Free Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon Page B

that glows in the dark or pay a bribe so they can go on catching and selling it.'
    This, Brunetti realized, was the longest speech he'd heard Bonsuan give in all the years he'd known him. Because the pilot had begun it by mentioning his nephews and the fact of his imminent retirement, Brunetti refused to believe that his explanation was completely truthful.
    'When you retire,' Brunetti began, 'are you going to work with your nephews?'
    'I've got a pilot's licence,' Bonsuan answered. 'I can't afford to buy a taxi. I don't think I'd like the work, anyway. They're another bunch of greedy bastards.'
    'And you know the laguna,' Brunetti suggested.
    'And I know the laguna.'
    Resigned, Brunetti asked, 'Is there anything you can tell me?'
    Bonsuan, he knew, was not as tough as he appeared to be. Over the years, Brunetti had occasionally seen him discard the carapace he wore, abandon the disguise of dour old sea dog who was never surprised by the crimes of men. 'It might help, you know,' Brunetti added, doing his best to make it sound as if he was suggesting, rather than pleading.
    Bonsuan pushed himself to his feet. Before he turned to the door, he said, 'It's not a question of which fishermen do this, sir; it's more a question of which ones don't.' He aimed his right hand in the general direction of his forehead in what Brunetti supposed was meant to be a salute, then added, 'It's too big for you, and it's too big for us.' He said good morning and left the office.
    This left Brunetti little wiser than before he asked the pilot to come up. He realized now how foolish he had been to hope that appeals to loyalty to the police or the public good would have any effect when in competition with tribe or, worse, family. He supposed it was a step towards civilization, the ability to think of tribe or family rather than of the self, but it seemed such a tiny step. As always, when he caught himself making these sweeping generalizations about human behaviour, usually when he needed some justification for criticizing the behaviour of someone he knew, he ended up asking himself if, in the same circumstances, he'd behave any differently. The usual conclusion he came to, that he probably would not, put an end to his reflections and left him feeling slightly uncomfortable with an ever-judgmental self. After all, there was very little evidence that public institutions or government took even the least interest in the public good.
    He reflected on his brief conversation with Bonsuan. Certainly, over the years, he'd read numerous accounts of the violence in those waters: boats running aground or into one another; men fallen or knocked overboard and then either saved or drowned; shots fired from boats that were not seen, coming from men whose identity was never discovered. For the most part, however, the laguna was generally perceived as a benign presence by the people who lived their lives surrounded by it, many of whom owed their lives and fortunes to it.
    In the face of his growing curiosity, he abandoned the superstitious idea that he could somehow influence Signorina Elettra's decision and called down to her to ask if she would check the files of the Gazzettino for the last three years and see what she could find about the laguna, fishermen, and the vongolari, specifically anything that had to do with acts of violence among the fishermen themselves and between them and the police. He knew he'd read more than one article, but because reports of violence on the water often were made to the harbour police or the Carabinieri, he had paid little attention to them.
    Child of its waters, Brunetti still idealized the laguna as a peaceful place. Did people in India, he wondered, think of Mother Ganges in this manner, as the liquid source of all life, the giver of food and bringer of peace? He'd recently read an article in one of Paola's English magazines on the pollution of the Ganges and the way it was now, in many places, irreversibly fouled, sure to carry