CB18 About Face (2009)

by Donna Leon

  If he read her expression correctly, she had something else to tell him, and so he asked, ‘And?’

  ‘There are voices, sir.’

  ‘Voices?’

  ‘About her.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What kind of voices?’

  She crossed her legs. ‘Perhaps I’ve exaggerated, sir, and it’s more that there are certain suggestions or silences when her name is mentioned.’

  ‘I dare say that’s true for many people in the city,’ Brunetti said, trying not to sound prim.

  ‘I’m sure it is, sir,’ she said.

  Brunetti decided to rise above mere gossip, so he pulled the file towards him and hefted it, asking, ‘Have you had enough time to get any idea of what his total worth is?’

  Instead of answering, she sat back in her chair, studying his face as though he had just presented her with an interesting conundrum.

  ‘Yes, Signorina?’ Brunetti prodded. When she failed to answer, he asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘The phrase, sir.’

  ‘Which phrase?’

  ‘“Total worth.”’

  Confused, Brunetti could say only, ‘It’s the total of his various assets, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir, in the fiscal sense, I suppose it is.’

  ‘Is there some other sense?’ Brunetti asked in honest confusion.

  ‘Well, there’s his “total worth” as a man, a husband, an employer, a friend.’ Seeing Brunetti’s expression, she said, ‘Yes, I know it’s not what you meant, but it’s interesting, the way we all use that term to indicate only the monetary wealth of a person.’ She gave Brunetti the chance to comment or question, and when he did not, she added, ‘It’s so reductive, as if the only thing about us that has value is how much money we have.’

  In a person of lesser imagination than Signorina Elettra, this speculation might have been an elaborate admission of the failure to discover Cataldo’s total assets. Brunetti, however, well familiar with the byways of her mind, said only, ‘My wife spoke of someone who had the “ichor of capitalism” running in his veins. Perhaps we all do.’ He set the file down and pushed it away from him.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, sounding as though she did not like to have to say it, ‘we all do.’

  ‘What else did you learn?’ Brunetti asked, summoning her back to business.

  ‘That he was married to Giulia Vasari for more than thirty years and then divorced her,’ she said, bringing them back to the world of the personal.

  Brunetti decided to wait to see what she had to tell him, thinking it unseemly to appear either too interested in Franca Marinello or already to have learned anything about her.

  ‘She’s much younger, as you know; more than thirty years. Rumour has it that they met when he took his wife to a fashion show, and Franca Marinello modelled the furs.’ She glanced at him but Brunetti made no response.

  ‘However they met, he appears to have lost his head over her,’ she continued. ‘Within a month, he had left his wife and moved into his own apartment.’ She paused here and explained, ‘My father knew him, and so I got some of this from him.’

  ‘Knew or knows?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Knows, I think. But he’s not really a friend: one of those people one is acquainted with.’

  ‘What else did your father tell you?’

  ‘That the divorce was not pleasant.’

  ‘They seldom are.’

  She nodded in agreement and said, ‘He heard that Cataldo fired his lawyer because he had met with his wife’s.’

  ‘I thought that was the way these things were done,’ Brunetti said. ‘Lawyers talking to lawyers.’

  ‘Usually, yes. All he said was that Cataldo behaved badly, but he didn’t tell me what that means.’

  ‘I see.’

  He noticed that she was about to get to her feet and asked, ‘Did you learn anything else about his wife?’

  Did she study his face before she answered? ‘Not much, sir, beyond what I’ve told you. She doesn’t play much of a part in society, though he’s certainly very well known.’ Then, as in afterthought, she added, ‘She was once thought to be very shy.’

  Though curious about her phrasing, Brunetti said only, ‘I see.’ He glanced at the file again but did not open it. He heard Signorina Elettra get to her feet. He looked up and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘I hope you enjoy reading it, sir,’ she said, then added, ‘however much it might lack the intellectual rigour of the Il Gazzettino.’ And then she was gone.

  9

  He forced himself to read through the pages of financial information regarding Cataldo: the companies he had owned and managed, the boards on which he sat, the stocks and bonds that floated into and out of his various portfolios, all the while allowing the dreaming part of his mind to drift where it pleased, which decidedly was not anywhere inside this file. Addresses of properties bought and sold, official sale prices, mortgages given and paid off, bank and stock dividends: there were people, Brunetti knew, who found these details thrilling. That thought depressed him immeasurably.

  He remembered playing tag when he was a kid, chasing after friends, keeping an eye on them as they turned into familiar and unfamiliar calli. No, it was more like trailing a suspect in the early days of his career: keep an eye on one person while appearing to be interested in everything else that passed by. So it was as he read more fiscal details: his counter’s mind registered and would recall some of the sums as they mounted towards Cataldo’s total worth, while his hunter’s ear, against his will, kept returning to Guarino and the story he had told. And to the things he had failed to tell.

  He put the file aside and used his office phone to call Avisani in Rome. This time, he kept the exchange of pleasantries to a minimum, and after enough of them had been made, Brunetti said, his voice rich in simulated affability, ‘That friend of yours we spoke to yesterday, you think you could get in touch with him and ask him to give me a call?’

  ‘Ah, do I detect the first faint cracks in the sincerity of your devotion to one another?’ the journalist asked.

  ‘No,’ Brunetti answered, surprised into laughter, ‘but he asked me to do him a favour, and they tell me he won’t be in until the end of the week. I need to talk to him again before I can do what he asked me to do.’

  ‘He’s good at that,’ Avisani conceded.

  ‘At what?’

  ‘Giving too little information.’ When Brunetti did not rise to this, the journalist said, ‘I can probably get in touch with him. I’ll ask him to call you today.’ Brunetti said, ‘I’m waiting for you to lower your voice and add, mysteriously, “If he can.”’ ‘That goes without saying, doesn’t it?’ Avisani asked in quite a reasonable voice before hanging up.

  Brunetti went down to the bar at Ponte dei Greci and had a coffee he did not much want; to ensure that he would not enjoy it, he put in too little sugar and drank it quickly. Then he asked for a glass of mineral water he did not want, either, because of the weather, and returned to his office disgruntled at not being able to contact Guarino.

  The dead man – Ranzato – must have met this other man on more than one occasion, and yet Brunetti was supposed to believe that Guarino had never bothered to ask him to elaborate on the meaning of ‘well dressed’ and had never learned anything else about him? How did this man and Ranzato communicate to organize shipments? Telepathy? And payments?

  And, finally, a great deal of attention was being paid to this one crime. ‘Any man’s death’, and all of that poetry that Paola was always talking about. Yes, that was true, at least in the abstract, poetic sense, but one man’s death, no matter how much it diminished us all, no longer really mattered very much to the world, nor to the authorities, not unless it was related to some more important matter or unless the press got it between their teeth and ran with it. Brunetti did not have the latest national statistics – he left statistics to Patta – but he knew that less than half of the murder
s committed were ever solved, and the number diminished in almost direct proportion to how long they went unsolved.

  It had been a month, and Guarino was only now following up on the reference to the man living near San Marcuola. Brunetti set his pen down and reflected upon this fact. Either they did not care or someone had . . .

  The phone rang, and he chose to answer with ‘Sì’ rather than with his name.

  ‘Guido,’ Guarino said cheerfully. ‘Glad to catch you still there. I was told you wanted to talk to me.’

  Even though Brunetti knew that Guarino was speaking for anyone who might be listening to his phone or to Brunetti’s, his chipper tone drove Brunetti past caring what he said. ‘We need to talk about this again. You never told me that . . .’

  ‘Look, Guido,’ Guarino said, speaking very quickly and with no diminution of jollity, ‘I’ve got someone waiting to talk to me, but it will only take a few minutes. How about we meet down at that bar you go to?’

  ‘Down at the . . .’ Brunetti began to say, but Guarino cut him off. ‘You got it. I’ll meet you there in about fifteen minutes.’ The line went dead.

  What was Guarino doing in Venice, and how did he know about the bar at the bridge? Brunetti did not want to return to the bar, he did not want another coffee, he did not want a sandwich, nor another glass of cold water, nor even a glass of wine. But then the idea of a glass of hot punch came to him, and he got his overcoat from the armadio and left.

  Sergio was just sliding the glass of hot punch across the bar to Brunetti when the phone in the back room of the bar rang. Sergio excused himself, muttered something about his wife, and slipped through the door to the other room. He was back in less than a minute, as Brunetti was by then expecting, and said, ‘It’s for you, Commissario.’

  Habit forced Brunetti to put on his brightest smile as the instinct of deceit prompted him to say, ‘I hope you don’t mind, Sergio. I was waiting for a call, but I needed something hot, so I asked them to tell him to call me here.’

  ‘Sure, Commissario. No trouble. Any time,’ the barman said and stepped behind the bar to let Brunetti pass into the small back room.

  The receiver lay on its side, next to one of the heavy old SIP phones, the outmoded grey model with the round dial. He picked up the receiver, resisting the urge to fit his finger into the small hole and turn the dial.

  ‘Guido?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry for the melodrama. What is it?’

  ‘Your mystery man, the well-dressed one, the one who said he’d meet someone at that place you mentioned.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How come all you told me was that he was well-dressed?’

  ‘That’s what I was told.’

  ‘How many months did you talk to the man who died?’

  ‘. . . A long time.’

  ‘And all he told you was that the other guy was well-dressed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you never thought to ask for anything more?’

  ‘I didn’t think it . . .’

  ‘When you finish that sentence, I’m hanging up.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I thought I should warn you. You say that, and I’m hanging up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t like being lied to.’

  ‘I’m not . . .’

  ‘You finish that sentence, I’m hanging up, too.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Start again. What else did he tell you about the man he talked to?’

  ‘Someone in your house got a private email address?’

  ‘My kids. Why?’

  ‘I want to send you a photo.’

  ‘Not my kids. You can’t do that.’

  ‘Your wife, then?’

  ‘All right. At the university.’

  ‘Paola, dot, Falier, at Ca’Foscari, one word, dot, it?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know that address?’

  ‘I’ll send it tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about this photo?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is there a reason for that?’

  ‘I’d rather not go into it.’

  ‘Is this the only lead you have?’

  ‘No, it’s not the only one. But we haven’t been able to check it.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Nothing worked out.’

  ‘If I find anything, how do I get in touch with you?’

  ‘That means you’ll do it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I gave you my number.’

  ‘They said you weren’t there.’

  ‘It’s not easy to get me.’

  ‘The email you’ll be using tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I can always call you there.’

  ‘Yes, you can; but I can’t move my office here to wait for your call. How do I get in touch with you?’

  ‘Call that same number and leave a message, saying your name is Pollini and give a time when you’ll call back. That’s when I’ll call you at this number.’

  ‘Pollini?’

  ‘Yes. But call from a public phone, all right?’

  ‘The next time we talk, I want you to tell me what’s going on. What’s really going on.’

  ‘But I’ve told . . .’

  ‘Filippo, do I have to threaten to hang up again?’

  ‘No. You don’t. I have to think about it, though.’

  ‘Think about it now.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I can.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before.’

  ‘I don’t like it that it’s this way, believe me. But it’s better for everyone involved.’

  ‘Me, too?’

  ‘Yes, you, too. I’ve got to go. Thanks.’

  10

  Brunetti studied his hand as he replaced the receiver to see if it trembled. Nope, steady as a rock. Besides, this cloak and dagger stuff from Guarino was more likely to cause him irritation than fear. What was next, leaving messages for one another in bottles and floating them down the Grand Canal? Guarino had seemed a sensible enough fellow, and he had accepted Brunetti’s scepticism with good grace, so why persist with all this James Bond nonsense?

  He went to the doorway and asked Sergio, ‘You mind if I make a call?’

  ‘Commissario,’ he said with an open wave of his hands, ‘call whoever you want.’ Dark-complexioned, almost as wide as he was tall, Sergio always reminded Brunetti of the bear who was the hero of one of the first books he had ever read. Because the bear was in the habit of gorging himself on honey, Sergio’s substantial paunch only added to the resemblance. And, like that bear, Sergio was affable and generous, though equally prone to giving a growl now and again.

  He dialled the first five digits of his home number but replaced the phone. He came out from the back room and returned to his place at the bar. But his glass was gone. ‘Someone drink my punch?’ he inquired.

  ‘No, Commissario. I thought it would be too cold to drink.’

  ‘Could you make me another?’

  ‘Nothing easier,’ the barman said and pulled down the bottle.

  Ten minutes later, considerably warmed, Brunetti went back to his office. From there, he dialled his home number.

  ‘Sì,’ Paola answered. When had she stopped answering with her name, he wondered?

  ‘It’s me. You going to your office tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you print a photo from your computer there?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, and he heard the barely restrained sigh.

  ‘Good. It should arrive for you by email. Could you print out a copy of it for me? And maybe enlarge it?’

  ‘Guido, I could just as easily access my email from here,’ she said, using the voice of studied patience she reserved for the explanation of the self-evident.

  ‘I know,’ he said, though he had not thought of that. ‘But I’d like to keep this . . .’

  ‘Out of
the house?’ she suggested.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and then laughed. ‘I don’t want to delve into what understanding you have of technology, Guido, but thank you at least for that.’

  ‘I don’t want the kids . . .’ he began.

  ‘You don’t have to explain,’ she cut him off. Her voice was softer still when she said, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and then she was gone.

  He heard a noise at his door and looked towards it, surprised to see Officer Alvise. ‘Do you have a moment, Commissario?’ he asked, smiling, then serious, then smiling again. Short and weedy, Alvise was the least prepossessing man on the force: his intellect was in complete harmony with this lack of physical prowess. Affable and friendly, Alvise was usually eager to chat with anyone. Paola, the one time she met him, said he made her think of someone of whom an English poet had said, ‘Eternal smiles his emptiness betray.’

  ‘Of course, Alvise. Come in. Please.’ Alvise had only recently reappeared in the squad room after half a year spent working in symbiosis with Lieutenant Scarpa on some sort of European-Union-sponsored crime squad the precise nature of which had never been defined.

  ‘I’m back, sir,’ Alvise said as he sat down.

  ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘I know.’ Lambent thought and concise explanation were not attributes usually associated with Alvise’s name; thus, his declaration could refer to his return from his temporary assignment or, for all Brunetti knew, from the bar on the corner.

  Alvise sat and looked around the room, as though seeing it for the first time. Brunetti wondered if the officer thought it necessary to reintroduce himself to his superior. The silence lengthened, but Brunetti decided to wait it out and see what Alvise had to say. The officer turned to look at the open door, then at Brunetti, then at the door again. After another minute’s silence, he leaned forward and asked, ‘Do you mind if I close the door, Commissario?’

  ‘Of course not, Alvise,’ Brunetti said, wondering if half a year spent closeted in a tiny office with the Lieutenant had perhaps rendered Alvise subject to draughts?

  Alvise went to the door, stuck his head out and glanced both ways, closed the door quietly, and came back to his chair. The silence renewed itself, but Brunetti resisted the impulse to speak.