Fatal Remedies

by Donna Leon

  ‘Yes.’ Brunetti, suddenly conscious of how miserly that sounded, added, ‘If what I’m beginning to suspect is true, she didn’t have anything to do with Mitri’s death.’

  ‘Of course she didn’t have anything to do with his death,’ came the instant answer. ‘She was with you that night.’

  Brunetti quelled his first reaction and spoke calmly: ‘I mean in the sense she’d intend, not the way we would - that her actions spurred someone on to kill him.’

  ‘Even if that were true...’ the Count began, but suddenly lost interest in arguing the hypothetical case and said in his normal tone, I’d see what I could find out about what he had to do with those countries.’

  ‘I will.’ Brunetti made a polite farewell and put down the phone.

  Kenya, Egypt and Sri Lanka all had problems with outbursts of murderous violence, but nothing Brunetti had read suggested there was any common cause there, for all the accused groups seemed to have entirely different goals. Raw materials? Brunetti didn’t know enough about them to be able to guess what they had that a voracious West would want.

  He looked down at his watch and saw that it was after six; certainly a full commissario, particularly one who was still officially on something called administrative leave, could go home.

  On the way, he continued to mull it over, once even stopping to pull out the list of countries and study it again. He went into Antico Dolo and had a glass of white wine and two cuttlefish, but he was so preoccupied that he barely tasted them.

  He returned before seven to an empty house. He went into Paola’s study and pulled down their atlas of the world, then sat on the shabby old sofa with the book open on his knees, contemplating the multicoloured maps of the various regions. He shifted lower in the sofa and rested his head against the back.

  Paola found him like that half an hour later, deeply asleep. She called his name once, then again, but it wasn’t until she went and sat beside him that he woke.

  Sleeping during the day always left him dull and stupid, with a strange taste in his mouth.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, kissing his ear and pointing down at the book.

  ‘Sri Lanka. And here’s Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria,’ he said, turning the pages quietly.

  ‘Let me guess - the itinerary for our second honeymoon tour through the poverty capitals of the world?’ she asked with a laugh. Then, seeing his smile, she went on, ‘And I get to play Lady Bountiful, bringing along pockets full of small coins to toss to the local population as we visit the sights?’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Brunetti said, closing the book but leaving it on his knees. ‘That the first thing you think of, too, is poverty.’

  ‘It’s either that or civil unrest in most of those places.’ She paused for a moment, then added, ‘Or cheap Imodium.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Remember when we were in Egypt and had to get Imodium?’

  Brunetti remembered the trip to Egypt, a decade ago, when both of them had come down with fierce diarrhoea and had lived for two days on yoghurt, rice, and Imodium. ‘Yes,’ he answered. He thought he remembered, but he wasn’t sure.

  ‘No prescription, no questions and cheap, cheap, cheap. If I’d had a list of the things my neurotic friends take, I could have done my Christmas shopping for the next five years.’ She saw that he didn’t share the joke, so she returned her attention to the atlas. ‘But what about those countries?’

  ‘Mitri received money from them, large amounts. Or his companies did. I don’t know which because it all went to Switzerland.’

  ‘Doesn’t all money, in the end?’ she asked with a tired sigh.

  He shook himself free of the thought of those countries and placed the atlas beside him on the sofa. ‘Where are the kids?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re having dinner with my parents.’

  ‘Should we go out, then?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re willing to take me out again, be seen with me?’ she asked lightly.

  Brunetti wasn’t sure how much she was joking so he answered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere you like.’

  She sprawled against him, pushing her legs out in front of her, beside his longer ones. ‘I don’t want to go far. How about a pizza at Due Colonne?’

  ‘What time will the kids be back?’ he asked, placing his hand on hers.

  ‘Not before ten, I’d say,’ she answered, glancing down at her watch.

  ‘Good,’ he said, raising her hand to his lips.

  * * * *

  22

  Neither the next day nor the day after that did Brunetti learn anything about Palmieri. An article appeared in Il Gazzettino remarking that there had been no progress in the Mitri case but making no mention of Paola, so Brunetti concluded that his father-in-law had indeed been speaking to people he knew. The national press was similarly silent; then eleven people were burned to death in an oxygen chamber in a hospital in Milan, and the story of Mitri’s murder was abandoned in favour of denunciations of the entire national health system.

  As good as her word, Signorina Elettra gave him three pages of information about Sandro Bonaventura. He and his wife had two children, both at university; a house in Padova, and an apartment in Castelfranco Veneto. The factory there, Interfar, as Bonaventura had said, was in his sister’s name. The money to purchase it, a year and a half ago, was paid over one day after a large withdrawal was made from Mitri’s account in a Venetian bank.

  Bonaventura had worked as a director of one of Mitri’s factories until he had taken over the directorship of the one that his sister owned. And that was all: an Urtext of middle-class success.

  On the third day, a man was caught robbing the post office in Campo San Polo. After five hours of questioning, he admitted to the robbery of the bank at Campo San Luca. He was the same man whose photo Iacovantuono had identified the first time and whom, after his wife’s death, he had failed to recognize. While he was being questioned, Brunetti went down and had a look at him through the one-way glass in the door of the room where the interrogation was taking place. He saw a short, stocky man with thinning brown hair; the man Iacovantuono had described the second time had red hair and was at least twenty kilos lighter.

  He went back up to his office and called Negri in Treviso, who was handling the case of Signorina Iacovantuono’s death - the case that wasn’t a case - and told him they had an arrest for the bank robbery and that he looked nothing like the man Iacovantuono had identified the second time.

  After he gave this information, Brunetti asked, ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He goes to work, comes home and feeds his children, then to the cemetery every other day to put fresh flowers on her grave,’ Negri answered.

  ‘Is there another woman?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘If he did it, he’s good,’ Brunetti stated.

  ‘I found him absolutely convincing when I spoke to him. I even sent a team to protect them, to keep an eye on the house, the day after she died.’

  ‘They see anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Let me know if something turns up,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Not likely, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  Usually Brunetti’s instinct warned him when someone was lying or trying to hide something, but with Iacovantuono he had had no idea, no sense of warning or suspicion. Brunetti found himself wondering which he wanted to be true: did he want to be right, or did he want the little pizza cook to be a murderer?

  His phone rang while his hand was still on it and pulled him away from speculation he knew to be idle.

  ‘Guido, it’s della Corte.’

  Brunetti’s mind flashed to Padova, to Mitri and to Palmieri. ‘What is it?’ he asked, too excited to dredge up polite formulas and all thought of Iacovantuono driven from his mind.

  ‘We might have found him.’

  ‘Palmieri?’

  ‘Yes.’

 
‘Where?’

  ‘North of here. It looks like he’s driving a truck.’

  ‘A truck?’ Brunetti repeated stupidly. It seemed too banal for a man who might have killed four people.

  ‘He’s using a different name. Michele de Luca.’

  ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘One of our blokes on the drug squad asked around and one of his little people told him. He wasn’t sure, so we sent someone up there and he came back with a fairly positive identification.’

  ‘Is there any chance that Palmieri might have seen him?’

  ‘No, this guy’s good.’ Neither spoke for a while, then della Corte asked, ‘Do you want us to bring him in?’

  I’m not sure that’s going to be very easy.’

  ‘We know where he’s living. We could go in at night.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Castelfranco Veneto. He’s driving a truck for a pharmaceutical factory called Interfar.’

  ‘I’ll come out there. I want to get him. Tonight.’

  * * * *

  In order to join the Padova police in the raid on Palmieri’s apartment, he had to lie to Paola. During lunch he told her that the police in Castelfranco had a suspect in custody and wanted him to go up there to speak to him. When she asked why he had to stay away all night, he explained that the man wouldn’t be brought in until quite late and there were no trains back after ten. In fact, there were to be none at all in the Veneto that afternoon. The air-traffic controllers at the airport having declared a wildcat strike at noon, closing the airport and forcing incoming planes to reroute and land at Bologna or Trieste, the railway engineers’ union decided to strike in sympathy with their demands, so all train traffic in the Veneto came to a halt.

  ‘Take a car, then.’

  ‘I am, as far as Padova. That’s all Patta will authorize.’

  ‘That means he doesn’t want you to go up there, doesn’t it?’ she said, looking at him across the plates and leavings of the meal. The children had already disappeared into their rooms, so they could talk openly. ‘Or doesn’t know you’re going.’

  ‘That’s partly it,’ he said. He took an apple from the fruit basket and began to peel it. ‘Good apples,’ he remarked as he tasted the first piece.

  ‘Don’t be evasive, Guido. What’s the other reason?’

  ‘I might have to talk to him for a long time, so I don’t know when I’d get back.’

  ‘And they’ve got this man and all they’re doing is bringing him in so you can grill him?’ she asked sceptically.

  ‘I’ve got to ask him about Mitri,’ Brunetti said - an evasion, rather than an outright lie.

  ‘Is this the man who did it?’ she enquired.

  ‘It could be. He’s wanted for questioning in at least three other murders.’

  ‘Questioning? What does that mean?’

  Brunetti had read the files, so he knew there was a witness who had seen him with the second victim on the night of his death. And there was the fight with Narduzzi. And now a job driving a truck for a pharmaceutical factory. In Castelfranco. Bonaventura’s company. ‘He’s implicated.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, hearing in his tone his reluctance to be more explicit. ‘Then you’ll be home tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time are you leaving?’ she asked in sudden concession.

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Are you going back to the Questura?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was going to add something about needing to hear if the man had been formally charged, but he stopped himself. He didn’t like lying, but it seemed better than having her worry about his deliberately putting himself in danger. If she knew, she’d tell him that both his age and his rank ought to spare him that.

  He had no idea if he’d get any sleep that night, or where, but he went back into the bedroom and put a few things into a small bag. He opened the left door of the large walnut armadio, the one Count Orazio had given them as a wedding present, and pulled out his keys. He used one of them to unlock a drawer, then another for a rectangular metal box. He pulled out his pistol and holster, and slipped them into his pocket, then carefully relocked both the box and the drawer.

  He thought of the Iliad, then, and of Achilles donning his armour before going into battle with Hector: mighty shield, greaves, spear, sword and helmet. How paltry a thing and how ignoble seemed this little metal object resting against his hip, the gun Paola always referred to as a portable penis. And yet how quickly had gunpowder put an end to chivalry and all those ideas of glory descended from Achilles. He stopped at the door and told himself to pay attention: he was going to Castelfranco on business and he had to say goodbye to his wife.

  * * * *

  Though he hadn’t seen della Corte for some years, he recognized him the instant he walked into the Padova Questura: same dark eyes and unruly moustache.

  Brunetti called to him and the policeman turned towards the sound of his name. ‘Guido,’ he said and walked over quickly. ‘How good to see you again.’

  Talking of what they’d done during the last few years, they walked down to della Corte’s office. There, the talk of old cases continued over coffee and, when it was finished, they started to discuss the plans for that night. Delia Corte suggested they wait until after ten to leave Padova, which would get them to Castelfranco by eleven, when they were supposed to meet the local police, who had been told about Palmieri and had insisted they come along.

  When they got to the Castelfranco Questura a few minutes before eleven, they were met by Commissario Bonino and two officers wearing jeans and leather jackets. They had prepared a map of the area surrounding the apartment where Palmieri lived, complete down to every detail: spaces in the parking lot beside the house, location of all of the doors in the building, even a floor plan of his apartment.

  ‘How did you get this?’ Brunetti asked, letting his admiration speak in his voice.

  Bonino nodded to the younger of the policemen. ‘The building is only a few years old,’ he explained, ‘and I knew the plans would have to be down at the ufficio catasto, so I went there this afternoon and asked for a blueprint of the second floor. He’s on the third, but the layout is the same.’ He stopped talking and looked down at the blueprint, calling their attention back to it.

  It appeared simple enough: a single staircase led up to a corridor. Palmieri’s apartment was at the end of the hall. All they had to do was place two men below his windows, one at the bottom of the stairs, and that left two to go in and two to work as back-up in the hallway. Brunetti was about to observe that seven seemed excessive, but then he remembered that Palmieri might have killed four men and said nothing.

  Two cars parked a few hundred metres beyond the building and they all got out. The two young men in jeans had been chosen to go up to the apartment with Brunetti and della Corte, who would make the actual arrest. Bonino said he’d cover the stairs and the two from Padova moved off to take their places under the three fat pines that stood between the apartment building and the street, one man with a view of the front entrance, the other of the rear.

  Brunetti, della Corte, and the two officers took the stairs. At the top they split up. The men in jeans stayed inside the stairwell, one propping open the door with his foot.

  Brunetti and della Corte walked to Palmieri’s door. Silently, Brunetti tried the handle, but the door was locked. Delia Corte knocked twice, not loudly. Silence. He knocked again, louder this time. Then he called, ‘Ruggiero, it’s me. They sent me to get you. You’ve got to get out. The police are on the way.’

  Inside, something fell over and smashed, probably a light. But none came from under the door. Delia Corte banged on it again. ‘Ruggiero, per l’amor di Dio, would you get out here. Move.’

  Inside, there were more noises; something else fell, but this was heavy, a chair or a table. They heard shouts coming from below, probably the other policemen. At the sound of their voices both Brunetti and della Corte moved away from the doorway
and stood with their backs against the wall.

  And not a moment too soon. One, two more, then two further bullets tore through the thick wood of the door. Brunetti felt something sting his face and when he looked down he saw two drops of blood on the front of his coat. Suddenly the two young officers were kneeling on either side of the door, their pistols in their hands. Like an eel, one of them flipped over on to his back, pulled his legs up to his chest and, with piston-like force, slammed his feet into the door, just where it joined the jamb. The wood gave and his second kick sent it slamming open. Even before the door hit the inside wall, the man on the floor had spun himself like a top into the room.