by Donna Leon
‘What sort of information was it?’
‘Reports from his superiors on his work performance, dates of his holidays, sick-days, things like that.’
‘And did you get it?’
‘Yes. I gave it to Signorina Elettra when I came in.’ Brunetti registered that she had finally arrived as Vianello said, ‘There were long periods of sick-leave towards the end, and she’s checking the hospital records to see if he was there and, if so, why.’
‘I’ll save her the trouble,’ Brunetti said. ‘He died of AIDS.’ When he saw Vianello’s surprise, he summarized his conversation with Dottor Carlotti the previous afternoon and half apologized for not having called Vianello to tell him this before he went to the school board offices. But he made no mention of his conversation with the postino.
‘Better to have it confirmed by two sources,’ Vianello said.
Brunetti felt a flash of anger at the suggestion that what he had discovered needed confirmation but controlled the feeling and asked, ‘Did you manage to talk to anyone who worked with him?’
‘Yes. After I got the print-out, I hung around in the corridor until about ten, when two of the men who worked there – I figured they might have worked with him – said they were going to the bar across the street for a coffee. I folded the papers so that their letterhead showed and followed them over.’
Brunetti marvelled at how this man, taller and larger than he, so easily rendered himself invisible once he started to talk to people. ‘And?’ he prompted.
‘I said I was from the Mestre office, and they believed me, had no reason not to. They’d seen me there in their office, and they’d seen the woman give me the print-out, so they’d figure I had some reason to be there.
‘I’d had a look over the woman’s shoulder when she called up the personnel files and seen the names of a few people who still worked there, so I ordered a coffee and asked these two guys about one of them, said how long it was since I’d seen him. And then I asked about Battestini, if it was his mother who had been killed, and how he’d taken it because he’d always seemed so devoted to her.’
No wonder Vianello had seemed proud of what he had done. ‘The cunning of the snake, Vianello,’ Brunetti said in open praise.
‘That’s when things changed, though. It was very strange, sir. It was as if I’d taken that same cunning snake and tossed it on the floor at their feet. One of them even stepped back and put his money on the counter and left. There was a long silence, then the other one finally said he thought it was, but that Battestini didn’t work there any more. Didn’t even mention that he was dead. And then he just sort of disappeared. That is, I asked to pay for our coffees, and when I turned back, the guy wasn’t there – not where he’d been beside me and not in the bar.’ He shook his head at the memory.
‘Did you get a sense of what it was about him, about Battestini?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Twenty years ago, it would have been because he was gay, but no one really cares about that now,’ Vianello said. ‘And most people feel pity for anyone who dies of AIDS, so I’d say it was something else, and the something else would probably have to do with the office. But whichever it was, they didn’t like it that someone they didn’t know was asking questions about him.’ He smiled and added, ‘At least that’s the way it looked to me.’
‘He subscribed to a magazine with photos of boys,’ Brunetti said and watched this information register on Vianello’s face. Then, for clarity’s sake, he added, ‘Adolescents, not little boys.’
After a moment, the inspector said, ‘I’m not sure that’s the sort of information people at his office would have had.’
Brunetti had to admit that this was true. ‘Then it probably was something to do with his job at the school board.’
‘Looks like,’ Vianello said.
16
BRUNETTI AND VIANELLO were on their way down to Signorina Elettra’s office to save her the effort of – Brunetti didn’t know whether to say ‘accessing’ or ‘breaking into’ the hospital patient files – when he realized he no longer cared how she got the information she gave him. That in its turn provoked a flash of shame at the moment’s rage he’d felt at her absence. Like Otello, he had a lieutenant who could corrupt his best feelings.
As though forewarned that today she was to play Desdemona, Signorina Elettra wore a long dress of gossamer white linen, her hair hanging loose down her back. She greeted their arrival with a smile, but before she could say anything, Vianello asked, ‘Any luck yet?’
‘No,’ she apologized. ‘I had a phone call from the Vice-Questore.’ As if that were not sufficient justification, she explained, ‘He wanted me to write a letter for him, and he was very particular about the wording.’ She paused, waiting to see which one of them would be the first to ask.
It was Vianello. ‘Are you at liberty to reveal the nature of the letter?’
‘Good heavens, no. If I did, people here would know that he’s applying for a job with Interpol.’
Brunetti recovered first and said, ‘Of course, of course. It had to be.’ Vianello failed to find words with which to do justice to his feelings. ‘Are you at liberty, perhaps, to tell us to whom the letter is addressed?’ Brunetti asked.
‘My loyalty to the Vice-Questore would not permit that, sir,’ she said, voice rich with the sort of pious sincerity Brunetti associated with politicians and priests. Then, thrusting her forefinger towards a sheet of paper which lay on her desk, she asked idly, ‘Do you think a request to the Mayor for a letter of recommendation should go through the internal post?’
‘It might be faster to email it, Signorina,’ Brunetti suggested.
Vianello interrupted them. ‘The Vice-Questore is a traditionalist, sir. I think he’d like to sign the letter himself.’
Signorina Elettra nodded in agreement and said, turning their attention back to Vianello’s original question, ‘I thought I might have a look at his medical records.’
Brunetti said, ‘It’s not necessary. Battestini died of AIDS.’
‘Ah, the poor man,’ Signorina Elettra said.
‘He also subscribed to magazines with photos of boys,’ Vianello interrupted, his tone savage.
‘He still died of AIDS, Inspector,’ she said, ‘and no one deserves that.’
After a very long pause, Vianello gave a grudging, ‘Perhaps,’ reminding them that he had two children who were barely into their teens.
An uncomfortable silence fell. Before it could do some sort of damage, Brunetti said, ‘Vianello spoke to people in the neighbourhood and people where he worked, and everyone responded the same way: as soon as his name was mentioned, no one knew anything about him. There’s general agreement that the mother was a nasty piece of work, that the father was “una brava persona” who liked a drink, but when Paolo’s name is mentioned, everyone goes mute.’ He gave her a moment to consider this and then asked, ‘What would you make of that?’
She sat and pushed a button on her computer that darkened the screen. Then she propped her elbow on the desk and cupped her chin in her palm. Sitting like that for some time, she seemed almost to disappear from the room or at least to leave her white-clothed body there while her attention went elsewhere.
Finally she looked at Vianello and said, ‘The silence could be respect. His mother’s just been the victim of a horrible crime, and he died what was probably a horrible death, so no one will say anything bad about him, probably never will.’ She raised the other hand to her forehead and scratched idly at it. ‘As to the people where he worked, if he’s been dead five years, they’ve probably forgotten about him.’
Vianello interrupted her. ‘No. It was much stronger than that. They didn’t want to talk about him at all.’
‘Talk about him or answer questions about him?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I didn’t have a pistol to their heads,’ said an affronted Vianello. ‘They did not want to talk about him.’
‘How many people work there?’ Brunetti asked.
>
‘In the whole place?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Vianello said. ‘The office is on two floors, so perhaps thirty people. In his section it looked as though there were only five or six.’
‘I could easily find out, sir,’ Signorina Elettra offered, but Brunetti, intrigued by the general reluctance to discuss Signora Battestini’s son, thought he might stop by the office himself in the afternoon.
He told them then about his call to Lalli and said that he’d let them know as soon as he had an answer. ‘Until then, Signorina, I’d like you to take a look at Luca Sardelli and Renato Fedi. They’re the only living former heads of the school board.’ He did not confess to them that he suggested this because it was the only possibility he could think of.
‘Do you want to question them, sir?’ Vianello asked.
Glancing at Signorina Elettra, Brunetti asked, ‘Would you have a look first?’ When she nodded, he said, ‘I’m pretty sure Sardelli’s at the Assessorato dello Sport, and Fedi runs a construction company in Mestre. He’s also a Eurodeputato, though I don’t know for which party.’ She had not heard of either man, so she took notes of what he said about them and told them she would have a look immediately and should have something for them after lunch.
Because he thought it would be quicker not to go all the way home if he planned to show up at the school board after lunch, Brunetti asked Vianello if he had plans for lunch and, after only a moment’s hesitation, the inspector said he had none. They agreed to meet at the front entrance in ten minutes. Brunetti picked up the phone and called Paola to tell her he would not be home.
‘Pity,’ she said when he told her, ‘the kids are here and we’re having . . .’ she began and then stopped.
‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘I’m a man. I can stand it.’
‘Grilled vegetables for antipasto, then veal with lemon and rosemary.’
Brunetti gave a theatrical moan.
‘And fig sauce on home-made lemon sorbetto for dessert,’ she added.
‘Is this the truth?’ he suddenly asked, ‘or your way of punishing me for not coming home?’
Her silence was long. ‘Would you prefer it if I told you I’m taking them over to McDonald’s for a Big Mac?’ she asked finally.
‘That’s child abuse,’ he said.
‘They’re teenagers, Guido.’
‘It’s still abuse,’ he said and hung up.
He and Vianello decided to walk to da Remigio, but when they got there, they discovered that it was closed until the tenth of September. That also proved to be the case at the next two places they tried, leaving them with the choice of a Chinese restaurant or the long walk to Via Garibaldi to see if anything was open down there.
Neither said anything, but by silent consent they headed back to the bar at Ponte dei Greci, where at least the tramezzini and wine were acceptable. Keeping his mind clear of the veal roast, Brunetti asked for a prosciutto e funghi, a prosciutto e pomodoro, and a simple panino con salami; Vianello, no doubt in response to the belief that, if it was not going to be a proper lunch, it didn’t matter what he ate, asked for the same.
Vianello brought a bottle of mineral water and a half-litre of white wine to the table and sat opposite Brunetti. He looked at the plate of sandwiches that lay between them, said, ‘Nadia made fresh pasta,’ and reached for a tramezzino.
The inspector finished his first sandwich and two glasses of mineral water before speaking again. He set down his water glass, poured wine for both of them, and said, ‘What do we do about Scarpa?’
The fact that he failed to use the lieutenant’s title was sufficient to inform Brunetti that this was an entirely unofficial conversation.
Brunetti took a sip of wine. ‘I think the only thing we can do is let him go ahead with his investigation, if that’s the right word, of Signora Gismondi.’
‘But it’s nonsense,’ Vianello said angrily. He had not met her, had done nothing more than read the file in the case and spoken to Brunetti about his conversation with her, but that had served to convince him that her only involvement in the crime had been helping the Romanian woman to leave the country. As that thought suddenly took on darker implications, he asked, ‘Do you think he’s capable of saying that she’s an accessory because she gave her the money and bought her the train ticket?’
Brunetti no longer had any idea of what Scarpa was or was not capable of doing. He regretted that a woman as apparently decent as Signora Gismondi should have become a hostage in Scarpa’s guerrilla war against him, but he knew that any attempt to rescue her would only increase the risk of reprisals from Scarpa.
‘I think the only thing we can do is let him pursue this. If we try to stop him, he’ll say we’ve got some secret motive for protecting her, and God knows where that will lead.’ It was difficult for him to anticipate Scarpa’s actions because he felt so incapable of understanding his motives. That is, he could understand them, grasp them intellectually, but he lacked the mechanism that would have allowed him to follow them through by mere instinct. He realized how much better Paola was at this sort of thing or, for that matter, Signorina Elettra. Female cats, he found himself thinking, were said to be much better hunters and seemed to take more delight in torturing their prey to death.
Vianello’s question brought him back from these reflections. ‘Does any of this make any sense to you, sir?’
‘What, the murder? Or Scarpa?’
‘The murder. Scarpa’s easy enough to understand.’
Wishing that were indeed the case, Brunetti said, ‘She was killed by someone who hated her or wanted it to look like they did. Which means the same thing.’ Catching Vianello’s look, he answered, ‘I mean that whoever did it is capable of that sort of violence, either out of rage or out of calculation. I didn’t see the body, but I saw the photos.’ He decided there was no sense in saying how much he regretted, now, not having come back from his vacation when he had read about the murder. He should have been suspicious of the reports in the newspapers, even more so of the answers he had been given when he phoned the Questura to ask about the case and was told it was already solved. They had been on the coast of Ireland, all four of them, Raffi and Chiara spending half their time sailing and exploring tide pools, the other half eating, while he and Paola reread their patient ways, respectively, through Gibbon and the Palliser novels, and he had lacked the courage to broach the idea of returning to Venice.
While he waited for his superior to continue, Vianello ate his remaining sandwich and finished the water. He waved to the man behind the counter and held up the empty bottle.
Brunetti said, ‘Both our wives would say this is simply sexist prejudice, but a woman didn’t do that.’ Vianello nodded in approval of simple sexist prejudice and Brunetti continued, ‘So we have to find a reason a man would want to kill her, and it would have to be a man who either had access to the apartment or whom she would allow into the apartment.’ The barman set the water on the table, and Brunetti filled both glasses before continuing, ‘The only thing we’ve found so far that doesn’t fit is the money: it stopped coming when she died, and her lawyer made no mention of it. We don’t know how much the niece knew about it, or even if she did.’ He poured some of the wine into his glass, but left it untouched. ‘Not that there’s any reason Marieschi should tell me, even if she did know about it,’ he added.
‘Could she have taken it?’ Vianello asked.
‘Of course.’
Brunetti had told him about Poppi, so Vianello said, ‘Isn’t it strange, that I’m reluctant to think a person with such a dog could be dishonest?’ He sipped at his wine, turned to the barman and held up the empty sandwich plate, set it down, and said, ‘How strange. Most of the people we arrest have children, but it would never occur to us to think that’s a reason they wouldn’t commit a crime.’
When Brunetti made no comment upon this observation, Vianello returned his attention to the matter at hand and said, ‘The niece might just as ea
sily have moved the money.’
Reflecting upon what he knew of the professional classes, Brunetti added, ‘Or someone in the bank might have done it, once he knew she was dead.’
‘Of course.’
The sandwiches came, but Brunetti could eat only half of one and set the rest of it back on his plate.
Not having to clarify that he was speaking of Signorina Elettra, Brunetti asked,’ Do you think she’ll be able to find out who made the transfers?’
Vianello finished his wine but made no move to refill his glass. After a contemplative pause, he answered, ‘If there are any records, anywhere in their files, she’ll probably find them.’
‘It’s terrifying, isn’t it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘If you’re a banker, yes,’ Vianello agreed.
They returned to the Questura, oppressed by the still-growing heat and their mutual resentment at having had to lunch on sandwiches. In her office, looking as though she’d spent her lunchtime in an air-conditioned environment waiting while the creases were pressed out of her dress, Signorina Elettra greeted them with an expression which seemed unusually sombre.
Sensitive to the difference in her mood, Vianello asked, ‘The transfers?’
‘I still can’t find out,’ she answered tersely.
Brunetti found his mind suddenly filled with random memories of the lawyer: she was tall, athletic of build, and her grasp was firm. He tried to picture her poised over the old woman, hand raised high, but when he did, his vision was interrupted by the memory of the puzzle books he used to help Chiara with: ‘What’s Wrong with this Picture?’ He had seen Avvocatessa Marieschi’s hands on Poppi’s ears. He called himself a sentimental fool and found his attention returning to Signorina Elettra’s voice.
‘. . . been either of them,’ she concluded, pointing to the screen of her computer.
‘What?’ Brunetti asked.
‘The transfer,’ Signorina Elettra repeated, ‘could have been made by either one of them.’
‘The niece?’ Vianello asked.
She nodded. ‘All the person needed was the account number, power of attorney, and the code number: the transfer would be automatic. All they had to do was fill out the form and hand it to a teller.’ Before he could ask if it would be possible to check the signature on the form, she said, ‘No, the bank would never give it to us without an order from a judge.’