Sea of Troubles Read Online Free PDF Page A

that the boat had to stay within the rows of slanting wooden pilings, but had they strayed into the expanse of water on their right, he would have found it embarrassingly difficult to get them safely back to Venice.
    Rocca, his young face radiating simple pleasure at being outside and in motion on this beautiful day, called back to his superior, 'Where are we going, sir?'
    To the port. Vianello and Bonsuan are there. We should see them.'
    On their left were trees; and the occasional car swept by. Ahead he began to make out the forms of boats, what seemed to be a long row of them, facing towards a cement-walled pier. He cast his eye along their blunt sterns, but he saw no sign of the police launch. They reached an opening in the line of boats, and beyond it, on the shore a few metres away, he saw Vianello, standing in the sun, one hand raised to shade his eyes.
    Brunetti waved and Vianello started to walk to the right, towards the end of the line of moored boats, signalling for them to follow him. When they finally reached the open space at the end of the line of boats, Rocca pulled the launch up and Brunetti jumped on to the riva, momentarily surprised to feel its solidity under his feet.
    'Has Bonsuan gone back?' he asked.
    'One of their neighbours came on board the boat and identified them. It's who we thought: Giulio Bottin and his son, Marco. I sent him back to the hospital with them.' Vianello nodded toward Rocca, who was busy with a rope, mooring the boat to a metal stanchion. ‘I can go back with you, sir.'
    'What else?' asked Brunetti.
    ‘I spoke to two or three people, and all of them pretty much told me the same story. They woke up with the noise of the explosion of the gas tank at about three. By the time they got out to the pier, the boat was in flames, and before they could do anything, it had sunk.'
    Vianello started walking back towards the line of low houses that was the village of Pellestrina, and Brunetti fell into step with him. "Then there was the usual nonsense,' Vianello began. 'No one bothered to call the Carabinieri, everybody thinking someone else had. So they weren't called until this morning.' Vianello stopped dead, looking at the houses, as if he couldn't believe that humans inhabited them. 'Incredible: two men get killed in an explosion, and no one calls us, no one calls anyone.'
    He resumed walking. 'Anyway, the Carabinieri came out, then they called us and handed it over, said something about it being in our jurisdiction.' He waved ahead at the space between the boats. 'The divers brought them up.'
    'You said the father had a wound on his head?'
    'Yes. Terrible, the skull was crushed in.' 'What about the son?'
    'Knife,' Vianello said. 'In the stomach. I'd say he bled to death.' Then, before Brunetti could ask, he added, 'It was like he was gutted. The knife went in low and was pulled up. His shirt was covering it when the body was brought up, but when we moved him, we saw it.' Vianello stopped walking again and looked over at the still waters of the laguna. 'He would have bled to death in minutes.' Remembering his place, he added, 'But the autopsy will decide that, I suppose.'
    'Who have you spoken to?'
    Vianello patted the pocket of his jacket where he kept his notebook. 'I've got their names in here: neighbours, mostly. A couple of men who have boats and who fished with them, well, who went out with them, because I don't get the impression that these men think of fishing as anything they're meant to share.'
    'Did anyone tell you that?'
    Vianello shook the idea away. 'No, no one said anything, at least not directly. But it was always there, this sense that they were forcing themselves to talk as though they felt some sense of loyalty or common bond because they were all fishermen, while at the same time I got the feeling they'd push anyone out of the way who tried to fish a spot where they wanted to or that they thought they had a right to.'
    'Push out of the way?' Brunetti asked.
    'Well, in a