by Donna Leon
‘And you’ve lived here how long, Signora Boscarini?’
‘All my life,’ she answered, equally careful to speak Italian but not finding it at all easy. ‘Sixty-three years.’
Emotions or experiences he couldn’t imagine made her look at least ten years older than that, but Brunetti did nothing more than make another note. ‘Your husband, Signora?’ Brunetti asked, knowing that she would be complimented by the assumption that she must have one, insulted to be asked if she did.
‘Dead. Thirty-four years ago. In a storm.’ Brunetti made a note of the importance of this fact. He looked up again and decided not to ask about children.
‘Have you had the same neighbours all this time, Signora?’
‘Yes. Except for the Rugolettos three doors down,’ she said, giving an angry toss of her chin to the left. ‘They moved in twelve years ago, from Burano, when her grandfather died and left them the house. She’s dirty, the wife,’ she said in dismissive contempt and then, to make sure he understood why, added, ‘Buranesi.’
Brunetti grunted in acknowledgement, then, wasting no time, asked, ‘Did you know Signora Follini?’
She smiled at this, hardly able to contain her pleasure, then quickly smothered the expression. Brunetti heard a small noise and glanced across at her. It took him an instant to realize that she was actually licking her lips repeatedly, as if freeing them at last to tell the awful truth. ‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘I knew her, and I knew her parents. Good people, hard working. She killed them. Killed them as if she’d taken a knife and driven it into her poor mother’s heart.’
Brunetti, looking down at his notebook to hide his face, made encouraging noises and continued to write.
Again she paused, made the licking noise, then went on. ‘She was a whore and a drug addict and brought disease and disgrace on her family. I’m not surprised that she’s dead or that she died the way she did. I’m just surprised that it took so long.’ She was silent for a moment, and then added, in a voice so unctuous Brunetti closed his eyes, ‘God have mercy on her soul.’
Allowing the deity sufficient time to register the request, Brunetti then asked, ‘You said she was a prostitute, Signora? While she was here? Was she still?’
‘She was a whore when she was a child and a young woman. Once a woman does that sort of thing, she’s defiled, and she never loses the taste for it.’ Her voice reflected both certainty and disgust. ‘So she must have been doing it now. That’s obvious.’
Brunetti turned a page, mastered his expression, and looked up with an encouraging smile. ‘Do you know anyone who might have been her client?’ He saw her begin to answer, then think of the consequences of false accusation and close her mouth.
‘Or suspect anyone, Signora?’ When she still hesitated, he shut the notebook, placed it on the table, capped his pen and placed it on top. ‘It’s often just as important for us, Signora, to have a sense of what’s going on, even if we don’t have proof. It’s enough to start us on the right road, to know where to begin to look.’ She said nothing, so he went on, ‘And it’s only the most courageous and virtuous citizens who can help us, Signora, especially in an age when most people are all too willing to close their eyes to immorality and the sort of behaviour that corrupts society by destroying the unity of the family.’ He had been tempted to refer to ‘sacred unity’, but thought it might be excessive and so contented himself with the lesser nonsense. It sufficed, however, for Signora Boscarini.
‘Stefano Silvestri.’ The name slithered off her lips: the man who had been so careful to explain that he took his wife to the larger stores on the Lido once a week. ‘He was always in the store, like a dog sniffing at a bitch to see if she was ready for him.’
Brunetti received this information with his accepting noise but made no motion towards his notebook. As if encouraged by that act of discretion, she went on: ‘She tried to make it look like she wasn’t interested, made fun of him whenever anyone was around, but I know what she was up to. We all did. She led him on.’ Brunetti listened calmly, trying to recall if this woman had been on the steps of the church and wondering what going to Mass might mean for someone like her.
‘Can you think of any other man or men who might have been involved with her?’ he asked.
‘There was talk,’ she began, all too eager to let him know. ‘Another married man,’ she began, lips wet and eager. ‘A fisherman.’ For a moment, he thought she was going to name him, but he saw her consider the consequences, and she said only, ‘I’m sure there were many more.’ When Brunetti remained silent in the face of this slander, she said, ‘It’s because she provoked them.’
‘Of course,’ he permitted himself to say. Which would be worse, he wondered: death at sea or another thirty-four years with this woman? He sensed that she was willing to tell him nothing more, assuming that what she had given him was information and not mere spite and jealousy, he got to his feet and picked up his notebook and pen. Slipping them into his pocket, he said, ‘Thank you for your help, Signora. I assure you that everything you’ve said will be kept in the strictest confidence. And, speaking personally, I would like to remark that it is rare for a witness to be so willing to give us this sort of information.’ It was a small shot, and it seemed to pass her by, but it was still a shot and it made him feel better. With every expression of politeness, he took his leave, glad to escape from her house, her words, and the sound of that flicking, reptilian tongue.
As they had agreed, he and Vianello met at the bar at five. Each ordered coffee, and when the barman moved off after setting the small cups down in front of them, Brunetti asked, ‘Well?’
‘There was someone. A man,’ Vianello said.
Brunetti tore open two packets of sugar and poured them into his coffee, stirred it and drank it in one long sip. ‘Who?’ Vianello, he noticed, still drank his coffee without sugar, a habit his own grandmother had believed ‘thinned the blood’, whatever that meant.
‘No idea. And it was only one man who said anything, something about the way Signora Follini was always up before dawn, even though the store didn’t open until eight. It wasn’t actually what he said so much as the way he said it, and the look his wife gave him when he did.’
That was all Vianello had, and it didn’t seem like very much. It could have been Stefano Silvestri, though Brunetti hardly thought his wife was the sort who would allow her husband to be anywhere before dawn other than lying beside her or working his nets.
‘I saw Signorina Elettra,’ Vianello added.
Brunetti forced himself to pause before asking, ‘Where?’
‘Walking towards the beach.’
Brunetti refused to ask and after what seemed a long time, Vianello added, ‘She was with the same man.’
‘Do you know who he is?’
Vianello shook his head. ‘I suppose the best way to find out would be to ask Montisi to ask his friend.’
Brunetti didn’t like the idea, didn’t like the chance of doing anything that would call attention to Signorina Elettra in any way. ‘No, better to ask Pucetti.’
‘If he ever comes back to work,’ Vianello said, casting his eyes towards the far end of the bar, where the owner was deep in conversation with two men.
‘Where’s he living?’
‘In one of the houses. Cousin of the owner or something.’
‘Can we get in touch with him?’
‘No. He didn’t want to bring his telefonino; said he was afraid someone might call and leave a message that would compromise him.’
‘We could have issued him one, then none of his friends would know the number,’ Brunetti said with undisguised irritation.
‘Didn’t want that, either. Said you never know.’
‘Never know what?’ Brunetti demanded.
‘He didn’t say. But I imagine he thinks someone at the Questura might mention that he’d been issued a phone for use on some special assignment, or someone might make a call to it, or someone might be listening to all of o
ur calls.’
‘Isn’t that a bit paranoid?’ Brunetti asked, though he had himself, more than once, contemplated the third possibility.
‘I think it’s always safer to assume that everything you say is overheard.’
‘That’s no way to live,’ Brunetti said hotly, believing this.
Vianello shrugged. ‘So what shall we do?’
Brunetti remembered Rizzardi’s comments about ‘rough sex’. ‘I’d like to find out who she was seeing.’ He caught Vianello’s glance and added, ‘Signora Follini, that is.’
‘I still think the best way is to ask Montisi to ask his friend. These people aren’t going to tell us anything, at least not directly.’
‘I had a woman tell me that Signora Follini was still tempting the local men to sin,’ Brunetti said, disgust mingled with amusement.
‘Presumably one of the ones who was tempted was either her husband or the man next door.’
‘Two doors down.’
‘Same thing.’
Brunetti decided to return to the boat to ask Montisi to speak to his friend. That proved unnecessary, as the pilot, whom they ran into upon leaving the bar, had been invited to the man’s home for lunch, and then they had spent the rest of the afternoon sipping grappa and talking about their old days in the Army. After they’d relived the Albanian campaign and toasted the three Venetians who had not returned with them, their talk turned to their current lives. Montisi had been very careful to set the record straight about where his loyalties might lie, declaring his intention of retiring from the police as soon as he could.
As the three policemen walked slowly towards the boat, Montisi explained that it had proven relatively straightforward, and he had emerged, the bottle of grappa almost finished, with the name of Luisa Follini’s lover.
‘Vittorio Spadini,’ he said, not without pride in his achievement. ‘He’s from Burano. A fisherman. Married, three children, the sons are fishermen and the daughter’s married to one.’
‘And?’ Brunetti asked.
Perhaps as a result of the grappa or perhaps because of the recent talk of retiring, Montisi answered, ‘And that’s probably more than you and Vianello would get if you stayed here a week.’ Surprised to hear himself speak like this, he added, ‘Sir’, but the time between the answer and the title had been prolonged.
Silence fell, broken only when Montisi added, ‘But he’s not fishing much any more. He lost his boat about two years ago.’
Brunetti thought of Signora Boscarini’s husband and asked, ‘In a storm?’
Montisi dismissed the idea with a quick shake of his head. ‘No, worse. Taxes.’ Before Brunetti could ask how taxes could be worse than a storm, Montisi explained. ‘The Guardia di Finanza hit him with a bill for three years’ false declarations of what he earned. He tried to fight it for a year, but in the end he lost. You always do. They took his boat.’
Vianello broke in to ask, ‘Why is that worse than a storm?’
‘Insurance,’ Montisi answered. ‘Nothing can insure you against those bastards from the Finanza.’
‘How much was it worth?’ Brunetti asked, again made aware of just how little he knew about this world of boats and the men who went to sea in them.
‘They wanted five hundred million. That was fines and what they calculated he owed them, but no one has that much cash, so he had to sell the boat.’
‘My God, are they worth that much?’ Brunetti asked.
Montisi gave him a puzzled glance. ‘If they’re as big as his was, they’re worth much more; they can cost a billion.’
Vianello broke in. ‘If they wanted five hundred million for three years, that probably means he cheated them out of twice that, three times.’
‘Easily,’ Montisi agreed, not without a hint of pride at the cleverness of the men who fished the laguna. ‘Ezio told me Spadini thought he’d win. His lawyer told him to fight the case, but he probably did that just to make his own bill bigger. In the end, Spadini had no choice: they came and took it. If he had come up with enough cash to pay the fine, too many questions would have been asked,’ he said, leaving the others to assume that the money was there, hidden in secret investments or accounts, like so much of the wealth of Italy. He glanced at Vianello and added, ‘Someone told me that the judge was one of the Greens.’
Vianello shot him a glance but said nothing.
Montisi went on, ‘That he had a grudge against all of the vongolari because of what they do to the laguna.’
At this, Vianello finally said, his voice dangerously tight, ‘Paolo, cases like this, about taxes, don’t come up before judges.’ Before Montisi could answer, he added, ‘Whether they belong to the Greens or not.’ Then, turning to Brunetti but obviously aiming his remarks at Montisi, Vianello added, ‘Next we’re probably going to be told about the way the Greens take vipers up in helicopters and drop them in the mountains to repopulate the species.’ Then to Montisi he said, his voice more aggressive than Brunetti could ever remember it, ‘Come on, Paolo, aren’t you going to tell us how friends of yours have found dead vipers in bottles up in the mountains or how they’ve seen people tossing them out of helicopters?’
Montisi looked at the sergeant but didn’t bother to answer, his silence resonant with his conviction of the futility of attempting to reason with fanatics. Brunetti had, over the course of the years, heard many people speak of these mysterious, malevolent helicopters, piloted by mad ecologists bent on restoring some perverted idea of ‘nature’, but it had never occurred to him that anyone could actually believe in them.
They had reached, not just an impasse, but the boat. Montisi turned away from them and busied himself with the mooring ropes. Vianello, perhaps in an attempt to soften the effect of his remarks, went to the back and began to untie the second rope. Brunetti left them to it, busy with calculations of the surprising sums that had just been referred to. When Montisi had the rope coiled, Brunetti followed him aboard and called to him as the pilot went up the steps towards the wheel, ‘You’d have to catch a lot of fish to afford a boat like that.’
‘Clams,’ Montisi instantly corrected him. ‘That’s where the money is. No one’s going to take a shot at you over fish, but if they catch you digging up their clams and ruining their beds, then there’s no telling what they’ll do.’
‘Is that what he did, ruin the beds?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I told you it’s what they all do,’ Montisi answered. ‘They’ll dig anywhere, and every year there are fewer clams. So the price goes up.’ He looked from Brunetti to Vianello, who was standing on the dock, listening. With a brusque beckoning gesture, the pilot waved towards the sergeant and said, ‘Come on, Lorenzo.’ Vianello tossed his end of the rope around one of the stanchions on the side of the boat and jumped on board.
‘But if he’s lost his boat,’ Brunetti said, pretending to ignore the successful conclusion of peace negotiations, and bringing the conversation back from the general to the particular, ‘what does he do now?’
‘Fidele said he’s working for one of his sons, runs one of his boats for him,’ Montisi said, pulling out dials on the panel in front of him. ‘It’s a much smaller boat, and there’s only two of them on it.’
‘Must be difficult for him,’ Vianello interrupted, ‘not being the owner any more.’
Montisi shrugged. ‘Depends on the son, I suppose.’
‘And Signora Follini?’ Brunetti asked, again bringing the conversation back to his immediate concern.
‘It had been going on for about two years,’ Montisi said. ‘Ever since he lost the boat.’ Feeling that this wasn’t sufficient explanation, Montisi went on. ‘He doesn’t have to get to sea so early any more, only when he wants to.’
‘And the wife?’ Vianello asked.
All of Italy and all of its history and culture went into the shrug with which Montisi dismissed this question. ‘She’s got a home, and he pays the rent. They’ve got three children, all married and on their own. What has she got to complain ab
out?’ Anything else he might have said was lost in the sound of the engine, which sprang to life at his command.
Not wanting to discuss this, Brunetti was content that they should return to the city, to their own homes and to their own children.
19
BRUNETTI HAD BEEN in his office for less than an hour the following morning when he answered the phone to hear Signorina Elettra’s voice.
‘Where are you?’ he asked brusquely, then moderated his tone and added, ‘I mean how are you?’
Her long silence suggested how she felt about being questioned in this manner. When she did answer, however, there was no sign of resentment in her voice. ‘I’m on the beach. And I’m fine.’
The far-off cries of the gulls spoke to the truth of the first, the lightness in her voice to the second.
‘Signorina,’ he began with little preparation and less thought, ‘you’ve been there more than a week now. I think it’s time you began to think about coming back.’
‘Oh, no, sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.’
‘But I do,’ he insisted. ‘I think you should say your farewells to your family and report for work tomorrow.’
‘It’s the beginning of the week, sir. I’d planned to stay until at least the weekend.’
‘Well, I think it would be better if you came back. There’s a lot of work that’s piled up since you left.’
‘Please, sir. I’m sure it’s nothing one of the other secretaries couldn’t handle.’
‘I need to get some information,’ Brunetti said, realizing how close his voice came to pleading. ‘Things I don’t want the secretaries to know about.’
‘Vianello can handle the computer well enough now to get you what you want.’
‘It’s the Guardia di Finanza,’ Brunetti said, playing what he thought would be a trump card. ‘I need information from them and I doubt that Vianello would be able to get it.’
‘What sort of information, sir?’ He heard noises in the background: gulls, a horn of some sort, a car engine starting, and he remembered how narrow the beach of Pellestrina was and how close to the road.