A Question of Belief

10

On his way back to the Questura, again taking the vaporetto to avoid the sun, Brunetti considered what he and Paola had said to one another and what Paola had not said to the children at lunch. How many times had he heard people use the phrase, ‘Governo Ladro’? And how many times had he agreed in silence that the government was a thief? But in the last few years, as though some previous sense of restraint or shame had been overcome, there had been less attempt on the part of their rulers to pretend that they were anything less than what they were. One of his previous superiors, the Minister of Justice, had been accused of collusion with the Mafia, but all it had taken was a change of government for that story to have drifted out of the newspapers and, for all he knew, out of the halls of justice.

Brunetti was, by disposition and then by training, a listener: people sensed that first in him and in his company spoke easily and often entirely without reserve. In the last year, what he heard more and more in the voices of people — sometimes a woman standing next to him on the vaporetto or a man in a bar — was a mounting sense of disgust at the way they were ruled and at the people who ruled them. It didn’t matter if the people who spoke to him had voted for or against the politicians they reviled: they’d be happy to lock them all up in the local church and set it ablaze.

Underlying it all, and this is what troubled Brunetti, was a sense of despair. He was troubled by the helplessness which so many people felt and their failure to understand what had happened, as if aliens had taken over and imposed this system on them. Governments came and governments went, the Left came and then gave place to the Right, and nothing changed. Though politicians often talked of it and promised it, not one of them gave evidence of having any real desire to change this system which worked so very much to their real purposes.

As the boat passed the Piazza, Brunetti saw the crowds, the queues snaking back from the entrance to the Basilica, even at three in the afternoon. What possessed people to stand in the open, under that sun, motionless? It was difficult for him to subtract his familiarity with the Basilica from his store of knowledge. He had been taken there countless times in his youth by his teachers and by his mother: the teachers took their students to show them the beauty, and his mother had taken him, he supposed, to show him the truth and power of her faith. He tried to wipe his mind clear of familiarity with the sweeping glory of the interior and wondered to what lengths he would go if he had but one chance in his lifetime to stand inside Basilica San Marco, and to do so he had to stand in a queue for an hour under the afternoon sun.

He turned to his right to consult the angel on the bell tower of San Giorgio, and together they decided. ‘I’d do it,’ Brunetti said and nodded in affirmation, much to the discomfiture of the two scantily clad girls who sat between him and the window of the boat.

He went directly to Signorina Elettra’s office, which was, as he expected to find it, even hotter than it had been the day before. Today it was her blouse that was yellow, but she still seemed entirely untouched by the heat.

‘Ah, Commissario,’ she said as he came in, ‘I’ve found your Signor Gorini.’

‘Speak, Muse,’ Brunetti said with a smile.

‘Signor Gorini, who is forty-four, according to the information on his carta d’identità,’ she began, sliding a sheet of paper towards him, ‘was born in Salerno where, from the age of eighteen to twenty-two, he was a seminarian with the Franciscan fathers.’

She looked up, pleased. Brunetti smiled in return, equally pleased.

‘Then, for a period of four years, there is no sign of him, until he reappeared in Aversa, working as a clinical psychologist.’ She glanced at Brunetti to see that he was following. He nodded encouragingly.

‘While he was living there, he married and had a son, Luigi, who is now sixteen.’ She flicked a speck of dust from the page before consulting it again.

‘After he had been in practice — though I think that word is notional — in Aversa for five years, he was discovered to have neither a licence nor a degree in psychology, nor, so far as the ULSS authorities could determine at the time, any training in psychology whatsoever.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘His practice was closed and he was fined three million lire. But the fine was never paid because Signor Gorini removed himself from Aversa.’

‘And the wife? And the son?’

‘It would seem neither of them ever heard from him again.’

‘Obviously, he was better suited to the cloistered life,’ Brunetti permitted himself to say.

‘Clearly,’ she agreed and shifted the paper aside to uncover another.

‘He next came to the attention of the authorities eight years ago, when it was discovered that the centre he was running in Rapallo, which specialized in helping integrate refugees from Eastern Europe into the workforce, was merely a kind of hostel where he allowed immigrants to live while they went out to work at jobs he found for them.’

‘And in exchange?’

‘In exchange, they gave him 60 per cent of their salaries, but they were at least given a place to live.’

‘Meals?’

‘Don’t be absurd, Dottore. He was also helping to introduce them to the experience of living in a capitalist society.’

‘Every man for himself,’ Brunetti said.

‘Dog eat dog,’ she replied, then added, ‘Though in this case one hopes that is not true. They could cook in this place where they lived.’

‘At least that,’ Brunetti said. ‘What happened?’

‘One of the women went to the Carabinieri. She was Romanian, so she could make herself understood. She told them what was going on, and they made a visit to the centre. But Signor Gorini was not to be found.’

‘Did he use his own name all this time?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, he did,’ she said. ‘And apparently that was fine.’

‘Lucky for you that he did use it,’ he said, then, seeing her response, quickly added, ‘Though I’m sure it would have made no difference to you if he’d used another one. It just would have taken longer.’

‘Minimally,’ she said, and Brunetti believed her.

‘And since then?’ he asked.

‘There was no trace of him for a few years, and then five years ago he set up a practice as a homeopathic doctor, this time in Naples, but,’ and here she looked up and shook her head in open astonishment, ‘after two years someone checked his application file and discovered that he had never studied medicine.’

‘What happened?’

‘The practice was closed.’ That was all she said. Perhaps it was not a crime in Naples to practise medicine without a licence.

‘Two years ago,’ she continued, ‘he changed his residence to the address you gave me, but he is not the person in whose name the rental contract is written.’

‘Who is that?’

‘A woman named Elvira Montini.’

‘Who is?’

‘Who works as a lab technician at the Ospedale Civile.’

‘Maybe he’s gone straight,’ Brunetti suggested.

She raised her eyebrows at this idea but said nothing.

‘Have you found any indication of what he’s doing?’

‘For all I can find, he could be devoting himself to a life of contemplation and good works,’ she said.

‘Yet Vianello’s aunt seems to be taking large sums of money to him at that address,’ said a sceptical Brunetti. ‘To one of the people at that address, at any rate,’ he corrected. ‘That’s the only apartment that uses that entrance.’

‘So that’s what Vianello’s been so worried about,’ Signorina Elettra said, her concern and affection audible in every word.

‘Yes, for some time.’

He thought about his connections at the hospital and said, ‘I can ask Dottor Rizzardi. He must know the people in the lab.’

Her cough was so discreet as hardly to exist, but to Brunetti it was a clarion call. ‘You spoke to him, then?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Before he could ask, she explained, ‘I took the liberty of asking.’

‘Ah,’ escaped his lips. ‘And?’

‘And she is that one reliable person upon whom the entire enterprise depends,’ she answered, and Brunetti kept his eyes from meeting hers. ‘She’s been there for fifteen years, never married; if anything, is married to her work.’

Impulsively, to divert them both from any reflection upon how closely this description, save for the number of years, matched Signorina Elettra herself, Brunetti asked, ‘Then how explain the presence of Signor Gorini in her home?’

‘Indeed,’ she agreed, then continued, ‘I asked the doctor if there was anything else he could tell me about her, and I sensed a certain reluctance on his part. He sounded, if anything, protective of her.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I lied, of course,’ she said with equanimity. ‘I told him my sister knew someone who worked in the lab with her — which is true — I even gave her name. It was someone Barbara went to medical school with but who didn’t finish. I said she had spoken very well of Signorina Montini but said she thought she’d changed in the last year or so.’

Before Brunetti could ask, she explained, ‘Any woman who has been living with a man like that has probably changed in the course of two years, and not for the better.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said her work was still excellent, and then he changed the subject.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘You want to ask your sister to talk to her classmate?’

Signorina Elettra gave a sharp shake of her head and lowered her eyes to her desk. ‘They don’t speak,’ was the only explanation she offered.

‘What else?’ he asked, seeing that there were still some papers she had not uncovered.

‘He’s got an account at the UniCredit.’ She handed him a bank statement of the movements for the last six months in the account of Stefano Gorini. Brunetti studied it, looking for a pattern, but there was none. Sums, always cash and never in excess of five hundred Euros, moved in and out of the account each month. The current total was less than two thousand Euros.

‘Any suggestion of how he supports himself?’

She shook her head. ‘He could have generous friends, or he could be living off Signorina Montini, or he could, for all I know, be very lucky at roulette or cards. The money washes in and flows away, and there’s never a deposit or withdrawal large enough to cause the least curiosity.’

‘Credit card bills?’ Brunetti asked.

‘It would seem he doesn’t have one.’

‘Mirabile dictu,’ Brunetti said. ‘And this in the new millennium.’

‘But he might have a telefonino,’ Signorina Elettra said, and explained, ‘I won’t know until this afternoon, perhaps not until tomorrow.’

She read Brunetti’s surprise and said, by way of explanation, ‘Giorgio’s on vacation.’

‘So you have to ask someone else?’

Her expression showed her bewilderment at his failure to understand client loyalty. ‘No, he’ll try it from Newfoundland, but he’s not sure he can get it to me today: he said it might be complicated to patch into the Telecom system from there.’

‘I see,’ said Brunetti, who didn’t. ‘I’d like to think of a way to keep an eye on his house.’

‘I looked it up in Calli, Campi, e Campielli, sir, and it doesn’t look like it would be easy. You’d need people permanently in Campo dei Frari and in San Tomà, and even then you wouldn’t be sure whoever went into or came out of the calle had been to that address.’

‘Can you think of anyone here who lives around there?’ he asked.

‘Let me check,’ she said and turned to her computer. Brunetti assumed she was pulling up the personal files of the people who worked in the Questura. It was less than two minutes before she said, ‘No, sir. No one lives within two bridges of it.

‘Given his record,’ Signorina Elettra added, placing her hand on the papers to call their attention back to Gorini: ‘With or without Signorina Montini, it’s not likely that he’s living here in quiet retirement.’

‘And if he’s learned anything from past experiences,’ continued Brunetti, ‘he’ll avoid hiring employees or doing anything that would open him up to licensing rules or official certification of any sort. So why not become a fortune-teller?’

‘It’s not far off being a psychologist, is it?’ Signorina Elettra asked.

However comforting it is to have one’s prejudices confirmed, Brunetti still chose to remain silent.

When he looked at her again, Signorina Elettra had her chin cupped in her left hand, the right resting on the corner of her keyboard. ‘No,’ she said after what seemed a long consultation with the blank screen. ‘There’s really no way we can watch the house. And if the Vice-Questore found out what we were doing, there’d be trouble.’

‘Are you afraid of that?’ he asked.

A quiet puff of dismissal escaped her lips. ‘Not for me. Or you, for that matter. But he’d take it out on Vianello and on any officers involved in it, and Scarpa would join in. It’s not worth it.’

She sat up straight and hit a few keys. ‘Here, take a look at him.’

Brunetti moved behind her just as the photo of a man, in the classic pose of the newly-arrested, came up on the screen. ‘It’s from the time in Aversa, so it’s fifteen years old,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t find anything more recent.’

‘Didn’t he renew his carta d’identità?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, but in Naples, five years ago: they’ve lost the file.’

‘Do you believe them?’ he asked, made suspicious only by the location, not by the event itself, which was common enough.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I asked someone I know, and I believe him. They didn’t scan the photo into the computer, and then they lost the paper file.’ She tapped the screen with her forefinger. ‘So all we’ve got is this.’

The expressionless face that looked out at them, even with the long sideburns and shaggy hair Gorini had worn when the photo was taken, was well proportioned and handsome; the dark eyes tilted up above prominent cheekbones, giving the face a definite Tartar look. The nose was long, skewed a bit to one side, and there was a thickening of the bone just before the bridge. The mouth was broad and well shaped. The combination of features, Brunetti had to admit, amounted to a look of powerful masculinity. He could find no memory of having seen an older version of Gorini in the city.

He pointed to the photo. ‘I’d like you to give copies of this to some to Scarpa’s bloodhounds — without telling the Lieutenant.’ He saw that she wanted to say something, and so added, ‘Tell them it’s an old photo of someone who lives in the city, and it’s just part of the training to see if they can spot him.’

She smiled as she said, ‘To deceive the Lieutenant — in however minor a way — is to know joy.’