Death at La Fenice

by Donna Leon

  ‘What else about her personal life?’ Brunetti asked, frankly curious.

  ‘She keeps it very personal, I think. I have a friend in New York who went to school with her. Harvard, of course. Then Yale. After which she went to Taiwan and then to the mainland. She was one of the first Western archaeologists to go there. In ‘83 or ‘84, I think. She’d written her first book by then, while she was in Taiwan.’

  ‘Isn’t she young to have done all this?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she is. But she’s very, very good.’

  Antonia sailed past them, carrying coffees to the next table, and Brunetti signalled to her, mimed writing the check. She nodded.

  ‘I hope some of this will be of help to you,’ said Padovani, meaning it.

  ‘So do I,’ replied Brunetti, unwilling to admit that it wouldn’t, equally unwilling to admit that he was simply interested in the two women.

  ‘If there’s any other way I can help, please call,’ Padovani said, then added, ‘We could come here again. But if we do, I insist that you bring along two of your biggest policemen to protect me against . . . Ah, Signora Antonia,’ he said effortlessly as she came up to the table and placed the bill in front of Brunetti. ‘We have eaten superbly well and hope to return as soon as possible.’ The results of this flattery astonished Brunetti. For the first time that afternoon, Antonia smiled at them, a radiant blossoming of pure pleasure that revealed deep dimples at either side of her mouth and perfect, brilliant teeth. Brunetti envied Padovani his technique; it would prove invaluable in questioning suspects.

  21

  The intercity train made its way slowly across the causeway that joined Venice to the mainland and was soon passing to the right of the industrial horror of Marghera. Like a person who cannot keep from prodding an aching tooth with his tongue, Brunetti failed to look away from the forest of cranes and smokestacks and the miasma of filthy air that drifted back across the waters of the laguna towards the city from which he had come.

  Soon after Mestre, barren winter fields replaced the industrial blight, but the general prospect was not much improved. After the devastating drought of the summer, most of the fields were covered with unharvested corn that had proved too expensive to irrigate and too parched to pick.

  The train was only ten minutes late, so he was on time for his appointment with the doctor, whose office was in a modern building not far from the university. Because he was Venetian, Brunetti didn’t think to use the elevator and climbed the stairs to the third floor. When he opened the door to the office, he found the waiting room empty save for a white-uniformed woman who sat behind a desk. ‘The doctor will see you now,’ she said when he entered, not bothering to ask who he was. Did it show? Brunetti wondered yet again.

  Dr Treponti was a small, neat man with a short dark beard and brown eyes that were slightly magnified by the thick glasses he wore. His cheeks were as round and tight as a chipmunk’s, and he carried a small marsupial paunch in front of him. He didn’t smile when Brunetti came in, but he did offer his hand. Gesturing to a chair in front of his desk, he waited for Brunetti to sit down before resuming his own chair, and then he asked, ‘What is it you’d like to know?’

  Brunetti took a small publicity still of the conductor from his inside pocket and held it out to the doctor. ‘Is this the man who came to you? The man you said was Austrian?’

  The doctor took the photo, studied it briefly, and handed it back to Brunetti. ‘Yes, that’s the man.’

  ‘Why did he come to see you, Doctor?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me who he is? If the police are involved in this and his name isn’t Hilmar Doerr?’

  Brunetti was amazed that anyone could live in Italy and not know about the death of the conductor, but he simply said, ‘I’ll tell you that after you tell me what you can about him, Doctor.’ Before the other man could object, he added, ‘I don’t want anything you might tell me to be coloured by that information.’

  ‘This isn’t political, is it?’ the doctor asked, with the deep distrust that only Italians can put into the question.

  ‘No, it has nothing to do with politics. I give you my word.’

  However dubious the value of that commodity might have seemed to the doctor, he agreed. ‘Very well.’ He opened the manila folder on his desk and said, ‘I’ll have my nurse give you a copy of this later.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  ‘As I said, he told me that his name was Hilmar Doerr, and he said he was an Austrian who lived in Venice. Because he was not part of the Italian health plan, he came to me as a private patient. I saw no reason not to believe him.’ As he spoke, the doctor studied the notes on the lined paper in front of him. Brunetti could see how neat they were, even upside down.

  ‘He said that he had suffered some loss of hearing during the last months and asked me to check it. This was,’ the doctor said, flipping the chart back to the front and checking the date there, ‘on the third of November.

  ‘I performed the usual tests and found that there had been, as he said, a significant hearing loss.’ He anticipated Brunetti’s question and answered it. ‘I estimated that he still had sixty to seventy per cent of normal hearing.

  ‘What confused me was his saying that he had not had any hearing problems before; they had suddenly appeared in the last month or so.’

  ‘Would this sort of thing be common in a man of his age?’

  ‘He told me he was sixty-two. I assume that, too, is a lie? If you could give me his proper age, I might be better able to answer the question.’

  ‘He was seventy-four.’

  Hearing this, Dr Treponti turned the file back to the cover, crossed out something, and wrote a correction above it. ‘I don’t think that would change things,’ he said, ‘at least not substantially. The damage was sudden, and because it was to nerve tissue, it was irreversible.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, Doctor?’

  He didn’t even bother to answer. ‘Because of the nature of the loss, I suggested he return in two weeks, when I repeated the tests and found that there had been even more loss, and more damage. Also irreversible.’

  ‘How much more?’

  ‘I would estimate,’ he said, glancing down again at the figures on the chart, ‘another ten per cent. Perhaps a bit more.’

  ‘Was there anything you could do to help him?’

  ‘I suggested one of the new hearing aids. I hoped – I didn’t really believe – that it would help him.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘He never returned to my office.’

  Brunetti calculated for a moment. The second visit had taken place well into rehearsals for the opera. ‘Can you tell me more about this hearing aid?’

  ‘It’s very small, mounted on a pair of normal-looking glasses, with clear or prescription lenses. It works on the principle of –’ He broke off. ‘I’m not sure why this is important here.’

  Instead of explaining, Brunetti asked, ‘Is it something that might have helped?’

  ‘That’s difficult to say. So much of what we hear, we don’t hear with our ears.’ Seeing Brunetti’s confusion, he explained. ‘We do a good deal of lipreading, we fill in missing words from the context of the others we do hear. When people wear these hearing aids, they’ve finally accepted the idea that something is wrong with their hearing. So all of their other senses begin to work overtime, trying to fill in the missing signals and messages, and because the only thing that’s been added is the hearing aid, they believe it’s the hearing aid that’s helping them, when the only thing that’s happened, really, is that their other senses are working to their maximum to make up for the ears that can no longer hear as well.’

  ‘Was that the case here?’

  ‘As I told you, I can’t be sure. When I fitted him with the hearing aid, during the second appointment, he insisted that he could hear better. He responded more accurately to my questions
, but they all do, no matter whether there’s any real physical improvement. I’m in front of them, asking questions directly to them, looking at them, seen by them. With the tests, where the voices come to them through earphones and there are no visual signals, there’s seldom any improvement, not in cases like his.’

  Brunetti considered all this, then asked, ‘Doctor, you said that when he returned for the second examination, there had been even more loss of hearing. Have you any idea what could cause a loss like that, so sudden?’

  It was clear from his smile that the doctor had been anticipating this question. He folded his hands in front of him, much in the fashion of a television doctor on a soap opera. ‘It could be age, but that really wouldn’t explain a loss as sudden as his. It could be a sudden infection of the ear, but then there would very likely be pain, and he complained of none, or loss of balance, and he said he had not experienced that. It could have been continued use of diuretics, but he said he was taking none.’

  ‘You discussed all this with him, Doctor?’

  ‘Of course I did. He was more concerned about it than I’ve ever seen a patient be, and as my patient, he had a right to know.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Placated, the doctor continued. ‘Another possibility I mentioned to him was antibiotics. He seemed interested in this possibility, so I explained that the dosage would have to have been very heavy.’

  ‘Antibiotics?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes. One of the side effects, not at all common but possible, is damage to the auditory nerve. But as I said, the dose would have to be massive. I asked him if he was taking any, but he said no. So with all the possibilities excluded, the only reasonable explanation would be his advanced age. As a doctor, I wasn’t satisfied with that, and I still am not.’ He glanced down at his calendar. ‘If I could see him now, enough time has passed so I could at least check the deterioration. If it continued at the same rate as I observed in the second examination, he would be almost entirely deaf by now. Unless, of course, I was mistaken and it was an infection I didn’t notice or that didn’t show up on the tests I conducted.’ He closed his file and asked, ‘Is there any chance that he will return for another examination?’

  ‘The man is dead,’ Brunetti said flatly.

  Nothing registered in the doctor’s eyes. ‘May I ask the cause of death?’ he asked, then hastened to explain: ‘I’d like to know in case there was some sort of infection I overlooked.’

  ‘He was poisoned.’

  ‘Poisoned,’ the doctor repeated, then he added, ‘I see, I see.’ He considered that and then asked, strangely diffident, acknowledging that the advantage had passed to Brunetti, ‘And what poison, may I ask?’

  ‘Cyanide.’

  ‘Oh.’ He sounded disappointed.

  ‘Is it important, Doctor?’

  ‘If it had been arsenic, there would have been some hearing loss, of the sort he appeared to have.

  That is, if it was given over a long period of time. But cyanide. No, I don’t think so.’ He considered this for a moment, opened the file, made a brief note, then drew a heavy horizontal line under what he had just added. ‘Was an autopsy performed? I believe they are obligatory in cases like this.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And was any note made of his hearing?’

  ‘I don’t believe any special search was made.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ the doctor said, then corrected himself: ‘But it probably wouldn’t have shown anything.’ He closed his eyes, and Brunetti could see him leafing through textbooks in his mind, pausing here and there to read a passage with particular attention. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked across at Brunetti. ‘No, it wouldn’t have been evident.’

  Brunetti stood. ‘If you could have your nurse make me a copy of your file, Doctor, I won’t take any more of your time.’

  ‘Yes, certainly,’ said the doctor, getting to his feet and following Brunetti to the door. In the outer office, he handed the file to his nurse and asked her to make a copy for the commissario, then he turned to one of the patients who had appeared while he was speaking to Brunetti and said, ‘Signora Mosca, you may come in now.’ He nodded to Brunetti and followed the woman into his office, closing the door behind them.

  The nurse returned and handed him a copy of the file, still warm from the copying machine. He thanked her and left. In the elevator, which he remembered to take, he opened it and read the final note: ‘Patient dead of cyanide poisoning. Results of suggested treatment unknown.’

  22

  He was home before eight, only to discover that Paola had taken the children to see a film. She had left a note saying that a woman had called twice during the afternoon but had not left her name. He rooted around in the refrigerator, finding only salami and cheese and a plastic bag of black olives. He pulled them all out and set them on the table, then went back to the counter and got himself a bottle of red wine and a glass. He popped an olive into his mouth, poured a glass of wine, then spat the pip into his cupped hand. He looked around for a place to put it while he ate another. And another. Finally, he tossed them into the garbage bag under the sink.

  He cut two slices of bread, put some salami between them, and poured a glass of wine. On the table was that week’s issue of Epoca, which Paola must have been reading at the table. He sat down, flipped open the magazine, and took a bite of his sandwich. And the phone rang.

  Chewing, he walked slowly into the living room, hoping that the ringing would stop before he got there. On the seventh ring, he picked it up and said his name.

  ‘Hello. This is Brett,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sorry to call you at home, but I’d like to talk to you. If that’s possible.’

  ‘Is it something important?’ he asked, knowing that it had to be for her to call but hoping, nevertheless, that it was not.

  ‘Yes. It’s Flavia.’ He knew that too. ‘She’s had a letter from his lawyer.’ There was no need to ask her whose lawyer. ‘And we talked about the argument she had with him.’ This would have to be Wellauer. Brunetti knew he should volunteer to meet her, but he lacked the will to do it.

  ‘Guido, are you there?’ He heard the tension in her voice, even as he heard her struggle to keep it calm.

  ‘Yes. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at home. But I can’t see you here.’ Her voice caught at that, and he suddenly wanted to talk to her.

  ‘Brett, listen to me. Do you know the Giro bar, the one just near Santa Marina?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Thank you, Guido.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ he repeated, and hung up. He scribbled a note for Paola, saying he had to go out, and ate the rest of his sandwich as he went down the steps.

  Giro’s was a smoky, dismal place, one of the few bars in the city that stayed open after ten at night. The management had changed hands a few months before, and the new owners had done their best to tart the place up, adding white curtains and slick music. But it had failed to become a hip pub, while ceasing to be a local bar where friends met for a coffee or a drink. It had neither class nor charm, only overpriced wine and too much smoke.

  He saw her when he walked in, sitting at a table in the rear, looking at the door and being looked at in her turn by the three or four young men who stood at the bar, drinking small glasses of red wine and talking in voices that were meant to float back and impress her. He felt their eyes on him as he made his way to her table. The warmth of her smile made him glad he had come.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

  ‘Tell me about the letter.’

  She looked at the table, where her hands lay, palms down, and she kept them there while she spoke to him. ‘It’s from a lawyer in Milan, the same one who fought the divorce. He says that he has received information that Flavia is leading ‘an immoral and unnatural life’ – those were the words. She showed me the letter. ‘An immoral and unnatural life.’ She looked up at him an
d tried to smile. ‘I guess that’s me, eh?’ She brought one hand up, embracing emptiness. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, shaking her head from side to side. ‘He said that they were going to file a suit against her and ask . . . they would demand that the children be returned to the custody of their father. This was an official notice of their intention.’ She stopped and covered her eyes with one hand. ‘They’re officially giving us notice.’ She moved her hand to her mouth and covered it, as though keeping the words inside. ‘No, not us, just Flavia. Only her – that they’re going to reinstitute proceedings.’

  Brunetti sensed the arrival of a waiter and waved him back with an angry hand. When the man had retreated out of hearing, he asked, ‘What else?’ She tried; he could see that she tried to push the words out, but she couldn’t do it. She looked up and gave him a nervous grin, just the sort Chiara produced when she had done something wrong and had to tell him about it.

  She muttered something, lowered her head.

  ‘What, Brett? I didn’t hear.’

  She looked at the top of the table. ‘Had to tell someone. No one else.’

  ‘No one else?’ She had spent much of her life in this city, and there was no one she could tell this to, only the policeman whose job it was to find out if she loved a murderess?

  ‘No one?’

  ‘I’ve told no one about Flavia,’ she said, meeting his glance this time. ‘She said she wanted no gossip, that it could damage her career. I’ve never told anyone about her. About us.’ He remembered, in that instant, Padovani’s telling the tale of Paola’s first blush of love for him, of the way she carried on, telling all her friends, talking of nothing else.

  The world had permitted her not only joy but public joy. And this woman had been in love, there was no question of that, for three years and had told no one. Except him. The policeman.