The Temptation of Forgiveness

by Donna Leon

  Ah, where were the lire of yesteryear? Now there were bank transfers and a general atmosphere of distrust between buyers and sellers, for the state was no longer willing to tolerate a system that would prevent it from collecting the full tax revenue due on every sale. Unfortunately, it had not yet devised a system that would prevent that money from disappearing into the black hole of government malfeasance.

  This memory forced Brunetti to consider how contradictory were his own ideas of fiscal rectitude, at least when dealing with the state. He paused at the top of the bridge leading to San Polo to consider the possibility that the coupons might be part of a system designed to cheat the state and not the customer. Were that the case, there would certainly be less – perhaps no – desire to report it, should signs of it be noticed. People cared if the state cheated them, not if someone cheated the state.

  It was no subject to discuss at dinner, so instead he listened to Chiara praise her history teacher and the way she managed to interest her students in the events they read about, currently those of the first centuries of the Roman Republic. For the first time, Chiara had begun to think about how vastly different people in the past were from her. ‘They could kill their children if they wanted to,’ she said, horrified at the right of a Roman father to destroy a child he did not acknowledge or want. ‘From what she said, it sounds as if you could just go to the nearest garbage pile and pick up a baby if it was still living and take it home.’

  ‘And do what with it?’ Raffi looked up from his plate to ask.

  ‘Raise it as your child,’ Chiara answered.

  Raffi, showing that he had learned a thing or two about timing from his mother, added, ‘or your slave.’

  Ignoring him, Chiara looked across at her father, who was helping himself to more gnocchetti di zucca. With an easy smile, she pounced on him. ‘I’m afraid you would have been out of a job, Papà.’

  ‘Really? Why?’ asked Brunetti, although he knew.

  ‘There were no police,’ Chiara declared. ‘Think of it: a million people in the city and no cops.’ She left it to everyone at the table to consider this and then asked, ‘What did people do if something bad happened to them?’

  ‘Your teacher hasn’t talked about that yet?’ Brunetti asked.

  Chiara, who was taking a sip of water, shook her head.

  ‘I think she’ll tell you that your only recourse was to hire a lawyer – someone like Cicero – to make an accusation or, if someone accused you of something, to hire a lawyer to defend you.’

  ‘But what if you couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer?’ she asked. ‘Papà, you read about this stuff all the time: what happened, what did people do?’

  Hoping to remind her of what she’d begun by saying, that people back then were very different, he said, ‘Most people didn’t think that way, Angel. Either you put up with what happened to you, or you took matters into your own hands.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Chiara asked, making no attempt to disguise her incomprehension.

  ‘The same thing it does today,’ Paola interrupted. ‘You punished the person who caused you the trouble – whatever it was – or you hired someone to do it for you.’

  ‘But that’s crazy,’ Chiara said. ‘People can’t live like that.’

  Brunetti longed to say that many people in her own country still did, but kindness moved him to silence, and he gave her no reply. He shot a glance at Paola, who stopped herself from saying whatever it was she was preparing to say and, instead, said, ‘Chiara, I made that ciambella you like so much.’

  The reality of dessert could still haul Chiara back from the thought of social justice, and she asked, ‘The one with raisins and pumpkins?’

  Paola nodded. ‘It’s on the windowsill. Should be cooled down by now. If you bring it, I’ll get the plates.’ That said, Paola got to her feet and started collecting their empty dishes. As she reached across to pick up Brunetti’s, she gave him a nod and a broad, fake, tooth-filled smile and then followed her daughter into the kitchen.

  Later, as they lay side by side, reading in bed, Paola turned to ask him, ‘Is that the right number Chiara had?’

  ‘Of people in Rome?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s the number I’ve read,’ Brunetti said, turning Antigone face down on his stomach, even though he was impatient to continue reading. It seemed the only time he had for serious reading was before he went to sleep. It was a bad idea, of course, because he was usually so tired he fell asleep quickly, but it was the only time in the day when claim was not made on his attention and he could at least try to concentrate on what he read.

  Paola did the same with her book – he didn’t know what she was reading – and folded her hands on top of it. ‘A million people living without law,’ she said and closed her eyes, as if better to imagine it.

  ‘It’s almost impossible to believe,’ Brunetti said.

  She turned to him and smiled. ‘I’m glad you stopped me.’ She reached across and put her hand on his arm.

  ‘From getting up on your soapbox?’

  ‘Yes, and saying something incendiary like, “and now sixty million of us do”.’

  ‘More polemical than incendiary,’ Brunetti observed drily. ‘Chiara wouldn’t have listened, anyway. No one cares about it any more, especially young people.’

  ‘It?’

  ‘Politics.’

  She turned her head and studied his face. ‘We have two children, Guido.’

  ‘Are you expecting me to say something solemn, like, “Someone has to try”?’

  She closed her book and set it on the table beside her. After enough time to give his question serious thought, she said, ‘The man I married would say it.’

  ‘Antigone said it, and she ended up hanging herself in a cave,’ Brunetti replied.

  ‘The man I married would say it,’ she repeated.

  Brunetti turned his book back over but left it flat on his stomach. He looked in the direction of a painting on the wall between the two windows, hard to see clearly in the penumbra of light that reached it. It was a small seventeenth-century portrait of a Venetian man, quite possibly a merchant, that Paola had found in a junk shop; she’d had it restored and given it to him for their twentieth wedding anniversary.

  The man, sober in dress and expression, looked directly at the viewer, as if assessing his worth. On a table to his right stood a dark green vase of what looked like gladioli, which Paola had explained were the symbol of honour and constancy. Brunetti looked at the man and imagined that the man could look at him; the light beside the bed would give him a better view.

  ‘Yes, he would have,’ Brunetti finally agreed. He picked up his book and continued reading, eager again, after a gap of twenty years, to listen to what Antigone had to say about the obligation to follow the law. How refreshing that would be to a man who had spent the last twenty years dealing with people whose only interest was to outwit the law.

  Paola turned to the other side and switched off her light.

  The next afternoon, when Brunetti went to Signorina Elettra’s office, he sensed the tension the instant he walked in, even before he saw Lieutenant Scarpa standing in front of her. His weight supported by his hands propped on the desk, he was leaning forward, his neck seeming strangely elongated to bring his face closer to hers.

  ‘Or am I mistaken, Signorina?’ Brunetti heard him ask.

  Signorina Elettra turned towards Brunetti, but not before he’d seen the emotions on her face: scorn, anger, and perhaps even fear.

  Her face changed when she saw Brunetti, and she said, too brightly, ‘Why don’t we ask the Commissario, Lieutenant? He’s certainly more likely to know something about this than I am.’

  ‘What is it, Signorina?’ Brunetti asked, acknowledging Scarpa’s presence with a nod that managed to seem polite.

  Scarpa pushed himself upright, waving one hand upwards in a balletic acknowledgement of Brunetti’s superior rank.

  ‘Signorina Elettra and I we
re trying to think of a way that certain privileged information might have escaped the boundaries of the Questura,’ the Lieutenant answered. He smiled at Signorina Elettra, as though asking her approval of the explanation he had just given.

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, making himself sound completely uninterested in the matter. He saw Signorina Elettra’s face relax minimally at his tone, and so he continued, ‘And the pharmacist?’

  ‘There’s nothing that’s very interesting, Signore, I’m sorry to say.’ Brunetti’s family had had a nondescript dog when he was a kid, and because it was his duty to take it for walks, he had learned what each backward glance, each tug of the leash, meant. So he knew, from her voice, that she was tugging at the leash and wanted very much to move along from where they were.

  Thinking he’d give her the chance, Brunetti said, in the voice a superior used with a junior, ‘Thank you, Signorina. I found a few things yesterday and made some notes. Perhaps you could come up and get them and add them to your report.’ It was weak, and it was obvious, but it was ostensibly a request from a superior to an inferior, so she had no choice but to push herself up from her chair, saying, ‘Ah, good. Then I can finish it, Commissario, and ask the Vice-Questore to take a look.’

  As if Patta cared about reading reports, Brunetti said to himself while holding the door of her office open for her. He did not feel comfortable leaving Scarpa alone in her office, so he waited, looking across at Scarpa, making it obvious that he was expecting the Lieutenant to leave with them.

  Scarpa must have realized he had no choice and joined them at the door, taking Brunetti’s nod as permission to pass in front of him, which he did. Brunetti closed the door after them. He and Signorina Elettra started up towards his office; behind them, Lieutenant Scarpa walked to the end of the corridor and turned left.

  In his office, Brunetti went to his desk and leaned back against it. ‘Do you want to tell me what he’s talking about?’ he asked mildly.

  He watched her consider, and then discard, the idea of asking what he meant. ‘He’s talked about it before, Commissario. You’ve probably heard him.’

  ‘These leaks?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you know what they are?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘He says that the name of someone who was called in for questioning has been divulged.’

  ‘Divulged to whom?’

  ‘He didn’t say, just that the name of a suspect’s been released.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ she repeated.

  ‘Is that all?’ he asked.

  ‘The Lieutenant seems to think it’s more than enough.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Accuse someone, I suppose. He likes to do that.’

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ Brunetti said. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  She raised her chin and pressed her lips together. All she needed to do was put her hands behind her back and rock back and forward to look like a nervous child caught at something she’d been forbidden to do.

  ‘Yes,’ she finally said.

  ‘Is it something I should know about?’ Brunetti asked.

  After what seemed a long time, she said, ‘Not yet.’

  Brunetti chose not to comment on her answer and said, instead, ‘Is it possible to get a list of the patients registered at Dottor Donato’s pharmacy?’

  ‘I should think so. Well, at least a list of the people whose prescriptions have been filled there.’

  ‘Have a look, then, if you would,’ Brunetti said. ‘And what they’re being prescribed.’

  ‘Are you looking for any particular kind of medicine? Or disease?’ she asked, giving Brunetti an idea of the categories of information she might be able to open up to him.

  ‘Anything expensive that’s prescribed for older people.’ He saw curiosity flash across her face and added, ‘Especially if they’re being treated for something that might affect their memory or their mental powers.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Can you do this?’ he asked.

  She looked at him but quickly lowered her eyes in modesty, as though unwilling to engage in something as unseemly as boasting. ‘I have access to a wide variety of information, Signore,’ she finally said.

  Brunetti was about to ask about this, but caution stopped him: it would be better if he didn’t know the full extent of her powers. He put his hand to his mouth and turned the question into a cough. When that stopped he put on a serious face and, turning to her, said, ‘I hoped you might.’

  23

  Soon after Signorina Elettra left, Vianello tapped lightly at Brunetti’s door and entered without waiting to be told to do so. Brunetti waved him to his usual seat and asked, ‘Did you see Signorina Elettra on your way up?’

  ‘No,’ Vianello answered, then surprised him by adding, ‘That’s what I came to talk about.’

  ‘Signorina Elettra?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Inspector replied, then added, ‘And what’s bothering her.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen, it looks like Lieutenant Scarpa is.’

  Vianello raised his hands and stared at his palms for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, it does seem that way, I know.’

  ‘Does that mean it’s really something else?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Vianello answered.

  Brunetti took a long breath and released it slowly. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on without talking in secret code?’

  ‘It’s confusing, Guido,’ Vianello said. Brunetti remained silent, so the Inspector went on. ‘One of my informants told me weeks ago he’d heard there was someone here who named a suspect we let go for lack of evidence, even though we knew he was guilty.’ Vianello raised his hand and pressed gently in Brunetti’s direction to indicate that he wasn’t finished.

  ‘When I asked him about it – what man, what crime – he didn’t know anything and said he’d heard someone talk about it in a bar.’ Vianello pursed his mouth and shot up his eyebrows to express his scepticism.

  ‘I told him I wasn’t interested and to forget about it. But then, a week ago,’ the Inspector continued, his voice suddenly more serious, ‘he told me he’d heard the same story again, though this time the name of the man we let go had been mentioned.’

  Brunetti reached across his desk and put his fingers on a mechanical pencil; he picked it up and clicked the eraser a few times until the thin lead emerged. He studied it for a moment, then pressed the eraser down and held it while he pressed the lead back into the pencil with the tip of his finger. He glanced up from this and across at Vianello. ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Costantino Belli.’

  Brunetti’s eyes widened; he set the pencil down. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘The last I heard – about two weeks ago – he was out of the hospital and at home. Well, at his mother’s home.’

  ‘Ah, the mother,’ Brunetti said.

  Vianello crossed his legs and swung his foot back and forth. ‘I don’t know if I should say this, but we have no sure proof that he did anything.’

  ‘No sure proof,’ Brunetti repeated. ‘But we can infer the truth.’

  Vianello hesitated just an instant before he said, ‘Judges don’t convict people because of inferences, Guido. They prefer facts.’

  Brunetti smiled. ‘Haven’t I warned you about using sarcasm, Lorenzo? All it does is make people angry.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Vianello said. ‘I lost my head for a moment.’

  ‘Lucia Arditi was in the hospital for three days after she was attacked,’ Brunetti said, voice tight. ‘The doctors said she’d been raped and burned with a cigarette. This happened in her own apartment. In her own bed.’ He heard his tone lurching towards outrage, and paused until he felt able to continue. ‘Lorenzo, you read what the ambulance crew said when they went there: she told them she’d been raped.’

  ‘She changed that later and said that it was consensual,’ Vianello said immediately, sounding not unlike a defence attorney.

  ‘Whose side are y
ou on?’ Brunetti asked him.

  Vianello folded his arms across his chest and stared across at him.

  Eventually Brunetti said, ‘I’m sorry, Lorenzo.’

  Vianello shrugged. ‘He’s a vicious little shit, Guido. You know that and I know that. We know it because of what he did to Lucia Arditi. And we know there’s no doubt that he did it.’ Vianello waited until Brunetti nodded in agreement and then continued. ‘But a magistrate would say it’s only what we believe he did to Lucia Arditi, who has said he did not attack her.’ Vianello gave Brunetti the opportunity to protest, and when he did not, the Inspector continued. ‘And then the magistrate would say that, in the face of her repeated testimony and the absence of any real evidence, there is no way he could even think of making a case against Belli.’ When Brunetti didn’t contest this, either, Vianello went on. ‘She said they’d had sex that evening, and that’s what she told her Facebook friends. Remember?’ Vianello’s voice changed subtly as he quoted, ‘“For old times’ sake”.’

  His glance met Brunetti’s. ‘You read it, Guido. She told them all – after telling them that Costantino was in the shower – how right she had been to break it off with him.’

  Vianello paused after that, almost as though he wanted to give himself and Brunetti, people of a different generation, time to try to understand that a person could write such a thing and want it to be public information.

  ‘When she got to the hospital …’ Brunetti began.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what the doctor thought or what she said when she was admitted, Guido. In her statement to us, she said it was consensual.’

  Brunetti opened his mouth to speak, but Vianello cut him short. ‘All that matters is what she said and continues to say. He left, she went to sleep, and when she woke up she noticed blood on the sheets, so she called 118, and they sent an ambulance.’

  ‘The cigarette burn?’ Brunetti demanded.

  ‘She insisted it was an accident,’ Vianello said in a tight voice.