by Donna Leon
18
Brunetti told himself that it would be best to act in accordance with what he had told Signorina Elettra: leave it alone. The press would surely get hold of the story of Gonzalo’s death: after all, he had owned a famous gallery in the city for many years and thus could be presented as someone who was ‘well-known in artistic circles’. They’d cover his death in the back pages of local news for a day or two, until something more interesting came along or some other notable person died.
A few days passed. Il Gazzettino finally discovered Gonzalo’s death and surprised Brunetti by publishing a characteristically decorous obituary in which Gonzalo was praised as having been a benefactor of the city as well as a successful art dealer. It was noted, as well, that he had chosen, twenty years before, to renounce his Spanish citizenship and had become an Italian. His survivors were listed – no names given – as two sisters, a brother, and an adopted son.
So there it was. Gonzalo had gone ahead and done it before it was too late. He had found a lawyer who would organize it for him, or else Lodo Costantini had agreed to do it and had kept his mouth closed.
After dinner that same night, Brunetti told Paola about the obituary and how he now felt that the city – at least the voice of the city – had done Gonzalo justice.
‘And the adoption?’ Paola asked.
‘It’s not my business what happens to Gonzalo’s money,’ he said brusquely. ‘If that’s what he wanted to do with it, then it was his decision, and that’s that.” Brunetti thought back over his friend’s life and said, ‘He gave people the chance to live with beautiful objects. I know it’s old-fashioned to think this, but I believe it enriches the lives of people who do.’
‘I agree,’ she said and added what Brunetti heard as an epitaph of his dead friend. ‘Besides, he was funny and generous and never said a bad word about people, even those who had cheated him. He was honest and kind and kept his word.’ Then she rolled it up into one ball and said, ‘He was a gentleman.’
A week later, Brunetti had a call at home. When the caller identified himself as ‘Rudy’, Brunetti was caught unprepared and started to run names through his memory, hunting for a ‘Rudy’.
‘Rudy Adler, Gonzalo’s friend,’ the caller added, and everything slipped into place.
‘Of course. Rudy. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.’ This, Brunetti realized, was the simple truth. ‘Orazio said he saw you last week,’ he added, leaving it to the other man to decide whether he wanted to talk about the funeral.
‘Yes. It was good to see him again, after all these years. I’m sorry you and Paola couldn’t come, but Orazio explained.’ Silence lay between them until Rudy picked up the conversation and said, ‘It’s probably good you didn’t come.’
‘Why?’
‘His family is very religious, so there was a lot of that sort of thing.’
‘Orazio didn’t mention it.’
‘That was kind of him,’ Rudy said, then permitted himself to add, ‘It was more than a little grotesque.’ He waited a second and added, ‘Gonzalo would have hated it.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Brunetti said. Then, remembering conversations he and Gonzalo had had, he said, ‘I never knew anyone more allergic to the Church.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting your wife?’ Rudy asked with a laugh. ‘I remember one dinner at our place when you got up and left the table while she and Gonzalo ganged up on a Jesuit.’
Brunetti recalled the dinner and was still glad he had chosen to leave and walk home alone. ‘At least, if I remember correctly, the priest was giving as good as he got,’ he said.
‘The Jesuits are meant to be the intellectuals of the Church, aren’t they?’ Rudy asked. Rudy was, Brunetti recalled, from Bremen, so he was likely to be a Protestant and thus no doubt possessed some mistaken ideas about the Order of Jesus.
‘“Intellectuals”?’ Brunetti repeated. ‘I think it’s more true to say they’re the cartographers of the Flat Earth Society.’
Rudy laughed again and then said, in a more sober voice, ‘I didn’t call to talk about old times, Guido, but to tell you we’ll be there tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Brunetti repeated in confusion. ‘Whatever for?’ He did not inquire as to the use of the plural.
‘It’s a kind of exploratory mission,’ Rudy said, then stopped. ‘That is, umm, we’d like to arrange a memorial service for Gonzalo, really a dinner for his closest friends where people who knew him, and loved him, could say a few words to the others, perhaps reminding us all of why we loved him as much as we did. And do.’ He paused to give Brunetti the opportunity to say something, but he chose not to, curious to learn who was invited and then to see who came.
‘It was Orazio’s idea, I think,’ Rudy continued. ‘Or mine. It doesn’t matter: we were talking at the funeral, and one of us said how sad it was that several of his friends in Venice probably didn’t come to Madrid because they were too old to make the trip.’
Not only the old were unwilling to go, Brunetti confessed to himself. But all he said was, ‘It’s a good idea. Whom will you invite?’
Without hesitation, Rudy answered, ‘He and Donatella and you and Paola are the Venetians he cared for most. There are two people who worked in the gallery and stayed in touch after it closed; the professor at the University who wrote his catalogues; some of his clients and two antiquarians who became friends. And then some of the people I met with him over the years.’ It seemed a short enough list to Brunetti, who had remained with the idea that Gonzalo knew everyone in the city.
‘I hope,’ Rudy began but stopped. ‘I hope I have the most important ones. Gonzalo and I didn’t … have much contact during the last four years, so my list might be – er – out of date.’ Brunetti wondered if he was simply being polite and didn’t want to suggest that other people might also have broken with Gonzalo in the last years.
Gonzalo had walked out on a meal with il Conte, Brunetti remembered. Who knows with how many other people he might have done the same? If so, they might still want the chance to speak of him with love, as it had been in old times, before offence had been given or taken.
Brunetti ran his memory over the time he’d spent with Gonzalo recently and could remember no one Gonzalo had mentioned save for a doctor from Cremona who was interested in some Renaissance bronzes that he had for sale. The host of friends Rudy recalled seemed to have vanished in the last years. Brunetti didn’t know if the newcomer, Attilio, was on the list, nor did he want to ask.
‘I’m sorry, Rudy, but I can’t think of anyone you wouldn’t know already.’ As he said it, Brunetti realized that he was himself among those who had seen less and less of the ageing man, as if each year that was added to Gonzalo’s life subtracted from the interest younger people could possibly take in him.
In an entirely different voice, Rudy said, sounding very pleased to be able to say it, ‘At least you’ll finally get to meet Gonzalo’s best friend.’
Without hesitation, Brunetti said, ‘I thought that was Orazio.’
‘That’s his male friend, his buddy. Berta is his best friend, ever. They’ve known each other since he was in Chile. That’s who’s coming with me.’
Brunetti didn’t think it correct to quibble by pointing out that Gonzalo had met Orazio before he went to Chile and, instead, asked, ‘Berta?’
‘Alberta. Alberta Dodson.’
‘It doesn’t sound like a very Chilean name to me,’ Brunetti observed.
‘She married an Englishman and went to live in an enormous castle in Yorkshire. He raises cattle.’
‘Well,’ Brunetti interrupted, ‘that certainly sounds Chilean.’
Rudy laughed, probably with relief that this was turning into a normal conversation, and went on, ‘No, it’s those shaggy ones with the long horns that grow out to the sides. Mean as snakes, apparently; at least that’s what Berta always says about them. But beautiful, like something out of a Minoan fresco.’
‘A woman li
ving in a castle in Yorkshire hardly sounds like the sort of person who would be Gonzalo’s friend, let alone his best friend.’
‘Oh, but she is. They met in Santiago when he was first there. Apparently her family took him in, and Berta became his baby sister. He made his first fortune and left at about the same time she did, and he stayed in touch with her. Always.’
‘You know her?’
‘Of course. She came to see Gonzalo twice when … when we were together. It was a constant celebration. Gifts and champagne, puns and jokes in Spanish. Once some English friends came with her for Christmas, and they put on a real Christmas pantomime.’
‘At your place?’ Brunetti asked. Certainly Gonzalo’s place could accommodate a show.
‘Yes. She always stayed in a hotel, but she spent all of her time with us. She’d call her husband six times a day and spend the rest of the time gossiping with Gonzalo.’ Rudy stopped talking for a moment; Brunetti heard him take a few deep breaths. ‘They fought all the time: politics, religion, economics – she’d been a communist and then a socialist, and then I lost track.’ He drew a final deep breath and then gave a small laugh. ‘In fact, they sounded at times like an old married couple.’
‘And the one she lives with?’ Brunetti asked, emphasizing the verb.
‘He adores her and has for twenty years. The word “Tory” is embroidered on his underwear, but he listens to everything she says about politics, then smiles, and nods.’
‘Yes, that sounds like a real marriage,’ Brunetti observed. ‘Well, one that’s survived twenty years.’
All the time he was listening to Rudy, he wondered again why he had never heard even the smallest anecdote about someone named ‘Berta’. Orazio had never mentioned her: had he been jealous of the person Rudy considered Gonzalo’s best friend?
When he switched his attention back to the conversation, Rudy was just saying, ‘We get in on Thursday, a bit after one.’
An idea came to Brunetti. It was a crime, and it was called ‘Abuse of Official Powers’, but it was a way to make up to Rudy for having been distant from him in recent years. ‘Tell me your flight, and I’ll meet your plane.’
The crime took place on Thursday at 1.23 in the afternoon at the airport of Marco Polo, where Brunetti was standing outside the just-landed plane from London as its door was pushed open. Beside him stood a uniformed police officer who saluted the first people to emerge from the plane, a tall man and a small woman. The officer leaned forward and took their hand luggage before turning crisply on his heel and starting down the long tunnel that led from the plane to the terminal.
Brunetti stopped just inside the entrance to the terminal and took a closer look at his guests. Rudy had not aged, he observed, though his hair was now a lighter shade of brown. The woman beside him had short grey hair cut in a boyish cap that just managed to cover her ears. Her skin was fine and without age marks, although horizontal lines radiated out from the corners of her eyes. Her nose was arched and thin, her mouth a strong red. Her face seemed to be the result of nature’s slow advance and nothing more. She could have been sixty; she could have been older. She wore a brown woollen dress and a beige coat draped over her shoulders and held a dark brown leather handbag in her left hand. Brunetti, deciding to treat their arrival in proper fashion, bent and kissed the air a few millimetres above her extended hand.
‘You must be Commissario Brunetti,’ she said in very English English that had an element of Mediterranean light in the vowels. ‘I’m Berta Dodson.’ Her voice grew warm as she added, ‘Rudy’s told me you were a friend of Gonzalo’s.’
‘Yes, we were friends for a long time.’ Then, as if that needed explanation, he added, ‘Orazio Falier is my father-in-law.’ He turned to Rudy and shook his hand, then, moved by the grief sneaking out from Rudy’s smile, embraced him and held him for a moment.
Stepping back from Rudy, Brunetti turned again to the woman. She smiled and showed teeth as perfect as her skin and of equally natural provenance. ‘Ah, how Gonzalo loved Orazio. Far more than he loved his own dreadful brother,’ she added, falling into step beside Brunetti.
They walked through the terminal, Brunetti sweeping them past the motionless, still-empty luggage carousels. The same policeman stood at the terminal exit and opened the door for them. When they were outside, he hurried past them and opened the back door on the passenger side of a dark blue car. Once the woman was seated, the officer walked to the other side and held the door for Rudy, then came back and opened the door for Brunetti before taking his place behind the wheel and putting the car in motion.
‘And our luggage?’ Rudy asked.
‘It’s being taken to the boat,’ Brunetti answered.
The driver pulled out after the number five bus and followed it to the first traffic circle, where the car turned away from the bus and then to the right. It stopped at the beginning of the long wooden landing dock, where a police launch was moored. Seeing them, Foa jumped down from the deck and approached the car. He saluted Brunetti, who had got out, and opened the door for the woman. ‘This way, Signora,’ he said, turning back towards the boat.
As though Berta were a meringue in the form of a human, the pilot helped her on to the boat and, giving her his arm, helped her down to the cabin. While Brunetti and Rudy were boarding, a second blue car pulled up behind them, and a man in a grey uniform got down from the passenger side. He took two suitcases from the back of the car, walked to the boat and lifted them down to Foa, who stored them on deck to his left.
‘Was that one of your famous Auto Blu?’ Berta asked when Brunetti was seated opposite her.
‘Yes.’
‘They’re for politicians and ministers, aren’t they?’
‘For important people,’ Brunetti said with a broad smile and a wave in her direction.
‘How many of them are there?’ she asked, ignoring the flattery.
‘It’s difficult to get a precise number, Signora,’ Brunetti responded, ‘but the number that’s often given is around ninety thousand.’ He let that sink in and then added, ‘Unless you believe the other number that is often given: six hundred thousand.’
‘I suddenly feel less honoured,’ she said, but the last word was drowned out by the bark of the motor as Foa started to reverse from their parking space.
‘How did you manage to get it, Guido?’ Rudy asked.
‘I lied,’ Brunetti answered easily. ‘I said two people who were coming from the United States to give secret testimony were arriving, but coming from London to guarantee their safety, and it would be better if we could keep them from being seen by too many people.’
‘Whom did you ask?’
‘Someone I know at the Ministry of the Interior.’
‘And he believed you?’ Rudy asked in open surprise.
‘We Italians are always ready to believe there’s a secret reason behind everything.’
Alberta Dodson took a list from her handbag and passed it to Brunetti, saying, ‘These are the people from Venice Rudy and I would like to invite to the memorial service.’
Brunetti asked where they planned to have the dinner, hoping it would not be one of the ultra-chic new restaurants catering to wealthy tourists.
‘Antico Martini has promised us a room to ourselves,’ Rudy said, much to Brunetti’s relief.
Brunetti looked out the window on his side and saw that Foa had turned into the Canale di Cannaregio. That meant they’d get the full show and be taken up the Grand Canal to the hotel where they were staying, a newly converted palazzo not far from the Rialto Bridge.
Brunetti had no idea of their plans for the rest of the day and tomorrow morning and so had no idea what to ask them or to suggest. ‘If there’s anything I can do to be of use to either of you, please tell me,’ he said. He told them his telefonino number and waited while they keyed it into their phones.
Signora Dodson smiled and placed a hand on his wrist. ‘Gonzalo always said you were a kind man.’ She looked away after saying tha
t, and when she turned back to him, there were tears in her eyes. ‘He was a good man.’ Then, as though the words had been fighting to escape her lips, she said, ‘He saved my life.’
Rudy broke in to say, ‘I’ve heard you say that before, Berta, but you never said what happened.’
She brightened and turned to the other man. ‘I suppose I’m exaggerating, Rudy. It wasn’t bandits or a lunatic with a knife.’ She waved her hand in dismissal and looked out the window and sighed. Leaning closer to the glass, she touched Brunetti’s arm with Latin ease. ‘What’s that palazzo?’
Glancing to the left, Brunetti said, ‘Ca’ d’Oro. It’s a museum now.’
‘And over there, up ahead?’
‘It’s the Tribunale,’ Brunetti answered. ‘The courthouse, I suppose you’d call it in English.’
‘It’s hard to imagine that anyone would commit a crime in a place so beautiful,’ she said with childlike wonder, and Brunetti thought she believed it. He nodded and chose not to answer.
Rudy filled in the silence. ‘I have to reserve some more rooms at the hotel for people who are coming from abroad, and then I’m going to the restaurant to see the room and talk about the dinner.’
This was news to Brunetti, who had heard nothing about foreign guests. He contented himself with making an inquisitive noise.
‘Family,’ Berta said. ‘There are two nephews – with their wives – coming from Madrid. And his sister Elena.’ And the rest of the family? Brunetti wondered. Were they excluded or did they refuse to come? These were questions he preferred not to ask, so he returned his attention to Signora Dodson.
‘And then there’s someone I want to meet and talk to this afternoon,’ she added.
‘If …’ Brunetti started to say, but she held up her hand.
‘And in the evening, English friends of mine are at the Cipriani, and they’ve invited me for dinner.’ Brunetti smiled and nodded, thinking it might be easier to meet British friends for dinner somewhere closer to home. When she saw his expression, she said, ‘I’ve really just come along to keep Rudy company and see he doesn’t get too upset by all of this.’