by Donna Leon
When Brunetti went into Signorina Elettra’s office, she looked up at him but didn’t give her usual smile. ‘What’s wrong, Signorina?’
Instead of answering, she pointed to a manila folder on her desk. ‘Padre Pio Cavaletti is what’s wrong, Dottore.’
‘As bad as that?’ Brunetti asked, though he had no idea what he meant by ‘that’.
‘Read it, and you’ll see.’
Brunetti picked up the slim folder and opened it with interest. It held photocopies of three documents. The first was a one-sentence letter from the Lugano Office of the Union Bank of Switzerland to ‘Signor Pio Cavaletti’; the second was a letter addressed to ‘Padre Pio’, written in a hand that trembled across the page with sickness or age, perhaps both; the third carried the by-now-familiar crest of the Patriarchate of Venice.
He glanced again at Signorina Elettra, who sat quietly, hands neatly folded on the desk in front of her, waiting for him to finish reading. He turned back to the papers and read through them slowly.
‘Signor Cavaletti. We acknowledge your 29 January deposit of 27,000 Swiss francs to your account with this bank.’ The computer-generated bank form had no signature.
‘Sainted Father, you have turned my sinful eyes to God. His grace is not of this world. You were right – my family is not of God. They do not know Him or recognize His power. Only you, Father, you and the other holy saints. It is you and the saints we must thank with more than words. I go to God knowing I have done this.’ The signature was illegible.
‘Permission is herewith granted to the pious union Opus Dei to establish and maintain in this city a mission of study and holy works under the direction of Padre Pio Cavaletti.’ This one bore the signature and seal of the director of the office of religious foundations.
Having finished the three pages, Brunetti looked up. ‘What do you make of these, Signorina?’
‘I make of them exactly what they are, Dottore.’
‘And that is?’
‘Spiritual blackmail. Not much different from what they’ve been doing for centuries, just a little shabbier and on a smaller scale.’
‘Where did they come from?’
‘The second and third are from files kept in the office of the Patriarch. Not from the same file.’
‘And the first?’
‘From a reliable source,’ was the only explanation she gave and, Brunetti saw, the only one she was going to give.
‘I’ll take your word for that, Signorina.’
‘Thank you,’ she said with simple grace.
‘I’ve been reading about them, Opus Dei,’ he volunteered. ‘Does your friend’s friend, the one at the Patriarchate, know if they’re very’ – Brunetti wanted to use the word ‘powerful’, but something akin to superstition prevented him – ‘if they’re very much of a presence in the city?’
‘He says it’s very difficult to be certain about them or about what they do. But he’s convinced that their power is very real.’
‘That’s just what people used to say about witches, Signorina.’
‘Witches didn’t own entire neighbourhoods in London, Dottore. Nor did they have a Pope who praised them for their “sacred mission”. Nor did witches,’ she began, pointing to the folder he still held, ‘have ecclesiastical sanction to set up centres for study and holy works.’
‘I never knew you had such strong feelings about religion,’ he said.
‘This has nothing to do with religion,’ she snapped out.
‘No?’ His surprise was real.
‘It has to do with power.’
Brunetti considered this for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’
In a more relaxed voice, Signorina Elettra said, ‘Vice-Questore Patta asked me to tell you that the visit from the Swiss police chief has been postponed.’
Brunetti hardly heard her. ‘It’s what my wife says.’ When he saw that she wasn’t following him, Brunetti added by way of explanation, ‘About power.’ And as soon as she understood, he asked, ‘Excuse me, what did you say about the Vice-Questore?’
‘The visit from the Swiss police chief has been postponed.’
‘Ah, I’d forgotten all about it. Thank you, Signorina.’ Saying nothing else, he placed the folder on her desk and went back to his office to get his coat.
This time his ring was answered by a middle-aged man wearing something that was meant, Brunetti supposed, to look like a friar’s habit but which succeeded only in making him look like a man in a badly hemmed skirt. When Brunetti explained that he had come to speak to Padre Pio, the doorkeeper folded his hands together and bowed his head but said nothing. He led Brunetti across the courtyard, where there was no sign of the gardener, though the scent of lilac was even stronger. Inside, the sharp odours of disinfectant and wax lurked under the sweet pall of lilac. On the way they passed a younger man walking in their direction. The two demiclerics nodded silently to one another, and Brunetti saw it as so much pious posturing.
The man Brunetti had come to think of as the artful mute stopped outside the door to Padre Pio’s office and nodded to Brunetti that he might enter. When he did, without bothering to knock, he found the windows closed, but this time he noticed the crucifix that hung on the far wall. Since it was a religious image that Brunetti disliked, he gave it no more than a cursory glance, taking no interest in whatever aesthetic value it might have.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Padre Pio came into the room. As Brunetti recalled, he wore the religious habit with ease, managing to look comfortable in it. Brunetti’s attention was again pulled to the full lips, but this time he realized how the centre of the man lay in his eyes, greyish green and bright with intelligence.
‘Welcome back, Commissario,’ the priest said. ‘Thank you for your message. Suor’Immacolata’s recovery is in response to our prayers, I’m sure.’
Though tempted, Brunetti did not begin by asking that he be spared the rhetoric of religious hypocrisy and, instead, said, ‘I’d like you to answer a few more questions.’
‘Gladly. So long as – as I explained the last time – they do not require me to divulge information which is sealed.’ Though the priest continued to smile, Brunetti sensed that he had registered the difference in Brunetti’s mood.
‘No, I doubt that any of this information is in any way privileged.’
‘Good. But before you begin, there’s no reason to stand. Let’s at least be comfortable.’ He led Brunetti to the same two chairs and, flicking back his habit with practised grace, lowered himself into the chair. He reached under his scapular with his right hand and began to finger his rosary. ‘What is it you’d like to know, Commissario?’
‘I’d like you to tell me about your work at the nursing home.’
Cavaletti gave a small laugh and said, ‘I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it, Dottore. I serve as chaplain to the patients and some of the staff. To bring people closer to their Maker is a joy; it is not work.’ He looked away toward the other side of the room, but not before he had seen Brunetti’s lack of response to these sentiments.
‘You hear their confessions?’
‘I’m not sure whether that’s a question or a statement, Commissario,’ Cavaletti replied with a smile, as if he wished to remove even the hint of sarcasm from his remark.
‘It’s a question.’
‘Then I’ll answer it.’ His smile was indulgent. ‘Yes, I hear the confessions of the patients, as well as of some of the staff. It’s a great responsibility, especially the confessions of the old people.’
‘And why is that, Father?’
‘Because they are nearer to their time, to their earthly ending.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said and then, as if it were the logical consequence of the previous answer, he asked, ‘Do you maintain an account at the Lugano branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland?’
The lips remained curved in their peaceful smile, but Brunetti was watching his eyes, which tightened almost imperceptibly and just for an ins
tant. ‘What a strange question,’ Cavaletti said, pulling his brows together in evident confusion. ‘How does it relate to the confessions of these old people?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out, Father,’ Brunetti said.
‘It’s still a strange question,’ Cavaletti said.
‘Do you maintain an account at the Lugano branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland?’
The priest moved his fingers to a new bead and said, ‘Yes, I do. Part of my family lives in the Ticino and I go to visit them two or three times a year. I find that it is more convenient to have the money there than to carry it back and forth with me.’
‘And how much do you keep in this account, Father?’
Cavaletti looked off into the distance, doing sums, and finally answered, ‘I’d guess about a thousand francs.’ Then, helpfully, he added, ‘That’s about a million lire.’
‘I know how to convert from lira to Swiss francs, Father. It’s one of the first things a policeman in this country has to learn.’ Then Brunetti smiled, showing the priest that this was a joke, but Cavaletti did not smile in return.
Brunetti asked his next question. ‘Are you a member of Opus Dei?’
Cavaletti dropped his rosary and raised his hands in front of him at this, palms toward Brunetti in an exaggerated gesture of appeal. ‘Oh, Commissario, what strange questions you ask. I wonder at the relationship that keeps them together in your head.’
‘I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no, Father.’
After a long silence, Cavaletti said, ‘Yes.’
Brunetti got to his feet. ‘That will be all, Father. I thank you for your time.’
The priest, for the first time, could not hide his surprise and lost a few seconds staring up at Brunetti. But he scrambled to his feet and went with him to the door and held it open while Brunetti passed out of the room. As he walked down the corridor, Brunetti was conscious of two things: the eyes of the priest on his back and, as he approached the open door at the end, the rich scent of the lilacs, swirling in from the courtyard. Neither sensation gave him any pleasure.
Chapter Nineteen
Though Brunetti didn’t believe there would be any danger to Maria Testa until the article had appeared in the Gazzettino–and he couldn’t be sure that there would be any danger even then – he still pushed himself away from Paola and out of bed a little after three and got dressed. It was not until he was buttoning his shirt that his head cleared enough for him to hear the rain driving against the windows of their bedroom. He muttered under his breath and went over to the window, opened the shutter, and then quickly shoved it closed against the wet gusts that pushed into the room. At the doorway, he put on his raincoat and picked up an umbrella, then remembered Vianello and picked up another.
In Maria Testa’s room, he found Vianello, groggy-eyed and bad-tempered, even though Brunetti arrived almost a half hour before he was expected. By mutual consent, neither of the men approached the sleeping woman, as if her complete helplessness served as a kind of burning sword to keep them at a distance. They greeted one another in hushed voices and then moved out into the corridor to speak.
‘Has anything happened?’ Brunetti asked, pulling his raincoat off and propping both umbrellas against the wall.
‘A nurse comes in every two hours or so,’ Vianello answered. ‘Doesn’t do anything, so far as I can tell. Just looks at her, takes her pulse, and writes something on the chart.’
‘Does she ever say anything?’
‘Who, the nurse?’ Vianello asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Not a word. I might as well be invisible.’ Vianello yawned. ‘Hard to stay awake.’
‘Why don’t you do some push-ups?’
Vianello gave Brunetti a steady look but said nothing.
‘Thanks for coming, Vianello,’ Brunetti offered by way of apology. ‘I brought you an umbrella. It’s pouring.’ When Vianello nodded his thanks, Brunetti asked, ‘Who’s coming in the morning?’
‘Gravini. And then Pucetti. I’ll relieve Pucetti when his shift’s over.’ Brunetti noted the delicacy with which Vianello avoided naming the time – midnight – when he would relieve the younger officer.
‘Thanks, Vianello. Go get some sleep.’
Vianello nodded and bit back an enormous yawn. He picked up the rolled umbrella.
As Brunetti opened the door to go back into the room, he turned and asked Vianello, ‘Was there any trouble about the staffing?’
‘Not yet,’ Vianello said, stopping in the hall and looking back.
‘How long?’ Brunetti asked, not knowing what to call the falsification of the staffing chart.
‘There’s never any telling, is there, but I’d guess it’ll be three or four days before Lieutenant Scarpa notices anything. Maybe a week. But no longer than that.’
‘Let’s hope they bite before that.’
‘If there’s anyone to bite,’ Vianello said, finally voicing his scepticism, and turned away. Brunetti watched his broad back turn right at the first staircase and disappear, and then he let himself back into the room. He draped his raincoat over the back of the chair where Vianello had been sitting and propped the umbrella in a corner.
A small light burned beside her bed, barely illuminating the space around her head and leaving the rest of the room in deep shadow. Brunetti doubted that the overhead light would disturb the woman in the bed – indeed, it would be a good sign if it did – but he still didn’t want to turn it on, and so he sat in the shadows and did not read, though he had brought along his copy of Marcus Aurelius, an author who had in the past provided great comfort in difficult times.
As the night wore on, Brunetti found himself running through the events that had taken place since Maria Testa had come into his office. Any one of them could be a coincidence: the cluster of deaths among the old people, the accident that had struck Maria from her bicycle, da Prè’s death. But their cumulative weight removed from Brunetti’s mind any possibility of accident or happenstance. And that possibility gone, then the three things were related, though he could not yet see how.
Messini dissuaded people from leaving money to him or to the nursing home, Padre Pio was named in none of the wills, and the sisters of the order could not own property. The Contessa was wealthy in her own right and had hardly needed her husband’s estate; da Prè wanted nothing more than little boxes to add to his collection; and Signorina Lerini appeared to have renounced worldly pomp. Cui bono? Cui bono? All that remained was to discover who stood to profit from the deaths, and the path would open before him, as if illuminated by torch-bearing seraphim, and lead him to the killer.
Brunetti knew he was a man of many weaknesses: pride, indolence, and wrath, to name those he thought most evident, but he also knew that greed was not among them, and so, when confronted with its many manifestations, Brunetti always felt himself in the presence of the alien. He knew it was a common, perhaps the most common, vice, and he could certainly apprehend it with his mind, but it always failed to move his heart, and it left his spirit cold.
He looked across the room at the woman in the bed, utterly motionless and silent. None of the doctors had any idea of the extent of the damage that had been done, apart from the damage done to her body. One said it was unlikely that she would emerge from the coma. Another said she would probably come out of it in a matter of days. Perhaps one of the sisters who worked here had responded with greatest wisdom when she told him, ‘Hope and pray, and trust in God’s mercy.’
As he looked at Maria and remembered the depths of charity that had radiated from the nun’s eyes as she spoke, another of the sisters came into the room. She walked over to the bed carrying a tray, set the tray on the table beside Maria’s bed, reached down and picked up her wrist. Glancing at her watch, she held Maria’s wrist for a few moments, then set it back on the covers and went to enter her findings on the chart that hung at the foot of the bed.
She picked up the tray and went toward the door. When sh
e saw Brunetti, she nodded, but she did not smile.
Nothing except that happened for the rest of the night. The same nurse came back at about six, and when she did, she found Brunetti standing against the wall in an attempt to keep himself awake.
At twenty to eight, Officer Gravini, wearing high rubber boots, a raincoat, and jeans came in. Even before saying good morning, he explained to Brunetti, ‘Sergeant Vianello told us not to wear our uniforms, sir.’
‘Yes, I know, Gravini. It’s fine, fine.’ The only window of the room faced a covered passageway, and so Brunetti had no idea of the weather. ‘How bad is it?’ he asked.
‘Pouring, sir. Supposed to keep on until Friday.’
Brunetti picked up his raincoat and put it on, regretting that he hadn’t worn his boots last night. He had hoped to be able to go back home and have a shower before going to the Questura, but it would be mad to walk to the other side of the city, not when he was so close to his office. Besides, a few coffees would be just as good.
That proved not to be the case, and by the time he got up to his office, he was cranky and ready for trouble. That came after only a few hours, when he received a call from the Vice-Questore, telling him to come down to his office.
Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, and so Brunetti went into Patta’s office without the forewarning she usually provided. This morning, sleepless, grainy-eyed, and with too much coffee in his stomach, he didn’t care in the least whether he had that warning or not.
‘I’ve had an alarming conversation with my lieutenant,’ Patta said without preamble. At any other time, Brunetti would have taken quiet, sardonic satisfaction in Patta’s accidental admission of what the entire Questura knew – Lieutenant Scarpa was Patta’s creature – but this morning he was dulled by sleeplessness and so barely noted the pronoun.
‘Did you hear me, Brunetti?’ Patta asked.
‘Yes, sir. But I find it difficult to imagine what sort of thing might alarm the lieutenant.’
Patta pushed himself back in his chair. ‘Your behaviour, for one thing,’ Patta shot back.