Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

by Donna Leon

She had heard similar promises many times before, so she didn’t ask him to swear to it. ‘Can you tell me more about it, Guido?’

  ‘No, Paola, I’ll tell you when I see you.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘I hope so. If not, then I’ll call you. Look, I’ll call you either way, whether I’m coming or not. All right?’

  ‘All right, Guido. For God’s sake, please be careful.’

  ‘I will, Paola. I will. You be careful, too?’

  ‘Careful? Careful of what, up here in the middle of paradise?’

  ‘Careful you don’t finish your book, the way you did in Cortina that time.’ Both laughed at the memory. She had taken The Golden Bowl with her but finished it in the first week, leaving her with nothing to read and, consequently, nothing to do for the second week except walk in the mountains, swim, loaf in the sun, and chat with her husband. She had loathed every minute of it.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. I’m already eager to finish it so that I can begin it all over again immediately.’ For a moment, Brunetti pondered the possibility that his failure to be promoted to vice-questore might be accountable to the fact that it was common knowledge he was married to a madwoman. No, probably not.

  With mutual abjurations towards caution, they took their leave of one another.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He called down to Signorina Elettra, but she was not at her desk, and her phone rang unanswered. He dialled Vianello’s extension and asked him to come up to his office. After a few minutes, the sergeant came in, looking much as he had two mornings ago, when he walked away from Brunetti in front of the Questura.

  ‘Buon di, Dottore,’ he said as he took his usual place in the chair facing Brunetti’s desk.

  ‘Good morning, Vianello.’ To avoid a return to their discussion of the other morning, Brunetti asked, ‘How many men have we got free today?’

  Vianello gave this a moment’s thought, then answered, ‘Four, if we count Riverre and Alvise.’

  Nor did Brunetti want to discuss them, so he said, passing Vianello the first list from the file on the Lega, ‘This is a list of names of people who rent apartments from the Lega della Moralità. I’d like you to select the addresses here in Venice and divide it up among the four of them.’

  Vianello, glancing down the names and addresses on the list, asked, ‘What for, sir?’

  ‘I want to find out who they pay their rent to, and how.’ Vianello gave him a glance replete with curiosity, and Brunetti explained what Canale had told him about paying the rent in cash and about his friends who did the same. ‘I’d like to know how many of the people on this list pay their rent in the same way and how much they pay. More importantly, I want to know if any of them know the person or persons to whom they actually give the money.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ Vianello asked, understanding at once. He paged through the list. ‘How many are there, sir? Far more than a hundred, I’d say.’

  ‘One hundred and sixty-two.’

  Vianello whistled. ‘And you say this Canale’s paying a million and a half a month?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Brunetti watched Vianello repeat the same calculation he had made when he first saw the list. ‘Even if it’s only a third of them, it would be well over half a billion a year, wouldn’t it?’ Vianello asked, shaking his head, and again Brunetti couldn’t tell if his response was astonishment or admiration for the enormity of the thing.

  ‘Do you recognize any of the names on the list?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘One of them sounds like the man who owns the bar on the corner near my mother’s house: same name, but I’m not sure if it’s the right address.’

  ‘If it is, then perhaps you could talk to him casually.’

  ‘Not wearing my uniform, you mean?’ Vianello asked with a smile that seemed more like his old self.

  ‘Or send Nadia,’ Brunetti joked, but as soon as he said it, he realized this might not be a bad idea. The appearance of uniformed policemen to question people who were, in some degree, in illegal possession of apartments was sure to affect any answers they gave. Brunetti was certain that all of the accounts would be in order, sure that proof would exist that the rents had been paid into the proper bank account each month, and he had no doubt that proper receipts would exist. If Italy was nothing else, it was a place where documented evidence always existed, and that in abundance; what was often illusory was the reality it was meant to reflect.

  Vianello saw it as quickly as he did, and said, ‘I think there might be a more casual way to do this.’

  ‘Asking neighbours, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I think people would be reluctant to tell us if they were involved in anything like this. It could mean they’d lose their apartments, and anyone would lie to avoid that.’ Vianello, he had no doubt, would lie to save his apartment. After sober reflection, Brunetti realized he would, too, as any Venetian would.

  ‘Then I suppose it’s better to ask around in the neighbourhoods. Send women officers to do it, Vianello.’

  Vianello’s smile was one of pure delight.

  ‘And take this. It should be easier to check,’ Brunetti said, pulling the second list from the file and handing it to him. ‘These are people who are receiving monthly payments from the Lega. See if you can find out how many of them live at the addresses listed for them, and then see if you can find out if they’re among what used to be called the deserving poor.’

  ‘If I were a betting man,’ Vianello, who was, said, ‘I’d bet ten thousand lire that most of them don’t live at the addresses given here.’ He paused a moment, flipped at the list with the tips of his fingers, and added, ‘And I’d make another one that many of them are neither deserving nor poor.’

  ‘No bet, Vianello.’

  ‘I didn’t think there would be. What about Santomauro?’

  ‘According to everything Signorina Elettra could find, he’s clean.’

  ‘No one’s clean,’ Vianello shot back.

  ‘Careful, then.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘There’s something else. Gallo spoke to the manufacturer of the shoes that were found with Mascari, and he gave him a list of the stores in the area where the shoes were sold. I’d like you to get someone going round the stores on the list and see if they can find anyone who remembers selling them. They’re size forty-one, so it’s possible that whoever sold them might remember who they sold them to.’

  ‘What about the dress?’ Vianello asked.

  Brunetti had received the report two days ago, and the results were just as he had feared. ‘It’s one of those cheap things you can buy at the open-air markets anywhere. Red, some sort of cheap synthetic material. Couldn’t have cost more than forty thousand lire. The tag’s been ripped out of it, but Gallo’s trying to trace it back to the manufacturer.’

  ‘Any chance of that?’

  Brunetti shrugged. ‘There’s a much better chance with the shoes. At least we know the manufacturer and the stores where they were sold.’

  Vianello nodded. ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Call the Finance Police and tell them we’re going to need one of their best people, more than that if they’ll let us have them, to take a look at whatever papers we get from the Banca di Verona and from the Lega.’

  Surprised, Vianello asked, ‘You actually got Patta to ask for a court order? To make a bank give up papers?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, managing neither to smile nor to preen.

  ‘This business must have upset him more than I thought. A court order.’ Vianello shook his head at the marvel of it.

  ‘And could you ask Signorina Elettra to come up here?’

  ‘Of course,’ Vianello said, getting to his feet. He held up the lists. ‘I’ll divide up the names and get to work.’ He walked over to the door, but before he left, he asked the same question Brunetti had been asking himself all morning, ‘How could they risk something like this? All it needs is one person, one leak, and the whole th
ing would come tumbling down.’

  ‘I have no idea; well, none that makes sense.’ To himself, he reflected that it might be no more than yet another manifestation of a kind of group madness, a frenzy of risk-taking that had abandoned all sane limits. In recent years, the country had been shaken by arrests and convictions for bribery at all levels, from industrialists and builders to cabinet ministers. Billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of lire had been paid out in bribes, and so Italians had come to believe that corruption was the normal business of government. Hence the behaviour of the Lega della Moralità and the men who ran it could be seen as absolutely normal in a country run mad with venality.

  Brunetti shook himself free from this speculation, looked towards the door, and saw that Vianello was gone.

  He was quickly replaced by Signorina Elettra, who came through the door that Vianello had left open. ‘You wanted to see me, Commissario?’

  ‘Yes, Signorina,’ he said, waving her to the seat beside his desk. ‘Vianello just went downstairs with the lists you gave me. It seems a number of the people on one of them are paying far more in rent than what the Lega is declaring, so I want to know if the people on the second list are really getting the money the Vega says it’s giving them.’

  As he spoke, Signorina Elettra wrote quickly, head bent down over her notebook.

  ‘I’d like to ask you, if you aren’t busy with anything else – what is it you’re working on down in the Archives this week?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ she asked and half rose to her feet. Her notebook fell to the floor, and she bent to pick it up. ‘I beg your pardon, Commissario,’ she said when she had the notebook open on her lap again. ‘In the Archives? I was trying to see if there was anything there about Avvocato Santomauro or perhaps Signor Mascari.’

  ‘And what luck have you had?’

  ‘None, unfortunately. Neither of them has ever been in trouble with the police. Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘No one in the building has any idea of the way things are filed down there, Signorina, but I’d like you to see what you can find about the people on those lists.’

  ‘On both, Dottore?’

  She had prepared them, so she knew that they contained more than two hundred names. ‘Perhaps you could begin with the second one, the people who receive money. The list has their names and addresses, so you can check at the city hall and find out which of them are registered here as residents.’ Though it was a holdover from the past, the law which required all citizens to register officially in the city where they resided and to inform the authorities of any change in address made it easy to trace the movements and background of anyone who came under official scrutiny.

  ‘I’d like you to check the people on that list, find out if any of them have criminal records, either here or in other cities. Other countries, though I have no idea of what you’ll be able to find.’ Signorina Elettra nodded as she took notes, suggesting that all of this was child’s play. ‘Also,’ he continued, ‘once Vianello finds out who’s paying rent under the table, then I’d like you to take those names and do the same.’ She looked up a few seconds after he finished speaking. ‘Do you think you could do this, Signorina? I have no idea what happened to the old files after we began to switch over to computers.’

  ‘Most of the old files are still down there,’ she said. ‘They’re a mess, but some things are still to be found in them.’

  ‘Do you think you could do this?’ She had been here less than two weeks, and already it seemed to Brunetti that she had been there for years.

  ‘Certainly. I find myself with a great deal of time on my hands,’ she said, leaving an opening wide enough for Brunetti to herd sheep through.

  He gave in to the impulse and asked, ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘They’re having dinner tonight. In Milano. He’s having himself driven over there this afternoon.’

  ‘What do you think will happen?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew he shouldn’t.

  ‘Once Burrasca’s arrested, she’ll be on the first plane. Or perhaps he’ll offer to drive her back to Burrasca’s after dinner – he’d enjoy that, I think, driving up with her and finding the cars from the Finance Police. She’ll probably come back with him tonight if she sees them.’

  ‘Why does he want her back?’ Brunetti finally asked.

  Signorina Elettra glanced up at him, puzzled by his density. ‘He loves her, Commissario. Surely, you must realize that.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The heat usually robbed Brunetti of all appetite, but that night he found himself really hungry for the first time since he had eaten with Padovani. He stopped at Rialto on the way home, surprised to find some of the fruit and vegetable stalls still open after eight. He bought a kilo of plum tomatoes so ripe the vendor warned him to carry them carefully and not put anything on top. At another stall, he bought a kilo of dark figs and got the same warning. Luckily, each warning had come with a plastic bag, so he arrived at home with a bag in each hand.

  When he got inside, he opened all the windows in the apartment, changed into loose cotton pants and a T-shirt, and went into the kitchen. He chopped onions, dropped the tomatoes in boiling water, the more easily to peel them, and went out on the terrace to pick some leaves of fresh basil. Working automatically, not really paying attention to what he was doing, he prepared a simple sauce and then put water on to cook the pasta. When the salted water rose to a rolling boil, he threw half a package of penne rigate into the water and stirred them around.

  As he did all of this, he kept thinking of the various people who had been involved in the events of the last ten days, not trying to make any sense of the jumble of names and faces. When the pasta was done, he poured it through a colander, tossed it into a serving bowl, then poured the sauce on top of it. With a large spoon, he swirled it round, then went out on to the terrace, where he had already taken a fork, a glass and a bottle of Cabernet. He ate from the bowl. Their terrace was so high that the only people close enough to see what he was doing would have to be in the bell tower of the church of San Polo. He ate all the pasta, wiping the remaining sauce up with a piece of bread, then took the bowl inside and came out with a plate of freshly washed figs.

  Before he started on them, he went back inside and picked up his copy of Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome. Brunetti picked up where he had left off, with the account of the myriad horrors of the, reign of Tiberius, an emperor for whom Tacitus seemed to have an especial distaste. These Romans murdered, betrayed, and did violence to honour and to one another. How like us they were, Brunetti reflected. He read on, learning nothing to change that conclusion, until the mosquitoes began to attack him, driving him inside. On the sofa, until well after midnight, he read on, not at all troubled by the knowledge that this catalogue of crimes and villainies committed almost two thousand years ago served to remove his mind from those that were being committed around him. His sleep was deep and dreamless, and he awoke refreshed, as if he believed that Tacitus’ fierce, uncompromising morality would somehow help him through the day.

  * * * *

  When he got to the Questura the following morning, he was surprised to discover that Patta had found time, before he left for Milano the previous day, to request of the instructing judge a court order that would provide them with the records of both the Lega della Moralità and the Banca di Verona. Not only that, but the order had been delivered to both institutions that morning, where the officials in charge had promised to comply. Though both institutions insisted it would take some time to prepare the necessary documents, neither had been precise on just how long that would be.

  By eleven, there was still no sign of Patta. Most of the people who worked in the Questura bought a newspaper that morning, but in none of them was there mention of Burrasca’s arrest. This fact came as no surprise, neither to Brunetti nor the rest of the staff, but it did a great deal to increase the eagerness, to make no mention of the speculation, about the results of the Vice-Quest
ore’s trip to Milano the evening before. Rising above all of this, Brunetti contented himself with calling the Guardia di Finanza to ask if his request for the loan of personnel to check the financial records of both the bank and the Lega had been granted. Much to his surprise, he learned that the instructing judge, Luca Benedetti, had already called and suggested that the papers be examined by the Financial Police as soon as they were produced.

  When Vianello came into his office shortly before lunch, Brunetti was sure he had come to report that the papers had not arrived or, more likely, that some bureaucratic obstacle had suddenly been discovered by both the bank and the Lega, and delivery of the papers would be delayed, perhaps indefinitely.

  ‘Buon giorno, Commissario,’ Vianello said when he came in.

  Brunetti looked up from the papers on his desk and asked, ‘What is it, Sergeant?’

  ‘I’ve got some people here who want to talk to you.’

  ‘Who?’ Brunetti asked, placing his pen down on the papers in front of him.

  ‘Professore Luigi Ratti and his wife,’ Vianello answered, offering no explanation save the terse, ‘from Milano.’

  ‘And who are the professor and his wife, if I might ask?’

  ‘They’re the tenants in one of the apartments in the care of the Lega, have been for a little more than two years.’

  ‘Go on, Vianello,’ Brunetti said, interested.

  ‘The professor’s apartment was on the part of the list I had, so I went to speak to him this morning. When I asked him how he had come by the apartment, he said that the decisions of the Lega were private. I asked him how he paid his rent, and he explained that he paid two hundred and twenty thousand lire into the Lega’s account at the Banca di Verona every month. I asked him if I might take a look at his receipts, but he said he never kept them.’

  ‘Really?’ Brunetti asked, even more interested now. Because there was never any telling when some agency of the government would decide that a bill had not been paid, a tax not collected, a document not issued, no one in Italy threw out any official form, least of all proof that some sort of payment had been made. Brunetti and Paola, in fact, had two complete drawers filled with utility bills that went back a decade and at least three boxes filled with various documents stuffed away in the attic. For a person to say he had thrown away a rent receipt was either an act of sovereign madness, or a lie. ‘Where is the professor’s apartment?’