Fatal Remedies

by Donna Leon

  ‘I teach them how to snoop and where to look.’ Before Brunetti could respond, she continued, ‘But I have never, sir, never given any unauthorized information of any sort, not to my friends, not to people who are not my friends but with whom I exchange information. I’d like you to believe that.’

  He nodded to show that he did, resisting the temptation to ask if she had ever explained to anyone how to get information from the police. Instead, he tapped the folders again. ‘Will there be more?’

  ‘Perhaps a longer client list for Zambino, but I don’t think there’s anything more to learn about Mitri.’

  Of course there was, Brunetti told himself: there was the reason someone would put a wire round his throat and pull it tight until he or she choked the life out of him. ‘I’ll have a look, then,’ he said.

  ‘I think it’s all clear, but if you have questions, please ask me.’

  ‘Does anyone else know you’ve given me this?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said and left the office.

  * * * *

  He chose the thinner file first: Zambino. From Modena originally, the lawyer had studied at C à Foscari and begun to practise in Venice about twenty years ago. He specialized in corporate law and had built a reputation for himself in the city. Signorina Elettra had attached a list of some of his better-known clients; Brunetti recognized more than a few of them. There was no apparent pattern, and certainly Zambino did not work only for the wealthy: the list held as many waiters and salesmen as it did doctors and bankers. Though he accepted a certain number of criminal cases, his chief source of income was the corporate work Vianello had told Brunetti about. Married for twenty-five years to a teacher, he had four children, none of whom had ever been in trouble with the police. Nor, Brunetti observed, was he a wealthy man; at least whatever wealth he might have was not held in Italy.

  The fatal travel agency in Campo Manin had belonged to Mitri for six years, though, ironically, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the day-to-day running of the business. A manager who rented the agency licence from him took care of all practical matters; apparently it was he who had decided to handle the tours that had provoked Paola’s action and appeared to have led to Mini’s murder. Brunetti made a note of the manager’s name and read on.

  Mitri’s wife was also Venetian, two years younger than he. Though there had been only one child, she had never had a career, and Brunetti did not recognize her name as being involved in any of the charitable institutions of the city. Mitri was survived by a brother, a sister and a cousin. The brother, also a chemist, lived near Padova, the sister in Verona, and the cousin in Argentina.

  There followed the numbers of three accounts in different banks in the city, a list of government bonds, and stock holdings, all for a total of more than a billion lire. And that was all. Mitri had never been accused of a crime and had never, not once in more than half a century, come to the attention of the police in any way.

  Instead, Brunetti reflected, he had probably come to the attention of a person who thought - though he tried to shy away from this, Brunetti could not - as Paola did and who had, like her, decided to use violent means to express his opposition to the tours conducted by the travel agency. Brunetti knew that history was filled with examples of the wrong people dying. Kaiser Wilhelm’s good son, Friedrich, had survived his father by only a few months, leaving the path of succession open to his own son, Wilhelm II, and thus leaving the same path open to the first truly global war. And Germanicus’s death had put the succession at risk and, ultimately, had led to Nero. But those were cases where fate, or history, had intervened; there had been no figure with a wire to drag the victim down to death; there had been no deliberate selection.

  Brunetti called down to Vianello, who answered on the second ring. ‘The lab through with the note yet?’ he asked him without preamble.

  ‘Probably. Want me to go down and ask them?’

  ‘Yes. And bring it up if you can.’

  While he waited for Vianello, Brunetti read again through the short list of Zambino’s criminal clients, trying to recall whatever he could about the names he recognized. There was one case of homicide and, though the man was convicted, the sentence had been reduced to only seven years when Zambino brought in a number of women who lived in the same building to testify that the victim had, for years, been abusive to them in the elevator and the halls of the building. Zambino had proceeded to convince the judges that his client had been defending his wife’s honour when an argument broke out between them in a bar. Two robbery suspects had been released for lack of evidence: Zambino arguing that they had been arrested only because they were Albanians.

  Brunetti was interrupted by a knock at the door and Vianello’s entrance. He carried a large transparent plastic envelope in his right hand and held it up as he came in. ‘They’d just finished. Nothing at all. Lavata con Perlana,’ Vianello concluded, using the most successful television slogan of the decade. Nothing could be cleaner than something washed with Perlana. Except, Brunetti thought, a note left at a murder scene that was sure to be found and examined by the police.

  Vianello came across the room and placed the envelope on Brunetti’s desk. He propped his weight on his hands and leaned over it, studying it again, along with Brunetti.

  It looked to Brunetti as if the words had been cut from La Nuova, the most sensational and often most vulgar newspaper of the city. He wasn’t sure: the technicians would be. They were pasted to half a sheet of lined writing paper. ‘Filthy pederasts and baby pornographers. You’ll all die like this.’

  Brunetti picked up the envelope by a corner and turned it over. All he could see were the same lines and some small patches where the glue had seeped through the paper, staining it grey. He turned it back over and read it again. ‘There seem to be some crossed wires, don’t there?’ he asked.

  ‘To say the least,’ Vianello agreed.

  Though Paola had told the police who arrested her why she broke the window, she had never spoken to any of the reporters, except briefly and under duress, so whatever stories they carried about her motivation had come from some other source; Lieutenant Scarpa was a good guess. The stories Brunetti had read had done little more than suggest that her motivating force was ‘feminism’, though the term was never defined. Mention had been made of the tours arranged by the agency, but the accusation that they were sex-tours had been heatedly denied by the manager, who insisted that most of the men who bought tickets to Bangkok at his agency took their wives along. The Gazzettino, Brunetti recalled, had carried a long interview with him in which he expressed his shock and disgust at sex-tourism, carefully and repeatedly pointing out that it was illegal in Italy and hence unthinkable for any legitimate agency to play a part in the organizing of it.

  Thus the weight of opinion and authority was lined up against Paola, a hysterical ‘feminist’, and in favour of the law-respecting manager and, behind him, the murdered Dottor Mitri. Whoever had got the idea of ‘baby pornographer’ had got things wildly wrong.

  ‘I think it’s time we talked to a few people,’ Brunetti said, getting to his feet. ‘Starting with the manager of the agency. I’d like to hear what he has to say about all these married women who want to go to Bangkok.’

  Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was almost two. ‘Is Signorina Elettra still here?’ he asked Vianello.

  ‘Yes, sir. She was when I came up.’

  ‘Good. I’d like to have a word with her, then perhaps we could go and get something to eat.’

  Confused, Vianello nodded and followed his superior down to Signorina Elettra’s office. From the door, he watched Brunetti lean down and speak to her, saw and heard Signorina Elettra’s laugh. She nodded and turned towards her computer, then Brunetti joined him and they went down to the bar by Ponte dei Grechi and had wine and tramezzini, talking of this and that. Brunetti seemed in no hurry to leave, so they had more sandwiches and another glass of wine.

  After another half hour
Signorina Elettra came in, managing to capture a smile from the barman and the offer of coffee from two men who stood at the bar. Though it was less than a block from the office, she had put on a quilted black silk coat that came to her ankles. She shook her head in polite refusal of coffee and came towards the two policemen. She pulled a few sheets of paper from her pocket and held them up. ‘Child’s play.’ She shook her head in false exasperation. ‘It’s just too easy.’

  ‘Of course.’ Brunetti smiled and paid for what had passed as lunch.

  * * * *

  13

  Brunetti and Vianello turned up at the travel agency just as it was reopening at 3.30 p.m. and asked to speak to Signor Dorandi. Brunetti glanced back into the campo and noticed that the glass in the window was so clean as to seem invisible. The blonde woman at the front desk requested their names, pushed a button on her phone, and a moment later the door at the left of her desk opened, revealing Signor Dorandi.

  Not quite as tall as Brunetti, he had a full beard already starting to go grey, though he could not have been much into his thirties. When he saw Vianello’s uniform, he came forward with his hand outstretched, a smile spreading up from the corners of his mouth. ‘Ah, the police. I’m glad you’ve come.’

  Brunetti said good-afternoon but didn’t give either of their names, letting Vianello’s uniform serve as sufficient introduction. He asked if they might speak in Signor Dorandi’s office. Turning, the bearded man held open the door for the other two and paused long enough to inquire if they’d like some coffee. Both refused.

  Inside, the walls of the office were filled with the predictable posters of beaches, temples and palaces, sure proof that a bad economy and continuing talk of financial crises were not enough to keep Italians at home. Dorandi took his place behind his desk, pushed some papers to the side, and turned to Brunetti, who folded his coat over the back of one of the chairs facing Dorandi and sat down. Vianello lowered himself into the other.

  Dorandi was wearing a suit, but something was wrong with it. Distracted, Brunetti tried to figure out what it was, whether the garment was too big or too small, but neither seemed to be the case. Double-breasted, the jacket was cut of some thick blue material which looked like wool but could as easily have been plasterboard. The jacket fell in a straight line, without a single wrinkle, from his shoulder before disappearing behind the desk. Dorandi’s face gave Brunetti the same impression of something being amiss, but he didn’t understand what. Then he noticed the moustache. Dorandi had shaved away the top half, leaving that area of his upper lip clean-shaven, so the adornment ran in a thin straight line under his nose and disappeared into his beard on either side. The trimming had been done very carefully and was clearly not the result of a careless hand, but the proportions of the moustache had been destroyed, and the result was a pasted-on rather than a naturally grown appearance.

  ‘What may I do for you, gentlemen?’ Dorandi asked, smiling and placing his folded hands in front of him.

  ‘I’d like you to tell me a bit about Dottor Mitri and the agency, if you would,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Ah, yes, gladly.’ Dorandi paused for a moment while he thought where to begin. ‘I’ve known him for years, since I first came here to work.’

  ‘When was that exactly?’ Brunetti asked.

  Vianello took a pad from his pocket, opened it on his lap, and began to take notes.

  Dorandi turned his chin to the side and stared at the poster on the far wall, looking for the answer in Rio. He turned back to Brunetti and said, ‘It will be exactly six years in January.’

  ‘And what position did you have when you came?’ Brunetti inquired.

  ‘The same as I have now: manager.’

  ‘But aren’t you also the owner?’

  Dorandi smiled as he answered, ‘In everything but name, I am. I own the business, but Dottor Mitri still holds the licence.’

  ‘What exactly does that mean?’

  Again, Dorandi consulted the helpful city on the far wall. When he’d found the answer, he turned back to Brunetti. ‘It means that I decide who gets hired and fired, on what advertizing to use, what special offers to make, and I also get to keep the major portion of the earnings.’

  ‘What portion?’

  ‘Seventy-five per cent.’

  ‘And the rest went to Dottor Mitri?’

  ‘Yes. As well as rent.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The rent?’ Dorandi asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Three million lire a month.’

  ‘And the profits?’

  ‘Why is it you need to know this?’ Dorandi asked in the same level voice.

  ‘At this point, Signore, I’ve no idea what I need to know and what not. I am simply trying to accumulate as much information about Dottor Mitri and his affairs as I can.’

  ‘To what purpose?’

  ‘To better understand why he was killed.’

  Dorandi’s answer was instant. ‘I thought that was made very clear by the note you found.’

  Brunetti raised a hand as if in concession to this idea. ‘I think it’s important that we learn as much as we can about him, just the same.’

  ‘There was a note, wasn’t there?’ Dorandi demanded.

  ‘Where did you hear that, Signor Dorandi?’

  ‘It was in the papers, in two of them.’

  Brunetti nodded. ‘Yes, there was a note.’

  ‘Did it say what the papers say it did?’

  Brunetti, who had seen the papers, nodded.

  ‘But that’s absurd.’ Dorandi said, voice raised, as if it were Brunetti who had written the words. ‘There’s no child pornography here. We don’t cater for pederasts. The whole thing’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Have you any idea why someone might have written that, Signore?’

  ‘Probably because of that madwoman,’ Dorandi said, making no attempt to disguise his disgust and rage.

  ‘Which madwoman is that?’ Brunetti asked.

  Dorandi paused a long time before he answered this, studying Brunetti’s face carefully, looking for the trick in the question. Finally he said, ‘That woman who threw the stone. She began all this. If she hadn’t started with her insane accusations - all lies, all lies - then nothing would have happened.’

  ‘Are they lies, Signor Dorandi?’

  ‘How dare you ask that?’ Dorandi bent towards Brunetti, voice raised. ‘Of course they’re lies. We have nothing to do here with child pornography or with pederasts.’

  ‘That was the note, Signor Dorandi.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘They are two different accusations, Signore. I’m trying to understand why the person who wrote the note might have believed that the agency was involved in pederasty and child pornography.’

  ‘And I’ve told you why,’ Dorandi said on a note of rising exasperation. ‘Because of that woman. She went to all the papers, libelling me, libelling the agency, saying we arranged sex-tours...’

  ‘But nothing about pederasty or child pornography?’ Brunetti interrupted.

  ‘What’s the difference to a madwoman? Everything’s the same to them, anything that has to do with sex.’

  ‘Then do the tours the agency arranged have something to do with sex?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Dorandi shouted. Then, hearing how loud his voice was, he closed his eyes for a moment, unfolded and carefully refolded his hands, and said in an entirely normal voice, ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘I must have got it wrong.’ Brunetti shrugged, then asked, ‘But why would this madwoman, as you call her, say those things? Why would anyone, indeed, say those things?’

  ‘Misunderstanding.’ Dorandi’s smile was back. ‘You know how it is with people: they see what they want to see, make things mean what they want them to mean.’

  ‘Specifically?’ Brunetti asked with a pleasant expression.

  ‘Specifically I mean what this woman has done. She sees our posters for tours to exotic
places - Thailand, Cuba, Sri Lanka - then she reads some hysterical article in some feminist magazine that claims there is child prostitution in those places and that travel agencies arrange tours there, sex-tours, and she puts the two things together in some crazy way, and comes here at night and destroys my window.’

  ‘Doesn’t that seem an excessive response? Without proof, I mean.’ Brunetti’s voice was all sweet reason.

  Dorandi answered with more than a touch of sarcasm, ‘That’s why they’re called crazy people: because they do crazy things. Of course it’s an excessive reaction. And utterly without cause.’

  Brunetti allowed a long pause to spread out between them, and then said, ‘In the Gazzettino you were quoted as saying that just as many women go to Bangkok as do men. That is, that most of the men who buy tickets to Bangkok take women along with them.’