Beastly Things by Donna Leon

lasting only a few seconds, but there was no sign of the man, then another, without success. Then, in the fourth, the man appeared. He stood, as Brunetti now remembered him standing, at the edge of the traffic island that divided the north and south sections of the autostrada. He was on screen for only a few seconds, his head and his distinctive neck and torso visible in front of a red car stopped in the middle of the road. A few people, three men and a woman, stood next to him, all of them staring straight ahead. The camera panned back to show a single row of helmeted men moving forward, their transparent shields side by side, all of them united in lock step. The video ended.
    Brunetti opened the next one. This time the camera shot from behind the rank of Carabinieri as they approached the ragged group of farmers, their advancing line opening to flow around a car that had been set on fire. The next clip had been taken, it seemed, from a
telefonino
, but there was no identification of source: it could as easily belong to a police officer as some bystander whose phone had been sequestered. It showed a man slinging a pail of brown liquid at a carabiniere and hitting him square in the chest with it. The carabiniere retorted with a sidearm slash with his stick that caught the protestor on the lower arm and sent the pail into the air, with splashes flying from it as it disappeared to the right. The man bent forward, grabbing at his arm with his other hand, and was shoved to the ground by two Carabinieri. The video ended.
    He typed in Pucetti’s address and forwarded the email and attached video clips, shut down his computer, and went downstairs in search of the man himself.

8
    BRUNETTI PAUSED AT the door of the officers’ squad room and had a look around. Vianello, talking to the new recruit, Dondini, had his back to the door. Pucetti, upon whose lowered face Brunetti could not help but read the results of their last interchange, seemed as oblivious to his surroundings as he was to the papers spread on the surface of his desk. The worst part of Brunetti was glad to see the younger man so preoccupied: it would spare the rest of them a lot of trouble in future if he learned greater discretion in breaking the rules and perhaps the law.
    ‘Pucetti,’ he called as he came in. ‘I’ve got a favour to ask.’ He walked towards the young man’s desk, gesturing to Vianello to join them when he could.
    Pucetti shot to his feet, but he no longer snapped out a salute at the sight of his superior. ‘I’ve found the man who was in the canal this morning. Have you read the report?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘Yes, sir,’ Pucetti said.
    ‘There’s a series of videos from that incident with the farmers on the autostrada last year. He was there.’
    ‘You mean we arrested him?’ Pucetti asked with badly disguised astonishment. ‘And no one remembered?’ It was implicit in his tone that
he
would surely have remembered, but Brunetti let that pass.
    ‘No. He was there, but only as a spectator. There’s no mug shot,’ Brunetti said. ‘A video shows him standing at the side of the road, watching.’
    Pucetti could not hide his interest.
    ‘There’s something I’d like you to help me with,’ Brunetti said with a smile, and the younger man, much in the manner of a hunting dog who has heard a familiar whistle, all but went into point position.
    Vianello came over to them then and asked, ‘What did you find?’
    ‘A video with the man Rizzardi worked on this morning,’ Brunetti answered, disliking the verb as soon as he heard himself using it. ‘He was caught on the autostrada in that farmers’ protest last year.’ He told Pucetti about the email he had just sent him and said, ‘I’d like you to see if you can print out copies of specific frames.’
    ‘Nothing easier, sir,’ Pucetti said, in the eager voice Brunetti was accustomed to hearing him use. ‘Which one is he in?’
    ‘He’s in the fourth clip. Man with a dark beard;