of his only son, a

  boy about the same age as Brunetti's own. Terror closed his eyes, and

  when he opened them he saw Vianello, kneeling behind the doctor, his

  arm across his shoulders, close to but not touching the dead boy. "Let

  him be, Dottore," Vianello said softly, increasing his pressure on the

  doctor's back. "Let him be," he repeated and moved slowly to support

  the boy's weight from the other side. Moro seemed not to understand,

  but then the combination of command and sympathy in Vianello's voice

  penetrated his numbness, and, aided by Vianello, he lowered the upper

  half of his son's body to the floor and knelt beside him, staring down

  at his distended face.

  Vianello leaned over the body, lifted the edge of the military cape,

  and pulled it over the face. It wasn't until then that Brunetti bent

  down and put a supporting hand under Moro's arm and helped him rise

  unsteadily to his feet.

  Vianello moved to the other side of the man, and together they left the

  bathroom and headed down the long corridor and then down the stairs and

  out into the courtyard. When they emerged, groups of uniformed boys

  still stood about. All

  of them glanced in the direction of the three men who emerged from the

  building and then as quickly glanced away.

  Moro dragged his feet like a man in chains, capable of only the

  shortest steps. Once he stopped, shook his head as if in answer to a

  question neither of the others could hear, and then allowed himself to

  be led forward again.

  Seeing Pucetti emerge from a corridor on the other side of the

  courtyard, Brunetti raised his free hand and signalled him over. When

  the uniformed officer reached them, Brunetti stepped aside and Pucetti

  slipped his arm under Moro's, who seemed not to register the change.

  Take him back to the launch Brunetti said to both of them, and then to

  Vianello, "Go home with him."

  Pucetti gave Brunetti an inquiring glance.

  "Help Vianello take the doctor to the boat and then come back here

  Brunetti said, deciding that Pucetti's intelligence and native

  curiosity, to make no mention of his nearness in age to the cadets,

  would help in questioning them. The two officers set off, Moro moving

  jerkily, as though unaware of their presence.

  Brunetti watched them leave the courtyard. The boys shot occasional

  glances in his direction, but they had only to catch his eye to look

  away instantly or to adjust their gaze as though they were busy

  studying the far wall and really didn't notice him standing there.

  When Pucetti came back a few minutes later, Brunetti told him to find

  out if anything unusual had happened the night before and to get a

  sense of what sort of boy young Moro had been as well as of how he was

  regarded by his classmates. Brunetti knew that these questions had to

  be asked now, before their memories of the previous night's events

  began to influence one another and before the boy's death had time to

  register and thus transform everything the cadets had to say about him

  into the sort of saccharine nonsense that

  accompanies the retelling of the stories of the saints and martyrs.

  Hearing the two-tone wail of an approaching siren, Brunetti went out on

  to the Riva to wait for the scene of crime team. The white police

  launch drew up to the side of the canal; four uniformed officers

  stepped off then reached back on board for the boxes and bags filled

  with their equipment.

  Two more men then stepped off. Brunetti waved to them, and they picked

  up their equipment and started in his direction. When they reached

  him, Brunetti asked Santini, the chief technician, "Who's coming?"

  All of the men on the scene of crime team shared Brunetti's preference

  for Dottor Rizzardi, so it was with a special tone of voice that

  Santini answered, "Venturi', consciously omitting the man's title.

  "Ah/ answered Brunetti before he turned and led the men into the

  courtyard of the Academy. Just inside, he told them the body was

  upstairs, then led them to the third floor and along the corridor to

  the open door of the bathroom.

  Brunetti chose not to go back inside with them, though not out of a

  professional concern with the purity of the scene of the death. Leaving

  them to it, he returned to the courtyard.

  There was no sign of Pucetti, and all of the cadets had disappeared.

  Either they had been summoned to classes or had retreated to their

  rooms: in either case, they had removed themselves from the vicinity of

  the police.

  He went back up to Bembo's office and knocked at the door. Hearing no

  response, he knocked again, then tried the handle. The door was

  locked. He knocked again but no one answered.

  Brunetti walked back to the central staircase, stopping to open each of

  the doors in the corridor. Behind them stood classrooms: one with

  charts and maps on the walls, another with algebraic formulae covering

  two blackboards, and a third with an enormous blackboard covered by a

  complicated

  diagram filled with arrows and bars, the sort of design usually found

  in history books to illustrate troop movements during battles.

  In ordinary circumstances, Brunetti would have paused to study this,
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  as, over the decades, he had read accounts of scores, perhaps hundreds,

  of battles, but today the diagram and its meaning held no interest for

  him, and he closed the door. He climbed to the third floor where,

  decades ago, the servants would have lived, and there he found what he

  wanted: the dormitories. At least that was what he thought they had to

  be: doors set not too close to one another, a printed card bearing two

  family names slipped into a neat plastic holder to the left of each.

  He knocked at the first. No response. The same with the second. At

  the third, he thought he heard a faint noise from inside and so,

  without bothering to read the names on the card, he pushed the door

  open. A young man sat at a desk in front of the single window, his

  back to Brunetti, moving about in his chair as though trying to escape

  from it or perhaps in the grip of some sort of seizure. Brunetti

  stepped into the room, reluctant to approach and startle the boy into

  some worse reaction but alarmed by his violent motions.

  Suddenly, the boy bent his head towards the desk, thrust out his arm,

  and slapped his palm on the surface three times, singing out, "Yaah,

  yaah, yaah," drawing out the final noise until, as Brunetti could hear

  even across the room, the drummer played a final extended riff, which

  the boy accompanied, beating out the rhythm with his fingers on the

  edge of his desk.

  Into the pause between tracks, Brunetti barked, his voice intentionally

  loud, "Cadet."

  The word cut through the low hiss of the headphones and the boy jumped

  to his feet. He turned towards the voice, his right hand leaping

  toward his forehead in salute, but he caught it in the wire of the

  headphones and the Discman

  crashed to the floor, dragging the headphones after it.

  The impact seemed not to have dislodged the disc, for Brunetti could

  still hear the bass, loud even halfway across the room. "Hasn't anyone

  ever told you how much that will damage your hearing?" Brunetti asked

  conversationally. Usually, when he put this same question to his own

  children, he pitched his voice barely above a whisper, the first few

  times successfully tricking them into asking him to repeat himself.

  Wise to him now, they ignored him.

  The boy slowly lowered his hand from his forehead, looking very

  confused. "What did you say?" he asked, then added, by force of

  habit, 'sir." He was tall and very thin, with a narrow jaw, one side

  of which looked as if it had been shaved with a dull razor, the other

  covered with signs of persistent acne. His eyes were almond shaped, as

  beautiful as a girl's.

  Brunetti took the two steps that brought him to the other side of the

  room, and noticed that the boy's body tightened in response. But all

  Brunetti did was bend down to pick up the Discman and headphones. He

  set them carefully on the boy's desk, marvelling as he did at the

  spartan simplicity of the room: it looked like the room of a robot, not

  a young man, indeed, of two young men, if he was to believe the

  evidence provided by bunk beds.

  The said loud music can damage your hearing. It's what I tell my

  children, but they don't listen to me."

  This confused the boy even more, as if it had been a long time since an

  adult had said anything to him that was both normal and understandable.

  "Yes, my aunt tells me that, too."

  "But you don't listen?" Brunetti asked. "Or is it that you don't

  believe her?" He was honestly curious.

  "Oh, I believe her all right the boy said, loosening up sufficiently to

  reach down and press the off button.

  "But?" Brunetti insisted.

  Tt doesn't matter," the boy said with a shrug.

  "No, tell me Brunetti said. I'd really like to know."

  "It doesn't matter what happens to my hearing the boy explained.

  "Doesn't matter?" Brunetti asked, utterly at a loss to grasp his

  meaning. That you go deaf?"

  "No, not that he answered, paying real attention to Brunetti and

  apparently now interested in making him understand. "It takes a lot of

  years for something like that to happen. That's why it doesn't matter.

  Like all that Global Warming stuff. Nothing matters if it takes a long

  time."

  It was obvious to Brunetti that the boy was in earnest. He said, "But

  you're in school, studying for a future career I presume in the

  military. That's not going to happen for a number of years, either;

  doesn't that matter?"

  The boy answered after a few moments' reflection. That's different."

  "Different how?" asked a relentless Brunetti.

  The boy had relaxed now with the ease of their conversation and the

  seriousness with which Brunetti treated his answers. He leaned back

  against the top of his desk, picked up a packet of cigarettes and held

  it out to Brunetti. At his refusal the boy took one and patted around

  on the top of his desk until he found a plastic lighter hidden under a

  notebook.

  He lit the cigarette and tossed the lighter back on to the desk. He

  took a long drag at the cigarette. Brunetti was struck by how very

  hard he tried to appear older and more sophisticated than he was; then

  the boy looked at Brunetti and said, "Because I can choose about the

  music but I can't about the school."

  Sure that this made some sort of profound difference to the boy but

  unwilling to spend more time pursuing it, Brunetti asked, "What's your

  name?" using the familiar to, as he would with one of his children's

  friends.

  "Giuliano Ruffo/ the boy answered.

  Brunetti introduced himself, using his name and not his title, and

  stepped forward to offer his hand. Ruffo slid from the desk and took

  Brunetti's hand.

  "Did you know him, the boy who died?"

  Ruffo's face froze, all ease fled his body, and he shook his head in

  automatic denial. As Brunetti was wondering how it was that he didn't

  know a fellow student in a school this small, the boy said, That is, I

  didn't know him well. We just had one class together." Ease had

  disappeared from his voice, as well: he spoke quickly, as if eager to

  move away from the meaning of his words.

  "What one?"

  "Physics."

  "What other subjects do you take?" Brunetti asked. "What is it for

  you, the second year?"

  "Yes, sir. So we have to take Latin and Greek and Mathematics,

  English, History, and then we get to choose two optional subjects."

  "So Physics is one of yours?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And the other?"

  The answer was a long time in coming. Brunetti thought the boy must be

  trying to work out what this man's hidden motive was in asking all of

  these questions. If Brunetti had a motive, it was hidden even from

  himself: all he could do at this point was try to get a sense of things

  at the school, to catch the mood of the place; all of the information

  he gained had more or less the same amorphous value and its meaning

  would not become clear until later, when each piece could be seen as

  part of some larger pattern.

  The boy stabbed out his ci
garette, eyed the packet, but did not light

  another. Brunetti repeated, "What is it, the second one?"

  Reluctantly, as if confessing to something he perhaps construed as

  weakness, the boy finally answered, "Music."

  "Good for you came Brunetti's instant response.

  "Why do you say that, sir?" the boy asked, his eagerness patent. Or

  perhaps it was merely relief at this removal to a neutral subject.

  Brunetti's response had been visceral, so he had to consider what to

  say. "I read a lot of history," he began, 'and a lot of history is

  military history." The boy nodded, prodding him along with his

  curiosity. "And historians often say that soldiers know only one

  thing." The boy nodded again. "And no matter how well they might know

  that one thing, war, it's not enough. They've got to know about other

  things." He smiled at the boy, who smiled in return. "It's the great

  weakness, knowing only that one thing."

  The wish you'd tell my grandfather that, sir," he said.

  "He doesn't believe it?"

  "Oh, no, he doesn't even want to hear the word "music", at least not

  from me."

  "What would he rather hear that you'd been in a duel?" Brunetti asked,

  not at all uncomfortable at undermining the concept of grand parental

  authority.

  "Oh, he'd love that, especially if it were with sabres."

  "And you went home with a scar "across your cheek?" Brunetti

  suggested.