by Donna Leon
The police soon discovered that they owned and rented to tourists a total of six apartments, none of the income declared to the authorities. They were also the owners of a boutique twenty-three-room hotel which somehow had prospered in a building invisible to the Land Registry Office and the Guardia di Finanza, notwithstanding the fact that they had managed to obtain electricity, gas, telephone, water, and garbage collection services, and employed eleven people, all of whom were registered with the tax authority and paying their taxes.
The Guardia di Finanza soon relieved the police of the need to concern themselves with the pharmacist and his wife. The newspapers, although growing tired of the couple, failed to return the public eye to the murder on Rio Marin, so Pietro Cavanis was replaced by usurers, seven hundred kilos of cocaine in a truck coming off the ferry from Patras, and a band of Moldavian criminals known to be at work in the Veneto.
Brunetti felt obliged to tell the Contessa that they had made little progress in the investigation of what had happened to her granddaughter and decided to do this in person. To his surprise, he found both Griffoni and Manuela there when he arrived late one afternoon, and was even more surprised to learn that Griffoni occasionally brought Manuela to see her grandmother and stayed to have tea with them before taking Manuela back home.
Brunetti met Griffoni on the ground floor the next day and, as they started up towards their offices, asked her about this. She explained that, since the horse that she was going out to Preganziol to ride still legally belonged to the Contessa, the least she could do to thank her was accompany Manuela once a week when she went to see her grandmother.
‘What do you talk about with Manuela?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, about the people we see on the street, or the shop windows, or the dogs that go by, and how nice it is to have tea with her grandmother.’
‘Every week?’
‘More or less,’ Griffoni said. ‘It makes Manuela happy.’
‘Seeing you?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Getting out and being with people, seeing life on the streets. Her mother doesn’t get on well with her ex- mother-in-law and doesn’t like to go there. This way, with me, Manuela gets to see her grandmother, who’s very happy to have her visit,’ Griffoni said, having failed to answer his question.
‘What about the horse?’ he asked, pausing when they arrived at the second floor.
‘Oh, I go out once in a while and take her out. Petunia’s very sweet.’
‘Is that enough for you?’ Brunetti asked, not at all sure what he meant but thinking of her silver medal and the sort of horse that would be worth transporting to the Olympics.
‘At this time of our lives, it is. Both of us have had time to calm down and take things more easily,’ Griffoni said, a remark that reminded Brunetti of how very little he knew about her life beyond the Questura.
‘Do you ride her in that field?’ he asked.
‘The first few times, Enrichetta asked me to, and I did. But then we both got bored, and Enrichetta could see that, so she told me to go out on the paths in the woods.’ She smiled at that. ‘It’s much better.’
‘I don’t remember any woods there,’ Brunetti said.
‘Well, there’s a plantation where trees are grown to be harvested, and there are paths between the trees,’ she said, drawing the trees and the paths with her hands. ‘Besides, we’re not doing anything fancy, just trotting along and getting to know one another.’
‘Like a marriage?’ he asked.
‘A little bit, yes,’ Griffoni laughed, but before she could say anything else, Lieutenant Scarpa approached and stopped at the head of the stairs. Brunetti moved so that Scarpa would not have to pass between them.
‘Good afternoon, Commissari,’ he said, raising his hand and giving Brunetti an uncharacteristic smile.
‘Lieutenant,’ they both acknowledged and remained silent until his footsteps had disappeared below them. Griffoni said, ‘I’ll get back to work,’ and turned towards her office, while Brunetti continued towards his own.
That same night the temperature plummeted and it rained: buckets, torrents, floods, cascades. The next morning people waited to leave their homes until they could see that the streets had rejected the thin coating of ice that the rain had left behind. The air had been washed clean, and for the first time in months Brunetti could see the Dolomites from the window of the kitchen.
Brunetti put on his thickest-soled shoes, more suitable for the mountains than for the city, and walked to the corner, where he decided to take the vaporetto, conscious that, for the first time in his life, the idea of falling on the street had influenced his behaviour.
When he arrived at the Questura, the officer at the door told him that Signorina Elettra had asked him to go to her office. No, he replied in response to Brunetti’s question, the Vice-Questore had not yet arrived.
He could tell, when he entered her office, that she had something unpleasant to tell him. They exchanged greetings, and Brunetti stepped back to lean against the windowsill. No sun to warm his back today. It was Tuesday, and she had been to the flower market, so her office was ablaze, today with tulips: three, no, four different vases of them and no doubt a few more in Dottor Patta’s office.
In a bow to autumn, Signorina Elettra was wearing a deep orange woollen dress, with a dark chrysanthemum- red scarf wrapped closely around her neck. Her hair, usually gleaming chestnut, appeared to have more red highlights today. ‘You’re not going to like this,’ she said, not at all to his surprise.
‘What?’
‘There are two things, Commissario. It’s been a week and Giorgio still hasn’t been in touch, and he’s the only one I can ask to find the calls made with those cards.’ She forestalled his question by saying, ‘Yes, I sent an official request, but it’ll be at least another week before we get any sort of response.’
Brunetti had the feeling that this news was the lesser evil and said, ‘Let’s hope Giorgio can find the information sooner.’ He smiled to show he was neither angry nor impatient.
She gave an uncharacteristic ‘Um’ before she said, ‘And Dottor Gottardi has looked at all the files concerning Manuela and thinks there’s nothing to pursue.’ She raised both hands in a sign of surrender.
‘And?’ Brunetti asked, refusing to permit himself to remark that Dottor Gottardi was not proving to be a compliant magistrate.
‘He’s read your report about the possible link to Cavanis’ murder, and he sees no reason to believe the two cases are related. It’s not his case, but he says there’s not been much progress.’
‘And so?’ he asked politely. She hadn’t yet said anything he particularly disliked, so the surprise no doubt lay in whatever order the magistrate might have for him.
‘And so he’s suggested you be put in charge of everything that’s emerged after that boy fell from the altana.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti said. ‘I thought the Guardia di Finanza had taken it over.’
‘That case, yes,’ she said. ‘But he thinks there should be a separate investigation into the private hotels and bed and breakfast places.’ She looked at the keyboard of her computer as she told him this.
Suddenly he remembered a picture from a book he’d read to the kids when they were young: a cat on a branch in a tree, slowly disappearing and leaving behind only his menacing smile. And that thought led him to Scarpa’s almost cordial smile as he was coming up the stairs.
‘It’s Scarpa, isn’t it?’ he asked.
She looked at the screen of her computer and nodded. ‘I’d say so. Probably.’
‘How did he manage that?’ Brunetti asked, sure she would know.
‘Do you know Dottor Gottardi?’ she asked.
Brunetti had spoken to the magistrate, who had been there only a few months, but had never worked with him on a case before Manuela’s.
/> ‘He’s from Trento, isn’t he?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And his family is involved in local politics.’
Why was she telling him this? Who cared about the magistrate’s family when the only thing that mattered was that he could be such a fool as to believe anything Scarpa told him.
‘His father was mayor of their town for thirty years, and now his older brother is.’
‘How did you learn all of this?’ Brunetti demanded with more force than he should have used.
‘My best friend told me,’ she said, patting the top of the computer screen.
That stopped Brunetti. ‘What else did your friend tell you?’
‘The whole family are Separatists,’ she said. ‘They want to return to being part of Austria.’
‘How does this affect Dottor Gottardi?’
She flicked something invisible from the front of her skirt and said, ‘Every one of them is to the right of the Lega Nord, especially on the subject of immigration. So Gottardi’s chosen to become the family rebel. Everyone’s equal, immigrants and southerners must be treated with respect.’
A soft moan escaped Brunetti as he followed this to the logical conclusion. ‘So he’s got to fall over backwards to show how he treats them with respect? And that means he feels obliged to pay attention to Scarpa because he’s a Sicilian.’
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration,’ Signorina Elettra suggested.
‘But no less true for that,’ insisted Brunetti. He cast around for a solution, not only because he thought the investigation of the hotels could easily be handled by the uniformed branch – Pucetti was certainly bright enough to do it – but because he refused to become Scarpa’s puppet.
He glanced over and asked if she had a suggestion, and her face showed that she had.
Memory led to inspiration and he said, ‘The false email from the Ministry of Justice?’
She smiled and nodded.
‘Can you prove it was Scarpa?’
‘Perhaps not in any way that would stand up legally, but the original sender was not very well disguised in the mail from Signora Viscardi.’ She said this last with infinite contempt. ‘It can easily be traced back to the Lieutenant.’
A chess player would no doubt have viewed the situation in terms of pawns and rooks being moved about on the board, bestowing advantage here and there. It was now Brunetti’s move, but instead of flirting with two forward and one to the right to take the other knight, he wanted to beat Scarpa’s head in with a stick.
‘What are our options?’ he asked.
She smiled at the plural and gave something that resembled a nod. ‘He’s pushed me beyond options, I’m afraid,’ Signorina Elettra said, sounding not unlike an exasperated kindergarten teacher. The time of soft words had ended. ‘I think I’ll threaten him.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll tell him I’m going to send the email to the actual Assistant of the Minister, who is a friend of mine, and ask her to have the Minister read it.’
‘Is she really a friend?’ Brunetti asked, marvelling at how wide her net was spread.
‘Of course not.’ Then, after a moment, she added, ‘But at least she exists, unlike Eugenia Viscardi.’
‘What will you tell him?’
‘That I’m following the trail of the email to its real source.’ Her smile was very broad and equally cold. But then her face grew more sober and she said, ‘I can’t imagine how he could have been so sloppy.’ Was that disappointment he heard in her voice?
‘He underestimated you,’ Brunetti said, meaning it as a compliment.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘How insulting.’
Abandoning all thought of mincing words, Brunetti asked, ‘What will you make him do?’
‘Tell Dottor Gottardi that he’s given the subject further thought and he’s seen that he’s been rash, and perhaps it would be wise to continue the investigation into what happened to Manuela.’
‘For what reason?’
‘To avoid the accusation that, by not considering the possibility that she met with foul play, Dottor Gottardi would be discriminating against a handicapped person.’ Brunetti’s mind reeled. ‘I suspect, however, that Dottor Gottardi would call her “differently abled”.’
‘Will this work with Scarpa?’ he asked, filled with a new appreciation of her many talents.
‘To a certain degree,’ she said. ‘He’ll become more cautious, I suppose, though I don’t think it will help him in the long run. The Lieutenant is clever enough, but I think it’s time he realizes just how outclassed he is.’
‘You sound very certain of that,’ Brunetti said.
‘He’s a bully, and like most bullies, he lacks the killer instinct. Once he comes up against someone who isn’t afraid of him, he retreats.’ Then, with absolute conviction, she said, ‘He’ll do what I tell him to do.’
‘And if not?’ Brunetti inquired.
‘I’ll destroy him.’
24
Signorina Elettra had her way. Lieutenant Scarpa found an opportunity to explain his second thoughts to Dottor Gottardi, and the magistrate in his turn suggested to Brunetti that he resume his investigation of that poor handicapped girl and of the the murder of the man who had saved her. The hotel and bed and breakfast investigation was given to another commissario – luckily, not to Claudia Griffoni who, it was feared, might not be sufficiently aware of the many tangled obligations and relationships that existed between and among those requesting and those granting the permits necessary in this expanding business.
Once the case was back in his charge, however, Brunetti made little progress. Cavanis proved to have had few friends. He had used his telefonino rarely and within a narrow scope. Aside from the calls made just before his death, he had recently phoned an aunt in Torino, Stefano dalla Lana, the number which gave the forecast of the time and height of acqua alta, and the Giorgione movie theatre. Only the aunt and dalla Lana had phoned him in the last four months.
Brunetti was almost relieved when a Chinese-run and staffed bordello was discovered in Lista di Spagna, not far from the train station, and he was asked by another magistrate to look into it. It was banal, really, but the interviews and the follow-up arrests, which led to more interviews and more arrests, all rose upwards on the feeding chain of organized prostitution in the province.
As this investigation mutated and took up more and more of his time, Brunetti thought less often about the dead man and the horror of the first sight of that knife.
In the second week of November, late in the afternoon of the feast of San Martino, Brunetti left the Questura early, hoping to see the children on the street banging their pots and pans and asking passers-by for coins. He had done the same as a boy, though he had never understood the reason for the custom. That had made no difference to him, happy as he had been then to get the money and happy now to be able to give it away.
He saw three or four groups and gave each of them a few euros, delighting them with his generosity. As he turned into Ruga Rialto, he was surprised to see Griffoni and Manuela approaching him. At first he took them for mother and daughter, walking arm in arm, heads together, talking and laughing. Griffoni smiled to see him, and Manuela politely extended her hand as if she had never met him.
‘We’ve just been to visit the Contessa,’ Griffoni explained. Turning to the other woman, she said, ‘What’s the price on those grey shoes in that window, Manuela? Can you see?’
The window was on the other side of the calle, so Manuela had to move away from them to go and have a look. In her absence, Griffoni said, ‘I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this, but the Contessa keeps asking me if we’ve learned anything.’ She kept her voice entirely neutral; there was no hint of reproach.
‘How is she?’ Brunetti asked.
&n
bsp; ‘Old and weak,’ Griffoni said.
‘How often do you go to see her?’
‘Not as often as she’d like,’ Griffoni said. They were interrupted by a group of five boys, who surrounded them and beat their wooden spoons on the bottoms of their pots, chanting the same song about San Martino that Brunetti had shouted out in his own time. He gave them two euros and off they went to encircle an elderly couple, who seemed as delighted by the noise as Brunetti had been.
Turning back to Griffoni, Brunetti said, ‘And the . . .’ then caught himself just as he was about to refer to Manuela as ‘the girl’ and changed it to ‘Manuela’, but it was awkwardly done, and he was embarrassed.
‘She loves to be out and walking and seeing things,’ Griffoni said as Manuela came back to her.
‘I didn’t see a tag,’ she told Griffoni, looking back and forth between her and Brunetti. ‘Is that all right?’ she asked, and he winced at the vulnerability in her voice.
‘Of course it is, Tesoro,’ Griffoni said, linking her arm in hers. ‘If they were stupid enough not to put a price on them, then we’re not interested, and that’s that.’
Manuela smiled and shook her head. ‘They’re not for us, are they?’
‘Not at all,’ Griffoni confirmed and patted her arm. Then, in a grown-up voice, the one used for teaching manners, she said, ‘Say goodbye to Dottor Brunetti, Manuela.’ After the young woman had dutifully done this, Griffoni said, careful to address the remark to Manuela, ‘Maybe we’ll see him again at your grandmother’s.’
‘That would be very nice,’ Manuela said pleasantly, proof of how well she had learned her manners.
Griffoni said a polite goodbye and they started down the calle, heading towards Manuela’s home.