Acqua Alta

‘Of course not,’ he agreed, bowing his head over the file and vowing that he would see to it that Paola and Signorina Elettra never met.

‘Will that be all, sir?’ she asked, smiling down at him, hoping, perhaps, that he understood now.

‘Yes, thank you, signorina.’

‘I’ll bring up the fax when it comes in from New York.’

‘Thank you, signorina.’ She smiled and left the office. How had Patta found her?

There was no question about it: Semenzato and La Capra had spoken to each other at least five times in the last year; eight, if the calls Semenzato had made to hotels in various foreign countries at times when La Capra was travelling there had been to La Capra. Of course, it could be argued - and Brunetti had no doubt that a good defence lawyer would do so — that there was nothing at all unusual in the fact that these men knew each other. Both were interested in works of art. La Capra could have, quite legitimately, consulted Semenzato on any one of a number of questions: provenance, authenticity, price. He looked down at the papers and tried to work out a pattern between the phone calls and transfers of money into and out of the men’s accounts, but nothing emerged.

The phone rang. He picked it up and said his name. ‘I tried to call you earlier.’ He recognized Flavia’s voice instantly, noted again how low-pitched it was, how different from her singing voice. But that surprise was as nothing compared to what he felt at hearing her address him in the familiar ‘tu’.

‘I was seeing someone. What is it?’

‘Brett. She refuses to come to Milan with me.’

‘Does she give a reason?’

‘She says something about not feeling well enough to travel, but it’s just stubbornness. And fear. She doesn’t want to admit she’s afraid of these people, but she is.’

‘What about you?’ he asked, using ‘tu’ and discovering how right it sounded. ‘Are you leaving?’

‘I’ve got no choice,’ Flavia said but then corrected herself. ‘No, I do have a choice. I could stay if I wanted to, but I don’t. My children are coming home, and I’ve got to meet them. And I’ve got to be at La Scala on Tuesday for a piano rehearsal. I’ve cancelled once, but now I’ve said I’ll sing.’

He wondered how all of this was going to be connected to him, and Flavia quickly told him. ‘Do you think you could talk to her? Try to reason with her?’

‘Flavia,’ he began, intensely conscious of the fact that this was the first time he had called her by her first name, ‘if you can’t convince her to go, I doubt that anything I could say would change her mind.’ Then, before she could protest, he added, ‘No, I’m not trying to get out of doing it. I just don’t think it would work.’

‘What about protection?’

‘Yes. I can have a man put in the apartment with her.’ Almost without thinking, he corrected that, ‘Or a woman.’

Her response was immediate. And angry. ‘Just because we choose not to go to bed with men doesn’t mean we’re afraid of being in the same room with one.’

He was silent for so long that she finally asked, ‘Well, why don’t you say something?’

‘I’m waiting for you to apologize for being stupid.’

This time, it was Flavia who said nothing. Finally, to his considerable relief, her voice softened and she said, ‘All right, and for being rash, as well. I suppose I’ve got used to being able to push people around. And maybe I’m still looking for trouble about me and Brett.’

Apologies over, Flavia returned to the issue at hand. ‘I don’t know if she can be convinced to let someone stay in the apartment with her.’

‘Flavia, I have no other way to protect her.’ Suddenly, he heard a loud noise down the phone, something that sounded like heavy machinery. ‘What’s that?’

‘A boat.’

‘Where are you?’

‘On the Riva degli Schiavoni.’ She explained, ‘I didn’t want to call you from the house, so I went for a walk.’ Her voice changed. ‘I’m not far from the Questura. Are you allowed to accept visitors during the day?’

‘Of course,’ he laughed. ‘I’m one of the bosses.’

‘Would it be all right if I came over and saw you? I hate talking on the phone.’

‘Of course. Come when you want. Come now. I’ve got to wait for a phone call, but there’s no sense in your walking around in the rain all afternoon. Besides,’ he added, smiling to himself, ‘it’s warm here.’

‘All right. Do I ask for you?’

‘Yes, tell the officer at the door that you have an appointment, and he’ll bring you up to my office.’

‘Thanks. I’ll be there soon.’ She hung up without waiting for his goodbye.

As soon as he replaced the phone, it rang again, and he answered it to find Carrara.

‘Guido, your Signor La Capra was in the computer.’

‘Yes?’

‘It was the Chinese ceramics that made it easy to find him.’

‘Why?’

‘Two things. There was a celadon bowl that disappeared from a private collection in London about three years ago. The man they finally sent down for it said that he had been paid by an Italian to get that specific piece.’

‘La Capra?’

‘He didn’t know. But the person who turned him in said that La Capra’s name was used by one of the middle men who arranged the deal.’

‘ “Arranged the deal”?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Just like that, set up the robbery of a single piece?’

‘Yes. It’s getting more and more common,’ Carrara answered.

‘And the second?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Well, this one is only rumoured. In fact, we have it listed in with the “unconfirmed”.’

‘What is it?’

‘About two years ago, a dealer in Chinese art in Paris, a certain Philippe Bernadotte, was killed in a mugging while he was out walking his dog one night. His wallet was taken, and his keys. The keys were used to get into his house, but, strangely enough, nothing was stolen. But his papers had been gone through, and it looked like a number of them had been removed.’

‘And La Capra?’

‘The man’s partner could remember only that, a few days before he was killed, Monsieur Bernadotte had referred to a serious argument with a client who had accused him of selling a piece he knew was false.’

‘Was the client Signor La Capra?’

‘The partner didn’t know. All he remembered was that Monsieur Bernadotte repeatedly referred to the client as “the goat”, but at the time his partner thought it was a joke.’

‘Were Monsieur Bernadotte and his partner capable of selling a piece they knew to be false?’ Brunetti asked.

‘The partner, not. But it appears that Bernadotte had been involved in a number of sales, and purchases, that were open to question.’

‘By the art theft police?’

‘Yes. The Paris office had a growing file on him.’

‘But nothing was taken from his home after he was killed?’

‘It would seem not, but whoever killed him also had the time to remove whatever they wanted from his files and from his inventory lists.’

‘So it’s possible that Signer La Capra was the goat that he mentioned to his partner?’

‘So it would seem,’ agreed Carrara.

‘Anything else?’

‘No, but we’d appreciate learning anything else you have to tell about him.’

‘I’ll have my secretary send you what we’ve got, and I’ll let you know anything we find out about him and Semenzato.’

‘Thanks, Guido.’ And Carrara was gone.

What was it Count Almaviva sang? ‘E mi far à il destino ritrovar questo paggio in ogni loco! Just so, it seemed to be Brunetti’s destiny to find La Capra everywhere he looked. Somehow, though, Cherubino seemed significantly more innocent than did Signor La Capra. Brunetti had learned more than enough to convince him that La Capra was involved with Semenzato, possibly in his death. But all of it was entirely circumstantial; none of it would have the least value in a court of law.

He heard a knock at his door and called, ‘Avanti! A uniformed policeman opened the door, stood back and allowed Flavia Petrelli to enter. As she passed in front of the policeman, Brunetti saw the flash of the officer’s hand moving in a smart salute before he closed the door. Brunetti had not the least doubt about whom the gesture was intended to honour.

She wore a dark brown raincoat lined with fur. The chill of the early evening had brought colour to her face, which, again, was bare of make-up. She came quickly across the room and took his outstretched hand. ‘So this is where you work?’ she asked.

He came around his desk and took the coat which the heat in the room rendered unnecessary. While she looked about her, he put the coat on a hanger on the back of his door. He saw that the outside of the coat was wet, glanced back at her, and saw that her hair was wet as well. ‘Don’t you have an umbrella?’ he asked.

Unconsciously, she put her hand up to her hair and pulled it away, surprised to find it wet. ‘No, it wasn’t raining when I left the house.’

‘When was that?’ he asked, coming back across die room towards her.

‘After lunch. After two, I suppose.’ Her answer was vague, suggesting that she really couldn’t remember.

He pulled a second chair up beside the one that faced his desk and waited for her to sit before sitting opposite her. Even though he had seen her only a few hours ago, Brunetti was struck by the change in her appearance. This morning, she had seemed calm and relaxed, ready to join with him in an Italianate attempt to convince Brett to consider her own safety. But now she seemed stiff and on edge, and the tension showed in the lines around her mouth that, he was sure, hadn’t been there this morning.

‘How’s Brett?’ he asked.

She sighed and swept the fingers of one hand to the side in a dismissive gesture. ‘At times, it’s like talking to one of my children. She agrees with everything I say, admits that everything I say is right, and then decides to do precisely what she wants.’

‘Which, in this case, is what?’ Brunetti asked.

‘To stay here and not go to Milan with me.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘Tomorrow. There’s an evening flight that gets in at nine. That gives me time to go and open up the apartment and then go back to the airport to meet the children in the morning.’

‘Does she say why she doesn’t want to go?’

Flavia shrugged, as if what Brett said and what was true were two separate things. ‘She says she won’t be frightened away from her own house, that she won’t run away and hide with me.’

‘Isn’t that her real reason?’

‘Who knows what her real reason is?’ she asked with something like anger. ‘It’s enough for Brett to want to do something or not to want to do it. She doesn’t need reasons or excuses. She does just what she wants.’ It was not lost on Brunetti that only another person with the same strength of will could find the quality so outrageous.

Though he was tempted to ask Flavia why she had come to see him, Brunetti asked, instead, ‘Is there any way you could convince her to go with you?’

‘You obviously don’t know her very well,’ Flavia said dryly, but then she smiled. ‘No, I don’t think there is. It’d probably be easier if someone told her not to go; then she’d be forced to do it, I suppose.’ She shook her head and repeated, ‘Just like my children.’

‘Would you like me to talk to her?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Do you think it would do any good?’

It was his turn to shrug. ‘I don’t know. I’m not very successful with my own children.’

She looked up, surprised. ‘I didn’t know you had children.’

‘It’s a natural enough thing for a man my age, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she answered, and considered her next remark before speaking. ‘It’s just that I know you as a policeman, almost as if you weren’t a real person.’ Before he could say it, she added, ‘Yes, I know, and you know me as a singer.’

‘Well, I don’t really, do I?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean? We met when I was singing.’

‘Yes, but the performance was over. And, since then, I’ve only heard you sing on discs. And I’m afraid it’s not the same.’

She gave him a long look, glanced down at her lap, and then back at him. ‘If I gave you tickets to the La Scala performance, would you come?’

‘Yes, I would. Gladly.’

Her smile was open. ‘And who would you bring?’

‘My wife,’ he said simply.

‘Ah,’ she said, just as simply. How rich a single syllable could be. The smile disappeared for a moment, and when it returned, it was just as friendly, but a bit less warm.

He repeated his question. ‘Would you like me to try to talk to her?’

‘Yes. She trusts you a great deal, so she might listen to you. Someone’s got to convince her to leave Venice. I can’t.’

Unsettled by the urgency in her voice, he said, ‘I don’t think there’s really any great danger in her remaining here. Her apartment is safe, and she has enough sense not to let anyone into it. So there’s very little risk for her.’

‘Yes,’ Flavia agreed with a slowness that showed how unconvinced she was of this. As if she had suddenly come back from a long distance and found herself here, she looked around the room and asked, pulling the neck of her sweater away from her throat, ‘Do you have to stay here much longer?’

‘No, I’m free now, if you’d like to go. I’ll come back with you and see if she’ll listen to me.’

She rose to her feet and went to the window, where she stood, looking towards the covered fa ç ade of San Lorenzo and then down at the canal that ran in front of the building. ‘It’s beautiful, but I don’t know how you stand it.’ Did she mean marriage, he wondered. ‘I can stand it for a week, but then I begin to feel trapped.’ Fidelity? She turned and faced him. ‘But even with all the disadvantages, it still is the most beautiful city in the world, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he answered simply and held her coat out for her.

Brunetti took two umbrellas from the cabinet against the wall and handed one of them to Flavia as they left the office. At the front door to the Questura, both guards, who usually contented themselves with giving Brunetti no more than a laconic ‘Buona notte’, pulled themselves to stiff attention and saluted crisply. Outside, the rain pounded down, and the water had begun to rise over the edges of the canal and flood the pavement. He had stopped to pull on his boots, but Flavia wore a pair of low-heeled leather shoes, already soaked from the rain.

He linked his arm in hers and turned to the left. Occasional gusts of wind pushed the rain into their faces, then switched around and drove it against the backs of their legs. They met very few people, and all of them wore boots and oilskins, obviously Venetians who were out of their homes only because they had to be. Without conscious thought, he avoided those streets where he knew the water would already have risen and took them towards Barberia delle Tolle, which ran towards the high ground near the hospital. One bridge short of it, they came to a low-lying stretch of pavement where the slick grey water stood ankle deep. He paused, wondering how to get Flavia across it, but she let go of his arm and walked on, completely ignoring the cold water he could hear squishing up out of her shoes.

Wind and rain blasted across the open space of Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo. At one corner, a nun stood under the wildly flapping awning in front of a bar, her eviscerated umbrella clutched helplessly in front of her. The Campo itself seemed to have shrunk, its far side eaten up by the growing waters that had turned the canal into a narrow lake that spread steadily outwards from its banks.

Walking quickly, all but running, they hurried across the Campo, splashing their way towards the bridge that would take them down towards Calle della Testa and Brett’s apartment. From the top of the bridge, they could see that the water in front of them was calf deep, but neither of them paused. When they reached the water at the bottom of the bridge, Brunetti switched his umbrella to his left hand and took Flavia’s arm with his right. And not a moment too soon, for she stumbled and fell forward, kept from spilling into the water only by the force of his arm as he pulled her towards him.

‘Porco Giuda,’ she exclaimed, pulling herself upright beside him. ‘My shoe. It’s come off.’ They both stood and looked down into the dark water, hunting for some sign of the missing shoe, but neither of them could make it out. Tentatively, she moved her toe from side to side in front of her, feeling around for the shoe. Nothing. The rain pounded down.

‘Here,’ Brunetti said, closing his umbrella and handing it to her. Quickly, he leaned forward and lifted her from the ground, taking her so by surprise that she wrapped her arms around him, hitting him in the back of the head with the handle of his closed umbrella. He stumbled forward, one arm around her shoulders and one under her knees, regained his balance and walked ahead. He made the two turns and got them to the door of the building before he set her down.

His hair was soaked; rain poured under his collar and down his body. At one point while carrying her, he had stumbled and felt the cold water surging over the top of his boot and down into his shoe. But he had carried her to the doorstep, where he set her down and brushed his hair back from his forehead.

Quickly, she opened the door to the building and splashed into the entrance, where the water was just as high as it was outside. She walked across it and up to the second step, which was dry. Hearing Brunetti splash through the water behind her, she moved up two steps and turned towards him. ‘Thank you.’

She kicked off her other shoe and left it where it lay, then started up the stairs, he following close behind. At the second landing, they heard the music that flowed down the stairs. At the top, in front of the metal door, she selected a key, placed it in the lock, and turned it. The door didn’t move.

She pulled out the key, chose another and turned the lock at the top of the door, then went back and opened the first lock. ‘That’s strange,’ she said, turning to him. ‘It’s double locked.’ It seemed sensible enough to him that Brett would dead-bolt the door from the inside.

‘Brett,’ Flavia called out as she pushed open the door. The music called out to meet them, but not Brett. ‘It’s me,’ Flavia called. ‘Guido’s with me.’ No one answered.

Barefoot, dripping water across the floor as she walked, Flavia went to the living room, then into the rear of the apartment to check both bedrooms. When she came back, she had grown paler. Behind her, violins soared, trumpets pealed, and universal harmony was restored. ‘She’s not here, Guido. She’s gone.’

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-One

After Flavia slammed her way out of the apartment that afternoon, Brett sat and stared down at the pages of notes that covered the surface of her desk. She gazed down on charts that listed the burning temperatures of different types of wood, the sizes of the kilns unearthed in western China, the isotopes found in the glazes on tomb pottery from the same area, and an ecological reconstruction of the flora of that same area two thousand years ago. If she interpreted and combined the data one way, she got one result about the way the ceramics were fired, but if she arranged the variables in a different fashion, then her thesis was disproved, it was all nonsense, and she should have stayed in China, where she belonged.

That word led her to wonder if she would ever belong there again, if Flavia and Brunetti could somehow manage to fix all of this — she could think of no better term — so that she could continue to work. She pushed the papers back in disgust. There was no sense in finishing the article, not if the writer was soon to be discredited as having been an instrumental part of a major art fraud. She left the desk and went to stand in front of the rows of neatly organized compact discs, looking for music that would suit her current mood. Nothing vocal. Not those fat gits singing about love and loss. Love and loss. And surely not the harpsichord; the plunky sound of it would snap her nerves. All right, then, the Jupiter Symphony: if anything could prove to her that sanity, joy and love remained in the world, it was that.

She was convinced of sanity and joy and was beginning to believe again in love when the phone rang. She answered it only because she thought it might be Flavia, who had been gone more than an hour.

‘Pronto,’ she said, aware that this was the first time she had used the phone in almost a week.

‘Professoressa Lynch?’ a male voice enquired.

‘Yes.’

‘Friends of mine paid you a visit last week,’ the man said, voice well modulated and calm sounds elongated by the slurred undertones of a Sicilian accent. When Brett said nothing, he added, ‘I’m sure you remember.’

She still said nothing, her hand rigid on the telephone and her eyes closed with the memory of their visit.

‘Professoressa, I thought you might be interested to know that your friend; and his voice came down ironically on the word, ‘your friend Signora Petrelli, is talking to those same friends of mine. Yes, even as we speak, you and I, my friends are talking to her.’

‘What do you want?’ Brett asked.

‘Ah, I’d forgotten how very direct you Americans are. Why, I’d like to talk to you, Professoressa.’

After a long silence, Brett asked him, ‘About what?’

‘Oh, about Chinese art, of course, especially about some ceramics from the Han Dynasty that I think you might like to see. But before we do that, I think we should discuss Signora Petrelli.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘I was afraid of that, Dottoressa. That’s why I took the liberty of asking Signora Petrelli to join me.’

Brett said the only thing she could think of to say. ‘She’s here with me.’

The man laughed outright. ‘Please, Dottoressa, I know just how bright you are, so please don’t be stupid with me. If she were there, you would have hung up the phone and would be calling the police right now, not talking to me.’ He allowed that to sink in and then asked, ‘Aren’t I right?’

‘How do I know she’s there with you?’

‘Ah, you don’t, Dottoressa. That’s part of the game, you see. But you know she’s not there, and you know she’s been gone since fourteen minutes after two, when she left your apartment and started towards Rialto. It’s a very unpleasant day to have gone for a walk. It’s raining very heavily. She should be back by now. In fact, if I might be so bold as to suggest it, she should have been back long before this, isn’t that right?’ When Brett didn’t answer him, he repeated, voice sterner, ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘What do you want?’ Brett asked tiredly.

‘That’s more like it. I want you to come and visit me, Dottoressa. I want you to come right now, to put on your coat and leave your apartment. Someone will be waiting for you downstairs, and he’ll bring you to me. As soon as you do that, Signora Petrelli will be free to leave.’

‘Where is she?’

‘You can’t expect me to tell you that, can you, Dottoressa?’ he asked with feigned astonishment. ‘Now, are you willing to do what I tell you?’

The answer was out before she thought about it. ‘Si.’

‘Very good. Very wise. I’m sure you’ll be very glad you did. As will Signora Petrelli. When we finish talking, you are not to hang up the phone. I don’t want you making any phone calls. Do you understand that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hear music in the background. The Jupiter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which version?’

‘Abbado,’ she answered, filled with a growing sense of unreality.

‘Ah, not a good choice, not good at all,’ he said quickly, making no attempt to disguise his disappointment in her taste. ‘Italians just don’t know how to conduct Mozart. Well, we can discuss this when you get here. Perhaps we can listen to a performance by von Karajan; I believe it’s far superior to that one. Just leave the music playing for now, get your coat and go downstairs. And don’t try to leave a message because someone is going to come back with your keys and look around the apartment, so you can save yourself that trouble. Do you understand?’

‘Si,’ she answered dully.

‘Then put the phone down, get your coat and leave the apartment,’ he commanded, his voice coming, for the first time, close to what must be its natural tone.

‘How do I know you’ll let Flavia go?’ Brett asked, fighting to sound calm.

This time, he laughed. ‘You don’t know it, do you? But I assure you, in fact I give you my word as a gentleman, that as soon as you leave your apartment with my friends, someone will make a phone call and Signora Petrelli will be free to go.’ When she didn’t say anything, he added, ‘It’s all you’ve got, Dottoressa.’

She set the receiver down on the table, walked into the entrance hall and took her coat from the large cupboard. She came back into the room, went to her desk and grabbed up a pen. Quickly, she wrote a few words on a small piece of paper and went over to the bookcase. Glancing down at the control panel on the CD player, she punched the ‘Repeat’ button, then placed the piece of paper in the empty CD box, closed the box and leaned it upright against the door of the player. She took her keys from the table just inside the door and left the apartment.

When she opened the main door downstairs, two men stepped quickly into the entrance way. She recognized one of them immediately as the shorter of the two men who had beaten her and only by a conscious effort of will kept herself from shying away from him. He smiled and put out his hand. ‘The keys,’ he demanded. She took them from her pocket and handed them to him. He disappeared up the steps and was gone for five minutes, during which the other man kept his eyes on her and she watched the first tiny wave of water crawl its way under the door, signalling the arrival of acqua alta.

When he returned, his partner opened the door and they stepped out into the rising water. The rain came down heavily, but none of them had umbrellas. Quickly, one of them on either side of her, dropping carefully into single file when they passed anyone on the narrow streets, they made their way towards the Rialto and over the bridge. On the other side, the two men tried to turn left; but the water had risen too high alongside the Grand Canal, so they had to continue down through the market, empty now of all except the most hardy. They turned left, climbed up on to the wooden boards that had been set on their metal risers, and continued down towards San Polo.

As she walked, she realized how rash she had been. She had no way of being certain the man who called her had Flavia. But how else could he have known the exact time she left the apartment and where she was going unless she had been followed? Nor could she be certain that he or they would let Flavia go in exchange for her own agreement to see him. It was only a chance. She thought of Flavia, remembered the sight of Flavia sitting beside her bed when she woke up in the hospital, remembered Flavia on stage in the first act of Don Giovanni, singing, ‘E nasca il tuo timor dal mio periglio’ and she remembered other things. It was a chance; she took it.

The one in front of her turned left, stepping off the boards into the water below, and down towards the Grand Canal. She recognized it, Calle Dilera, remembered that there was a dry cleaner over here that specialized in suede, and marvelled at her ability to think of something so trivial at a time like this.

In water that was now well above their ankles, they stopped in front of a large wooden door. The short one opened it with a key, and she found herself in an open courtyard, rain pounding down upon the surface of the water trapped there. The two men herded her across the courtyard, one leading and one following. They climbed a set of exterior steps, opened another door and went inside. There they were greeted by a younger man, who nodded to them, signalling to the two men that they could leave. He turned, without speaking, and led her down a corridor and up a second stairway, and then a third. At the top, he turned towards her and said, ‘Give me your coat.’

He moved around behind her to take it from her. She fumbled at the buttons, thick-fingered with cold and shock, and finally managed to loosen them. He took the coat and casually dropped it on the ground then moved up against her and wrapped his arms around her, cupping her breasts with his hands. He forced his body against hers, rubbing against her rhythmically, and whispered in her ear, ‘Never had a real Italian man, eh, angelo mio? Just wait. Just wait.’

Brett’s head hung limply, and she felt her knees going weak. She struggled to stay standing, lost the struggle against tears. ‘Ah, that’s nice,’ he said behind her. ‘I like it when you cry.’

A voice spoke from inside. As suddenly as he had grabbed her, he stepped away from her and opened the door in front of them. He stepped aside and let her enter the room alone, then closed the door behind her. She stood there, soaked and beginning to shiver.

A heavy-set man in his fifties stood at the centre of a wooden-floored room filled with Plexiglas cases on velvet-covered stands that raised them to about eye level. Spot-lighting hidden in the heavy beams of the ceiling picked out the cases, some of which were empty. Several niches in the white walls were similarly lit, but all of those seemed to contain objects of one sort or another.

The man came forward, smiling. ‘Dottoressa Lynch, this is indeed an honour. I never dreamed I’d have the pleasure of meeting you.’ He stopped in front of her, hand still extended, and continued, ‘I’d like to tell you, first, that I’ve read your books and found them illuminating, especially the one on ceramics.’

She made no effort to take his hand, so he lowered his but didn’t move away from her. ‘I’m so glad you agreed to come and see me.’

‘Did I have a choice?’ Brett asked.

The man smiled. ‘Of course you had a choice, Dottoressa. We always have choices. It’s only when they are difficult ones that we say we don’t have them. But there is always a choice. You could have refused to come, and you could have called the police. But you didn’t, did you?’ He smiled again, eyes actually growing warm, either with humour or something so sinister Brett didn’t want to contemplate it.

‘Where’s Flavia?’

‘Oh, Signora Petrelli is quite all right, I assure you. When I last had word of her, she was heading away from the Riva degli Schiavoni, walking back in the general direction of your apartment.’

‘Then you don’t have her?’

He laughed outright. ‘Of course I don’t have her, Dottoressa. I never did. There’s no need to involve Signora Petrelli in this matter. Besides, I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her voice. Mind you, I don’t like some of the music she sings,’ he said with the tolerance of those who have more elevated tastes, ‘but I have nothing but the healthiest respect for her talent.’

Brett turned abruptly and walked towards the door. She took the handle and pressed it down, but the door didn’t open. She tried again, harder, but it still wouldn’t move. While she was doing this, the man had moved back across the room until he stood in front of one of the lighted cases. When she turned from the door, she saw him standing there, looking at the small pieces that stood inside the case, almost unaware of her presence.

‘Will you let me out of here?’ she asked.

‘Would you like to see my collection, Dottoressa?’ he asked, as if she hadn’t spoken or he hadn’t heard her.

‘I want to get out of here.’

Again, it was as if she hadn’t spoken.

He continued to gaze at the two small figurines in the case. ‘These little jade pieces are from the Shang Dynasty, wouldn’t you say? Probably the An-yang period.’ He turned away from the case and smiled at her. ‘I realize that’s well before your period of expertise, Dottoressa, about a thousand years, but I’m sure you’re familiar with them.’ He moved off to the next case and paused in front of it to study its contents. ‘Just look at this dancer. Most of the paint is still there; rare with anything from the Western Hah. There are a few little chips on the bottom of her sleeve, but if I place her with her face a bit to the side, well, you don’t see them, do you?’ He reached up and lifted the Plexiglas cover from the stand and set it on the floor at his feet. Carefully, he picked up the statue, which was about a third of a metre high, and carried it across the room.

He stopped in front of her and upended the statue so that Brett could see the tiny chips on the bottom of one of the long sleeves. The paint that covered the top part of her gown was still red, after all these centuries, and the black of the skirt still glistened. ‘I suppose she just recently came out of a tomb. I can’t think of anything else that would have preserved her so perfectly.’

He turned the statue upright and gave Brett one last look at it, then moved back across the room and replaced it carefully on the pedestal. ‘What a fine idea that was, to put beautiful things, beautiful women, in with the dead.’ He paused to consider this, then added, as he replaced the cover, ‘I suppose it was wrong to sacrifice servants and slaves to go along with them on the voyage to the other world. But still, it’s such a lovely idea, gives so much honour to the dead.’ He turned towards her again. ‘Don’t you think so, Dottoressa Lynch?’

She wondered if this was some sort of elaborate show meant to frighten her into doing whatever he wanted her to do. Was he pretending to be so interested in these objects, or was she meant to believe he was mad and thus capable of harming her if she refused to do what he wanted? But what was that? Did he merely want her to admire his collection?

She began to look around the room, really seeing the objects in it for the first time. He was standing now by a Neolithic pot decorated with the frog motif, two small handles protruding from the lower part. It was in such perfect condition that she moved closer in order to see it more clearly. ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ he asked conversationally. ‘If you’d step over here, Professoressa, I’ll show you something I’m especially proud of.’ He moved to another case inside which an elaborately carved circle of white jade lay on a panel of black velvet. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he asked, looking down upon it. ‘I think it comes from the Warring States period, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘It looks it, especially with that animal motif.’

He smiled with real delight. ‘That was exactly what convinced me, Dottoressa.’ He looked down at the pendant again and then up at Brett. ‘You can’t imagine how gratifying it is for an amateur to have his judgement confirmed by an expert.’

She was hardly an expert on artifacts that went back to the Neolithic age, but she thought it best not to protest. ‘You could have had your opinion confirmed. All you’d have to do is take it to a dealer or to the Oriental department in any museum.’

‘Yes, certainly,’ he said absently. ‘But I’d prefer not to have to do that.’

He moved away from her, down towards the other end of the room, where he stopped in front of one of the niches in the wall. From it he took a long inlaid piece of metal, intricately worked in gold and silver. ‘I usually don’t have much interest in metals,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t resist this piece when I saw it.’ He held it out for her and smiled when she took it and turned it over to study both sides.

‘Is it a belt hook?’ she asked when she saw the pea-sized catch at one end. The rest was as long as her hand, flat and thin as a blade. A blade.

He smiled in real delight. ‘Oh, very good. Yes, I’m sure that’s what it is. There’s one at the Metropolitan in New York, though I think the work on this one is finer,’ he said, pointing with a thick finger to an etched curve that flowed across the flat surface. Losing interest in it, he turned away from her and went back across the room. She turned to the niche and, keeping her back to him, slipped the belt hook into the pocket of her slacks.

As he leaned towards yet another case and she saw what was inside it, Brett’s knees weakened with terror, and she was swept with bone-shaking cold. For inside the case sat the covered vase that had been taken from the exhibition at the Ducal Palace.

He moved around the case and positioned himself on the other side so that, glancing through the transparent sheets of Plexiglas, he could see her. ‘Ah, I see that you recognize the vase, Dottoressa. Glorious, isn’t it? I’d always wanted one like this, but they’re impossible to find. As you point out so well in your book.’

She wrapped her arms around herself, hoping that way to retain some of the heat that was so quickly fleeing from her body. ‘It’s cold in here,’ she said.

‘Ah, yes, it is, isn’t it? I’ve got some silk scrolls here, filed in drawers, and I don’t want to risk heating the room until I can get them protected in a heat- and humidity-controlled chamber. So I’m afraid you’ll have to be uncomfortable while you’re here, Dottoressa. I’m sure you’re accustomed to that from China, being uncomfortable.’

‘And from what your men did to me,’ she said quietly.

‘Ah, yes, you must excuse them for that. I told them to warn you, but I’m afraid my friends tend to be overly enthusiastic in what they think are my best interests.’

She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew he was lying and that the orders he had given had been direct and explicit. ‘And Dottor Semenzato, were they told to warn him, as well?’

For the first time, he looked at her in unfeigned displeasure, as if her saying this somehow subtracted from his absolute control over the situation.

‘Were they?’ she asked in a casual voice.

‘Good heavens, Dottoressa, what sort of a man do you think I am?’

She chose not to answer that.

‘Well, why not tell you?’ he asked and smiled amiably. ‘Dottor Semenzato was a very frightened man. I suppose that was acceptable, but then he became a very greedy man, and that is not acceptable. He was foolish enough to suggest that the difficulties you were creating be put to his financial advantage. My friends, as I suggested, do not like to see my honour compromised.’ He pursed his lips and shook his head at the memory.

‘Honour?’ Brett asked.

La Capra did not explain. ‘And then the police came here to question me, so I thought it best to speak to you.’

As he spoke, Brett had a searing moment of realization: if he talked openly to her about Semenzato’s death, then he knew he had nothing to fear from her. She saw a pair of straight-backed chairs pulled up against the far wall. She walked to one of them and collapsed into it. She felt so weak that she slumped forward and put her head between her knees, but the sharp pain from her still-bandaged ribs pulled her upright, gasping.

La Capra glanced at her. ‘But let’s not talk about Dottor Semenzato, not when we have all of these beautiful objects here with us.’ He took the vase in his hands and walked over to her. He bent and held it out towards her. ‘Just look at it. And look at the fluidity of line in the painting, the way the limbs flash out ahead of him. It could have been painted yesterday, couldn’t it? Entirely modern in execution. Absolutely marvellous.’

She looked at the vase, only too familiar with it, and then at him.

‘How did you do it?’ she asked tiredly.

‘Ah,’ he said, straightening up and moving away from her, back to the case, where he carefully replaced the vase. ‘Those are professional secrets, Dottoressa. You mustn’t ask me to reveal those,’ he said, though it was clear this was just what he most desired.

‘Was it Matsuko?’ she asked, needing to know at least this much.

‘Your little Japanese friend?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘Dottoressa, at your age you should know better than to mix your personal life with your professional life, especially when dealing with younger people. They don’t have our vision of the world, don’t know how to separate things the way we do.’ He paused for a moment, considering the depth of his own wisdom, and then continued, ‘No, they tend to take everything so personally, see themselves, always, as the centre of the universe. And because of that they can be very, very dangerous.’ He smiled then, but it wasn’t a pleasant thing to see. ‘Or very, very useful.’

He came back across the room and stood in front of her, looking down at her raised face. ‘Of course it was she. But even then her motives weren’t entirely clear. She didn’t want money, was even offended when Semenzato offered it. And she really didn’t want to hurt you, Dottoressa, not really, if that’s any comfort to you. She just didn’t stop to see it through clearly.’

‘Then why did she do it?’

‘Oh, in the beginning, it was just simple revenge, a classic case of the scorned lover wanting to hit back at the person who had hurt her. I don’t think she even clearly understood just what we had in mind, the extent of it. I’m sure she believed we wanted just the one piece. In fact, I rather suspect she hoped the substitution would be detected. That would put your judgement in question. After all, you had selected the pieces for the exhibition, and, when the pieces got back, if the substitution was noticed, it would look like you’d chosen to send a fake instead of an original. It wasn’t until later that she realized the unlikelihood of a fake piece already being in the museum in Xian. But by then it was too late. The pieces had been copied — I might remark that the work was done at considerable expense - and that, of course, made it even more necessary that they all be used in place of the real ones.’

‘When?’

‘During the packing in the museum. It was all really very easy, far easier than we had anticipated. The little Japanese tried to object, but by then it was far too late.’ He stopped talking and gazed off into the distance, remembering. ‘I think it was then that I realized she would become a problem sooner or later.’ He smiled. ‘And how right I proved to be.’

‘And so she would have to be eliminated?’

‘Of course,’ he said quite simply. ‘I realized I’d have no choice in the matter.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Oh, she gave us some trouble here, and then when she got back to China, when you told her you thought some of the pieces were false, she wrote a letter to her parents asking them what to do. Of course, once she did that, I no longer had any choice: she had to be eliminated.’ He cocked his head to one side, a gesture that suggested he was going to reveal something to her. ‘I was, quite frankly, surprised at how easy it was. I had thought things would be more difficult to arrange in China.’ He shook his head slowly from side to side, lamenting yet another example of cultural pollution.

‘How do you know she wrote to them?’

‘Why, I read the letter,’ he explained simply, then paused, correcting himself for accuracy. ‘Actually, I read a translation of the letter.’

‘How did you get that?’

‘Why, all of your correspondence was opened and read.’ He spoke almost in reproach, as if she should have understood at least this much. ‘How did you get that letter to Semenzato?’ His curiosity was real,

‘I gave it to someone who was going to Hong Kong.’

‘Someone from the dig?’

‘No, a tourist I met in Xian. He was going to Hong Kong, and I asked him to mail it. I knew it would get there much sooner that way.’

‘Very clever, Dottoressa. Yes, very clever, indeed.’

A wave of cold jolted through her body. She pulled her feet, long since grown numb, up from the marble floor and hooked them over the bottom rung of the chair. The rain had soaked through her sweater, and she felt herself trapped inside her frozen clothing. She was overcome by a wave of shivering and closed her eyes again, waiting for it to pass. The dull ache that had lurked in her jaw for days had turned into a fiery, burning flame.

When she opened her eyes, the man was gone from beside her and was standing on the other side of the room, reaching out to take down another vase. ‘What are you going to do to me?’ she asked, fighting to keep her voice level and calm.

He walked back across the room towards her, holding the low bowl carefully in two hands. ‘I think this is the most beautiful piece I have,’ he said, turning it slightly so that she could better follow the simple brushed line of the design around to the other side. ‘It comes from Ch’ing-hai Province, out by the end of the Great Wall. I’d venture it’s about five thousand years old, wouldn’t you say?’

Brett looked dully up at him and saw a portly middle-aged man holding a painted brown bowl in his hands. ‘I asked you what you’re going to do with me,’ she repeated, interested only in that and not the bowl.

‘Hm?’ he asked vaguely, glancing down at her for a moment and then back at the bowl. ‘With you, Dottoressa?’ He took a short step to his left and placed the bowl on top of an empty pedestal. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had time to think about that yet. I was so interested in having you see my collection.’

‘Why?’

He stayed where he was, directly in front of her, occasionally reaching out delicately with a finger to turn the bowl a millimetre this way, then that way. ‘Because I have so many beautiful things and because I can’t show them to anyone,’ he said with sorrow so palpable it could not be feigned. He turned to her and offered a friendly smile of explanation. ‘Anyone who counts, that is. You see, if I show them to people who don’t know anything about ceramics, I can’t hope that they’ll appreciate the beauty or the rarity of what they see.’ He stopped there, hoping that she’d understand his dilemma.

She did. ‘And if you show them to people who do know about Chinese art or ceramics, then they’ll know where the pieces came from?’

‘Oh, clever you,’ he said, lifting his hands apart in real delight at her quickness. His expression darkened. ‘It’s difficult, dealing with people who don’t understand. They see all these glorious things,’ and here he swept his right hand in front of him in a gesture that encompassed everything in the room, ‘as pots or bowls, but they have no idea of their beauty.’

‘That doesn’t stop them from getting them for you, does it?’ she asked, making no attempt to disguise her sarcasm.

He took it as said and considered it equably. ‘No, it doesn’t. I tell them what to get, and they get it for me.’

‘Do you also tell them how to get it?’ Speech was beginning to cost her too much. She wanted this to end.

‘That depends on who’s working for me. Sometimes I have to be very explicit.’

‘Did you have to be “explicit” with the men you sent to me?’

She saw him start to he, but then he changed the subject. ‘What do you think of the collection, Dottoressa?’

She had suddenly had enough. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of her chair. ‘I asked you what you think of the collection, Dottoressa,’ he repeated, voice raised minimally. Slowly, more from exhaustion than from obstinacy, Brett rolled her head from side to side, eyes closed.

Backhanded and entirely casual, intended more as warning than punishment, his blow caught her on the side of the head at the level of her eyes. His hand did little more than glance off her face, but the force of it was enough to separate anew the healing bones of her jaw, which jolted back together with a flash of pain that exploded in her brain, driving away all thought, all consciousness.

Brett slid to the floor and lay still. He looked down at her for a moment, then stepped back to the pedestal. He reached down, picked up the Plexiglas cover and placed it carefully over the low bowl, took another look at the woman lying unconscious on the floor and left the room.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Two

Brett was in China, in the tent set up at the dig for the archaeological staff. She was asleep, but the sleeping bag was badly placed, and the ground was hard beneath her. The gas heater had gone out again, and the bitter cold of the high-plateau steppe gnawed at her body. She had refused to go to the embassy in Beijing to have the encephalitis shot, so now she was sick with it, sick with the searing headache that was the first symptom, racked with the chills that came as the brain swelled with the infection that brought death. Matsuko had warned her about it, had had her own vaccination when she was in Tokyo.

If she had another blanket, if Matsuko would bring her something for the pain in her head. . . She opened her eyes, expecting to find the canvas side of the tent. Instead, she saw grey stone under her arm, and then a wall, and then she remembered.

She closed her eyes and lay still, listening to see if he was still in the room. She raised her head and judged that the pain was bearable. Her eyes confirmed what her ears had already told her: he was gone, and she was alone in this room with his collection.

She pushed herself to her knees, then, using the chair to steady herself, got to her feet. Her head pounded, and the room swirled around her for a moment, but she stood and closed her eyes until things grew steady. Pain radiated out from beneath her ears, pushing its way into her skull.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that one wall was filled with windows covered with iron gratings. She forced herself to walk across the room to try the door, but it was locked. At first, the pain jolted with every step, but then she forced herself to relax the muscles of her jaw, and it abated minimally. She went back to the windows, pulled the chair over beneath them and very slowly climbed up on to it. Beyond the window, she saw the roof of the house on the opposite side of the calle. To the left, more roofs, and to the right, the Grand Canal.

Beyond the window, the rain pounded down, and she was suddenly conscious of her clothing, wet and clinging to her body. She climbed unsteadily down from the chair and looked around the room, searching for some source of heat, but there was none. She sat on the chair, wrapped her arms around her body, and tried to fight off the tremors of cold that racked her. She clutched her hands against her sides, and her hand felt something hard. The belt hook. Through the sodden cloth, she covered it, talisman-like, with her hand and pressed it tight against her body.

A block of time passed; she had no idea how long. The light coming through the windows diminished, changing from the leaden dullness of day to the penumbra of approaching night. She knew there had to be lights in the room, but she lacked the strength to try to find them. Besides, light would change nothing; only warmth would help.

At some point in all of this, she heard a key in the door, and then it opened, allowing the man who had hit her to enter. Behind him came the younger man who had led her up the steps, how long ago she couldn’t remember.

‘Professoressa,’ the older man said, and he smiled, ‘I hope we’ll be able to continue our conversation now.’ He turned and said something to the younger man, speaking in a dialect that she thought was Sicilian but that was so fluid and filled with elided sounds that she understood nothing. Together, they came across the room towards her, and Brett couldn’t resist the impulse to get up from the chair and put it between herself and them.

The older man stopped near the case that held the low brown bowl and turned his attention to that. The younger man stopped beside him, his eyes flitting back and forth between him and Brett.

Once again, with the delicacy of the connoisseur that characterized his every motion when handling the pieces from his collection, he removed the Plexiglas cover and lifted down the low bowl. Like a priest carrying an offering towards some distant altar, he came across the room to her, carrying it in both hands. ‘As I was saying before we were interrupted, I think it’s from Ch’ing-hai Province, though it might well come from Kansu. You understand why I can’t send it for an expert opinion.’

Brett turned up her chin and looked at him, then shifted her glance to the younger man, who had appeared, an acolyte, at his side. She looked at the bowl, saw its beauty, and looked away, uninterested.

‘You can see, just here,’ he said, turning the bowl fractionally, ‘where the rings were sealed together. Strange, isn’t it, that it should look so much like a pot that was thrown on a wheel. And the design. I’ve always been interested in the way primitive people used geometric shapes, almost as if they somehow foresaw the future and knew we’d get back to them.’ He turned his attention, somewhat reluctantly, away from the bowl and glanced down at Brett. ‘As I said, it’s the most beautiful piece in my collection. Perhaps not the most precious, but it’s still the one I love the most.’ He chuckled under his breath, sharing a joke with a colleague. ‘And what I had to do in order to get it.’

She wanted to close her eyes, her ears, and not listen to this lunacy. But she remembered the last time she had ignored him, and so looked up at him and made an inquisitive grunt, not able to risk speech for the pain that she knew it would bring.

‘A collector in Florence. An old man and very obstinate. I had met him because of some common business dealings, and when he learned that I had an interest in Chinese ceramics, he took me to his home to show me his collection. Well, when I saw this piece, I fell in love with it, knew I wouldn’t be happy until I had it.’

He raised the bowl a bit higher and turned it again, studying the fine tracery of black lines that ran along its side and crawled up over the edge and into the centre of the bowl. ‘I asked him if he would sell it to me, but he refused, said he wasn’t interested in the money. I offered him more, made him an offer that was far more than the bowl was worth, and then I doubled the offer when he refused.’ He took his eyes from the bowl and looked down at her, attempting to reconstruct and thus explain his indignation. He shook his head and returned his attention to the bowl. ‘He still refused. So I had no choice. He simply left me no choice. I had made him an offer that was more than generous, but he wouldn’t take it. And so I had to use other methods.’

He looked down at her, clearly willing her to ask him what he had been constrained to do. And as that verb passed through her mind, Brett suddenly realized that all of this was no script he had prepared to justify his actions; this was not a scene he was constructing in order to fool her into taking his part. He believed this. He had wanted something, it had been refused him, and so he had been constrained to take it. As simple as that. And in the same instant she saw where she was: standing in his way, impeding the freedom with which he might possess the ceramics he had gone to so much trouble and expense to take from the exhibition at the Ducal Palace. And she knew then that he was going to kill her, blot out her life as casually as he had struck out at her when she refused to answer his question. Involuntarily, she moaned, but he took it as a question and went on.

‘I wanted to arrange it to look like a simple robbery, but if the bowl had been taken, he would have known that I was involved. I thought of having it removed and then burning down his villa.’ He paused and sighed at the memory. ‘But then I just couldn’t. He had so many beautiful things there. I couldn’t see them destroyed.’ He lowered the bowl and showed her the inner surface. ‘Just look at that circle, and the way the lines swerve around it, emphasizing the pattern. How did they know howto do that?’ He stood upright and muttered, ‘Simply miraculous. Miraculous.’

During all of this, the young man said nothing, standing at his side and listening to every word, following every gesture with his eyes, expressionless.

The older man sighed again and then continued. ‘I made it clear that it was to be done when he was alone. I didn’t see any reason that his family should suffer. He was driving back from Siena one night, and . . .’ He paused here, seeking how most delicately to phrase this. ‘And he had an accident. Most unfortunate. He lost control of his car on the superstrada. It caught fire and burned at the side of the road. In the confusion of his death, it was some time before anyone noticed that the bowl was gone.’ His voice grew softer as he passed to the philosophic mode. ‘I wonder if that has anything to do with why I love this bowl so much, the fact that I had to go to so much trouble to get it?’ Then, more conversationally, ‘You can’t imagine how glad I am finally to be able to show it to someone who can appreciate it.’ With a glance at the young man, he added, ‘Everyone here tries to understand, to share my enthusiasm, but they haven’t devoted years of study to these things, the way I have. And the way you have, Professoressa.’

His smile grew absolutely benign. ‘Would you like to hold it, Dottoressa? No one else has touched it since I, well, since I acquired it. But I’m certain you would appreciate the feel of it in your hands, the perfection of the curve on the bottom. You’ll be amazed at how light it is. I’m always so sorry that I don’t have the correct scientific resources. I’d like to check its composition with a spectroscope and see what it’s made of; maybe that could explain why it feels so light. Perhaps you’d be willing to tell me what you think?’

He smiled again and held the bowl out towards her. She forced her stiffening body away from the wall and put out her hands to take the bowl he offered. Carefully, she took it in her two upturned palms and looked down into its centre. The black lines, painted by some graceful hand, dead now more than five millennia, swept across the bottom, swirling up apparently at random to encircle white spaces that enclosed small black circles, turning them into bulls’ eyes. The bowl all but vibrated with life, with the comic spirit of the potter. She saw that the lines did not run evenly spaced, that gaps and variations proclaimed the fallible humanity of the artist who had painted it. Through involuntary tears she saw the beauty of a world she was to join. She mourned her own death and the power of this man who still stood in front of her to possess beauty as perfect as this.

‘It’s fabulous, isn’t it?’ he asked.

Brett looked up from the bowl and into his eyes. He’d snuff out her life as carelessly as he’d spit out a cherry stone. He’d do that and he’d live on, possessed of this beauty, happy in the full possession of this, his greatest joy. She took a small step back from him and raised her arms in a hieratic gesture that lifted the bowl to the level of her face. Then, very slowly, with conscious deliberation, she drew her hands apart and let the bowl fall to the marble floor, where it shattered, splashing fragments up against her feet and legs.

The man lunged forward but not in time to save the bowl. When his foot landed on a fragment, shattering it into dust, he staggered backward, bumping into the younger man and grabbing at him for support. His face flushed red and then as quickly paled. He muttered something Brett didn’t understand, then turned quickly to face her. He pulled one hand free and stepped towards her, but the younger man moved up behind him and wrapped one arm around his chest, pulling him back. He spoke softly but fiercely into the older man’s ear, holding his arm tightly and preventing him from reaching Brett. ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Not with all your beautiful things.’ The older man snarled out an answer she didn’t hear. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ the young one said. ‘Downstairs.’

While they spoke, voices growing louder and louder, Brett plunged her right hand into her pocket and wrapped it around the narrow end of the belt hook: the other end was pointed, and the edges were thin enough to cut. As she watched them and listened to them, their voices began to billow away and float back towards her. At the same time, Brett realized that she no longer felt the cold; quite the contrary, she was hot, burning with it. Yet they talked on and on, voices urgent and fast. She told herself to stand there, to hold the blade, but it was suddenly too much effort, and she lowered herself into the chair again. Her head dropped down and she saw the shattered wreckage on the floor without remembering what it was.

After a long time, she heard the door open and slam shut, and when she looked up, only the younger man remained in the room. There was a gap in time, and then he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She went along with him, out of the door and down the stairs, pain exploding in her head at every step, and then down more stairs, across the open courtyard that still teemed with rain, and then to a wooden door that was set at the level of the courtyard.

Still holding her arm, though she almost laughed at how unnecessary that was, he turned the key and pulled the door open. She looked in and saw low steps leading down towards glittering darkness. From the first step, the darkness was palpable, and from its surface she saw the reflection of light on water.

The man wheeled towards her and grabbed her arm. He flung her forward, and she tripped through the doorway, feet searching automatically for the steps beneath them. On the first, her foot plunged into water, but the second was slimy with seaweed and moss, and her foot slipped out from under her. She had time to raise her arms in front of her, and then she plunged forward into the still-rising waters.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Three

All Flavia wanted to do was stop the sound of the music that echoed grotesquely through the apartment. As she neared the bookcase, transcendent beauty rippled up through the woodwinds and the violins, but she wanted only the comfort of silence. She looked at the complicated stereo equipment, trapped helplessly in the sound that poured from it, and cursed herself for never bothering to learn how it worked. But then the music soared up to even greater beauty, all harmony was proclaimed, and the symphony ended. She turned, relieved, towards Brunetti.

Just as she started to speak, the opening chords of the symphony crashed anew into the room. She wheeled around, enraged, and slashed a hand towards the CD player, as if to stun it into silence. Because the thin plastic box that had once held the CD was propped against the front of the player, her hand caught it, knocking it to the floor, where it fell on a corner and burst open, spilling its contents at Flavia’s feet. She kicked at it, missed and looked down to see where it lay, wanting to stamp the life from it and, by so doing, somehow put an end to the music that spilled joyously through the apartment. She sensed Brunetti beside her. He reached in front of her and turned the volume control to the left. The music faded away, leaving them in the explosive silence of the room. He bent down and picked up the box, then bent again to pick up the pamphlet that had fallen from inside and a small slip of paper that the pamphlet covered.

‘A man called. They’ve got Flavia.’ Nothing else was written there. No time, no explanation of her intention. Her absence from the apartment gave him all the explanation he needed.

Saying nothing, he passed the slip of paper to Flavia.

She read it and understood immediately. She crushed the paper in her hand, squeezing it into a tight scrap, but soon she opened her fingers and placed it flat on the bookshelf in front of her, silent, terrifyingly aware that this might be the last contact she would ever have with Brett.

‘What time did you leave?’ Brunetti asked her.

‘About two. Why?’

He looked down at his watch, calculating possibilities. They would have allowed Flavia some time away from the apartment before they called, and someone would have followed her to see that she didn’t suddenly turn back towards Brett’s. It was almost seven, so they’d had Brett for a number of hours. At no time did it occur to Brunetti to question who had done this. La Capra’s name was as clearly fixed in his mind as if it had been spoken. He wondered where she would have been taken. Murino’s shop? Only if the dealer was involved in the murders, and that seemed unlikely. The obvious choice, then, was La Capra’s palazzo. As soon as he thought it, he began to plan ways to get inside, but he realized there was no chance of a search warrant on the basis of three dates on credit card receipts and the description of a room that could just as easily serve as a cell as a private gallery. Brunetti’s intuitions would count for nothing here, especially when they concerned a man of La Capra’s apparent stature and, more importantly, evident wealth.

Were Brunetti to return to the palazzo, there was every reason to believe La Capra would refuse to see him, and there was no way to get inside without that permission. Unless...

Flavia grabbed his arm. ‘Do you know where she is?’

‘I think so.’

Hearing this, Flavia went into the hallway and returned a moment later carrying a pair of high black rubber boots. She sat on the sofa, pulled them on over her wet stockings and got to her feet. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said. ‘Where is she?’

‘Flavia—’ he began, but she cut him short.

‘I said I’m coming with you.’

Brunetti knew there was no way he could stop her and decided immediately what to do. ‘One phone call first. I’ll explain on the way.’ He grabbed the phone and dialled the number of the Questura, then asked to speak to Vianello.

When the sergeant answered, Brunetti said, ‘It’s me, Vianello. Is anyone around?’

In response to Vianello s affirmative noise, Brunetti continued, ‘Then just listen and I’ll explain. Remember you told me you worked three years in Burglary?’ A deep grunt came down the line. ‘I’ve got something I want you to do for me. A door. To a building.’ The next grunt was clearly interrogative. ‘It’s wooden, reinforced with metal, new. I think there are two locks.’ This time, he heard a snort at the insulting simplicity of this. Only two locks. Only steel reinforcement. He thought quickly, remembering the neighbourhood. He looked out of the window; it was fully dark and the rain continued as before. ‘I’ll meet you at Campo San Aponal. As soon as you can get there. And, Vianello,’ he added, ‘don’t wear your uniform coat.’ The only response to this was a deep laugh, and then Vianello was gone.

When Brunetti and Flavia reached the bottom of the steps, they saw that the water had risen even higher, and from beyond the door came the roar of the rain as it bucketed down.

They picked up the umbrellas and stepped out under the rain, water reaching up towards the tops of their boots. Few people were out, so they got quickly to Rialto, where the water was even deeper. Had it not been for the wooden walkways on their iron stanchions, the water would have flooded into their boots and made progress impossible. On the other side of the bridge, they descended again into the water and turned down towards San Polo, both of them now soaked and exhausted with forcing their way through the rising floods. At San Aponal, they ducked into a bar to wait for Vianello, glad to be free of the drumming insistence of the rain.

They had been enveloped in this watery world for so long that it struck neither one of them as strange that they stood, inside the bar, in water that rose above their calves, listening to the splashings of the barman as he moved back and forth behind the counter, setting down glasses and cups.

Steam covered the inside of the glass doors to the bar, so Brunetti had to reach out with his sleeve and repeatedly wipe away the mist to create a circle through which he watched for Vianello. Bent forms ploughed across the small campo. Many people had abandoned the pretence of carrying umbrellas, so capricious was the wind that came from left, right, below, sweeping rain from every angle.

Brunetti felt a sudden heavy pressure against him and looked down to see the top of Flavia’s head, bent heavily against his arm, forcing him to bend down to hear what she said. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

No words came to him; no easy he sprang to his lips. He could do no more than shift his arm and wrap it around her shoulder, pulling her closer. He felt her tremble and convinced himself that it was cold, not fear. But still no words came.

Soon after this, Vianello’s bearlike form appeared in the campo from the direction of Rialto. The wind tore his raincoat back, and Brunetti saw under it a pair of black waist-high waders. He squeezed Flavia’s arm. ‘He’s here.’

She moved slowly away from him, closed her eyes for a moment and tried to smile.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she answered and nodded as proof.

He pulled open the door of the bar, calling out to Vianello, who hurried across the campo towards them. Wind and rain gusted into the overheated bar, and then Vianello splashed his way in, making the place look somehow smaller for his presence. He pulled his sailor’s watchcap from his head and beat it repeatedly against the back of a chair, splashing water in a wide circle around him. He tossed the sodden cap on a table and ran his fingers through his hair, splashing even more water behind him. He glanced at Brunetti, saw Flavia and asked, ‘Where is it?’

‘Down by the water, at the end of the Calle Dilera. It’s the one that’s just been restored. On the left.’

‘The one with the metal gratings?’ Vianello asked.

‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered, wondering if there was a building in the city that Vianello didn’t know.

‘What do you want me to do, sir, get us in?’

Brunetti felt a surge of relief at the sound of that ‘us’. ‘Yes. There’s a courtyard, but no one’s likely to be there, not in this rain.’ Vianello nodded in agreement. Anyone with any sense would be inside on a day like this.

‘All right. You wait here and I’ll give it a try. If it’s the one I think it is, there shouldn’t be any problem. Won’t take long. Give me about three minutes, and then you come.’ He gave Flavia a quick look, grabbed his cap and stepped back into the pounding rain.

‘What are you going to do?’ Flavia asked.

‘I’m going to get in and see if she’s there,’ he said, though he had no idea, in real terms, what this meant. Brett could be anywhere inside the palazzo, in any of the countless rooms. She didn’t even have to be inside but could already be lying dead, body floating in the filthy water that had conquered the city.

‘And if she’s not?’ Flavia asked so quickly that Brunetti was convinced she must share his vision of Brett’s fate.

Instead of answering her, he said, ‘I want you to stay here. Or go back to the apartment. There’s nothing you can do.’

Not bothering to argue with him, she dismissed what he said with a wave and asked, ‘He’s had enough time by now, hasn’t he?’ Before he could answer, Flavia pushed past him out of the bar and into the campo, where she yanked her umbrella open and stood, waiting.

He left the bar and joined her, blocking her from the wind with his body. ‘No. You can’t come. This is police business.’

The wind swooped at them, dragging her hair across her face, covering her eyes. She raked it back with an angry hand and looked up at him, stone-faced. ‘I know where it is. So I come with you now or I follow you.’

When he began to protest, she cut him off: ‘This is my life, Guido.’

Brunetti turned away from her and into Calle Dilera, flushed with rage, fighting the desire to hurl her bodily into the bar and somehow keep her there. As they approached the palazzo, Brunetti was surprised to see that the narrow calle was empty. There was no sign of Vianello, and the heavy wooden door appeared to be closed. As they drew abreast of it, the door suddenly swung open from within. A large hand emerged and beckoned them inside, and then Vianello’s face appeared in the dim light-of-the calle, smiling, running with rainwater.

Brunetti slipped inside, but before he could press the door closed, Flavia slipped into the courtyard after him. They stood still for a moment while their eyes adjusted to the darkness. ‘Too easy.’ Vianello said, pushing the door closed behind them.

Because they were so close to the Grand Canal, the water was even deeper here and had turned the courtyard into a broad lake upon which the rain continued to pound. The only light came from the windows of the palazzo, from the left side of which light spilled down into the courtyard, illuminating its centre but leaving the side where they stood wrapped in heavy darkness. Silently, the three of them moved out of the rain and slipped under the long balcony that covered three sides of the courtyard until they were all but invisible, even to one another.

Brunetti realized he had come here in response to purest impulse without considering what to do once he was inside. On his one and only visit to the palazzo he had been so quickly shepherded to the top floor that he had no clear sense of the layout of the building. He remembered passing doors that led off the exterior staircase to the rooms on each floor, but he had no idea of what lay behind those doors save for the room at the top, where he had spoken to La Capra, and the study on the floor below. It also occurred to him that he, Brunetti, an officer of the state, had just participated in the commission of a crime; what is more, he had involved in that crime not only a civilian but also a fellow officer.

‘Wait here,’ Brunetti whispered, putting his mouth close to Flavia’s ear to speak, even though the rain would have covered the sound of his voice. It was too dark for him to see whatever gesture she might have made in response, but he sensed her move even further back into the darkness.

‘Vianello,’ he said, grabbing his arm and pulling him close, ‘I’m going up the stairs to try to get in. If there’s any trouble, get her out of here. Don’t bother with anyone unless they try to stop you.’ Vianello muttered his assent. Brunetti turned away from them and took a few steps towards the stairway, pushing his legs slowly through the continued resistance of the water. It wasn’t until he reached the second step that his legs finally pulled free of the pressure of the water that sucked at them with every step. The sudden change made him feel curiously light-footed, as though he could float or fly up the steps with no effort whatsoever. With that liberty, however, he was suddenly freed to feel the grinding cold that spread up from the icy water trapped inside his boots, from the sodden clothing that hung heavy on his body. He bent down and pulled off the boots, started up the steps, then went back down and kicked the boots into the water. He waited until they sank out of sight, then started up the stairs again.

At the top of the first flight, he paused on the small balcony and turned the handle of the door that led inside. It moved down under his hand, but the door was locked and didn’t open. He climbed another flight but found this door locked as well.

He turned and looked over the railing and across the courtyard to where Flavia and Vianello must be standing, but he could see nothing except the pattern of shattered light as the rain continued to fall on the surface of the water beneath him.

To his surprise, the door at the top swung open under his hand, and he found himself at the beginning of a long corridor. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him and stood still for a moment, conscious only of the sound of water dripping from his coat on to the marble floor below him.

Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the light in the corridor while he waited, listening intently for any sound that might come from beyond the doors along its length.

A sudden chill shook him until he bowed his head and hunched his shoulders in an attempt to find warmth somewhere in his body. When he looked up again, La Capra was standing at an open door a few metres from him, mouth open in surprise at seeing Brunetti.

La Capra recovered first and gave an easy smile. ‘Signor Policeman, so you’ve come back. What a pleasant coincidence. I’ve just finished putting the last few pieces into my gallery. Perhaps you’d like to have a look at them?’

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Four

Brunetti followed him into the gallery and let his eyes run across the raised cases and display stands. La Capra turned as they entered and said, ‘Please, let me take your coat. You must be frozen, walking around in the rain. On a night like this.’ He shook his head at the very thought.

Brunetti took off his coat, conscious of its sodden weight as he handed it to La Capra. The other man, too, seemed surprised at the bulk of the coat and could think of nothing to do except drape it over the back of a chair, where it lay, water trickling to the floor in thick rivulets.

‘What brings you back to see me, Dottore?’ La Capra asked, but before Brunetti could answer, he said, ‘Please, let me offer you something to drink. A grappa, perhaps? Or a hot rum punch. Please, I can’t let you stand there, chilled, a guest in my house, and not have you take something.’ Without waiting for an answer, he walked over to an intercom that hung on one wall and pushed a button. A few seconds later there was a faint click, and La Capra spoke into the receiver. ‘Would you bring up a bottle of grappa and some hot rum punch?’

He turned towards Brunetti, smiling, the perfect host. ‘It’ll just be a moment. Now, tell me, Dottore, while we wait. What brings you back to visit me so soon?’

‘Your collection, Signor La Capra. I’ve been learning more and more about it. And about you.’

‘Really?’ La Capra asked, his smile remaining in place. ‘I had no idea I was so well known in Venice.’

‘In other places as well,’ Brunetti answered. ‘In London, for example.’

‘In London?’ La Capra showed polite surprise. ‘How very strange. I don’t believe I know anyone in London.’

‘No, but perhaps you’ve acquired pieces there?’

‘Ah, yes, that could be it, I suppose,’ La Capra answered, smile still in place.

‘And in Paris,’ Brunetti added.

Again, La Capra’s surprise was studied, as if he had been waiting for mention of Paris after Brunetti’s reference to London. Before he could say anything, however, the door was pushed open and a young man came in, not the one who had let him in before. He carried a tray with bottles, glasses and a silver Thermos. He set the tray down on a low table and turned to go. Brunetti recognized him, not only from the mug shot sent up from Rome, but from his resemblance to his father.

‘No, stay and have a drink with us, Salvatore,’ La Capra said. Then, to Brunetti, ‘What would you like, Dottore? I see there’s sugar. Would you like me to fix you a punch?’

‘No, thank you. Grappa is fine.’

Jacopo Poli, delicate hand-blown bottle, nothing but the best for Signor La Capra. Brunetti drank it down in one swallow and set his glass back on the tray even before La Capra had finished pouring the boiling water into his own rum. As La Capra busied himself with pouring and stirring, Brunetti looked around the room. Many of the pieces resembled objects he had seen in Brett’s apartment.

‘Another, Dottore?’ La Capra asked.

‘No, thank you,’ Brunetti said, wishing that he could stop the shivering that still tore at him.

La Capra finished mixing his drink, sipped at it, then set it down on the tray. ‘Come, Dottor Brunetti. Let me show you some of my new pieces. They just arrived yesterday, and I admit I’m very excited to have them here.’

La Capra turned and moved towards the left wall of the gallery, but as he moved, Brunetti heard a grinding sound come up from where he stepped. Looking down, Brunetti saw that shards of clay lay in a small circle on that side of the room. One of the fragments had a black line running across it. Red and black, the two dominant colours of the pottery Brett had shown him and talked about.

‘Where is she?’ Brunetti asked, tired and cold.

La Capra stopped with his back to Brunetti and paused a moment before turning to face him. ‘Where is who?’ he asked when he turned around, smiling inquisitively.

‘Dottoressa Lynch,’ Brunetti answered.

La Capra kept his eyes on Brunetti, but Brunetti sensed that something passed, some message, between him and the young man.

‘Dottoressa Lynch?’ La Capra inquired, voice puzzled but still very polite. ‘Do you mean the American scholar? The one who has written about Chinese ceramics?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah, Dottor Brunetti, you have no idea how much I wish she were here. I have two pieces — they’re among those that arrived yesterday — that I’m beginning to have questions about. I’m not sure that they are as old as I thought they were when I . . . ‘ the pause was minimal, but Brunetti was certain it was intentional, ‘when I acquired them. I’d give anything to be able to ask Dottoressa Lynch’s opinion about them.’ He looked at the young man and then quickly back at Brunetti. ‘But whatever makes you think she might be here?’

‘Because there is no other place she could be,’ Brunetti explained.

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Dottore. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about this,’ Brunetti said, stretching out his leg and crushing one of the fragments under his foot.

La Capra winced involuntarily at the sound, but he insisted, ‘I still don’t understand you. If you’re talking about those fragments, it’s easily explained. While the pieces were being unpacked, someone was very careless with one of them.’ Looking down at the fragments, he shook his head in sorrow at his loss and disbelief that anyone could have been so clumsy. ‘I’ve given orders that the person responsible be punished.’

As soon as La Capra finished speaking, Brunetti sensed motion from behind him, but before he could turn to see what it was, La Capra stepped towards him and took him by the arm. ‘But come and see the new pieces.’

Brunetti ripped his arm free and turned, but the young man was already at the door. He opened it, smiled at Brunetti, slipped out of the room, and closed the door behind him. From beyond it, Brunetti heard the unmistakable sound of a key being turned in the lock.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Five

Quick footsteps disappeared down the hall. Brunetti turned to La Capra. ‘It’s too late, Signor La Capra,’ Brunetti said, straining to keep his voice calm and reasonable. ‘I know she’s here. You’ll just make things worse by trying to do anything to her.’

‘I beg your pardon, Signor Policeman, but I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,’ La Capra said and smiled in polite puzzlement.

‘About Dottoressa Lynch. I know she’s here.’

La Capra smiled again and waved his hand in a broad, sweeping gesture that took in the room and all the objects it contained. ‘I don’t see why you’re so insistent about this. Surely, if she were here, she’d be with us, enjoying the sight of all this beauty.’ His voice grew even warmer. ‘You hardly believe me capable of keeping such pleasure from her, do you?’

Brunetti’s voice was equally calm. ‘I think it’s time to end the farce, signore.’

La Capra’s laugh, rich with the sound of real delight, broke out when Brunetti said this. ‘Oh, I believe it’s you who is the farceur, Signer Policeman. You are here in my home without invitation; I would guess that your entry was illegal in itself. And so you have no right to tell me what I must and must not do.’ The edge on his voice sharpened perceptibly as he spoke until, when he finished, he was almost hissing with anger. Hearing himself, La Capra recollected the role he was playing, turned away from Brunetti, and took a few steps towards one of the Plexiglas cases.

‘Observe, if you will, the lines on this vase,’ he said. ‘Lovely, simply lovely, the way it serpentines around to the back, don’t you think?’ He made a gossamer loop in the air with his hand, imitating the flow of the painted line across the front of the tall vase inside the case he was observing. ‘I’ve always found it remarkable, the eye for beauty these people had. Thousands of years ago, and still they were in love with beauty.’ Smiling, transforming himself from mere connoisseur to philosopher, he turned to Brunetti and asked, ‘Do you think that’s the secret of humanity, then, the love of beauty?’

When Brunetti made no response to this banality, La Capra let the subject drop and moved to the next case. With a small, private laugh, he said, ‘Dottoressa Lynch would have liked to see this.’

Something in his voice, the tone of dirty secrets, made Brunetti glance across at the case in front of which the other man stood. Inside he saw the same gourd-like shape that he remembered from the picture Brett had shown him. Upright and striding to the left was a human-bodied fox almost identical to the one painted on the vase in the photo Brett had shown him.

Unbidden, the thought was there. If La Capra was willing to show him this vase, then it was clear he no longer had anything to fear from Brett, the one person who could identify its origin. Brunetti wheeled around and took two long strides towards the door. Just before it, he stopped, turned his body to the side, and raised his right leg. With all his force, he kicked out at the door just below the lock. The violence of the kick shocked his entire body, but the door didn’t move.

Behind him, La Capra chuckled. ‘Ah, you Northerners are so impetuous. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to open for you, Signor Policeman, no matter how hard you kick at it. I’m afraid you’re my guest until Salvatore comes back from his errand.’ With complete confidence, he turned back towards the glass cases. ‘This piece here is from the first millennium before Christ. Lovely, isn’t it?’

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Six

When he left the gallery, the young man was careful to lock the door behind him, leaving the key there in the lock. He was amused at the thought that his father would be safe with a policeman, of all people. The idea was so incongruous that he laughed outright as he walked down the corridor. His laughter died away when he opened the door at the end of the corridor and saw that, outside, it still poured. How could these people live with this weather, and with that sea of filthy black water that swelled up from the very pavements? He refused to admit it to himself, but he was afraid of that water, of what his foot might come in contact with when he walked through it or, worse, what might rub itself up against his legs or trickle down inside his boots.

But this, he believed, would be the last time he’d have to walk through it. Once this was done, once this matter was cleared up, he could go back inside and wait for the disgusting water to go back into the canals, the laguna, the sea, where it belonged. He felt no affinity for these frigid Adriatic waters, so different from the broad sweep of pure turquoise that spread out across the tranquil surface of the Mediterranean in front of their home in Palermo. He had no idea what had brought his father to buy a home in this filthy city. His father insisted that it was for the safety of his collection, that there was little chance of robbery here. But no one in Sicily would dare to rob the home of Carmello La Capra.

He was sure his father did it for the same reason he had the stupid collection of pots in the first place: to rise in the world and be considered a gentleman. Salvatore found this absurd. He and his father were gentlemen by virtue of their birth; they didn’t need the opinion of these stupid polentoni to tell them that.

He glanced again across the flooded courtyard, knowing that he would have to pull on boots and plough through the water to cross it. But the thought of what he would do when he reached the other side was enough to buoy up his thoughts; he had enjoyed playing with l’americana, but now it was time to finish the game.

He bent down and dragged on a pair of high rubber boots, yanking hard to pull them up over his shoes. They came to his knees and gaped wide there, their tops hanging open and limp, like the petals around the centre of an anemone. He pulled the door closed behind him and stomped heavily down the outer stairs, cursing the driving rain. Pushing water in front of him with every step, he forced his way across the courtyard towards the wooden door on the other side. Even in the short time since he had locked the door on l’americana, the water level had risen and now covered the bottom panel. Perhaps she had been in there long enough to have drowned. Even if she had managed to pull herself up into one of the large niches cut into the walls, it would be quick work to drown her. He regretted only that he wouldn’t have time to rape her. He had never raped a homosexual before; not a lesbian, at any rate, and he thought it was something he might enjoy. Well, another phone call might bring her singer friend here, and then he could have the chance. His father might object, but there was really no reason for him to know about it, was there? His father’s caution had denied him the pleasure of the first visit to l’americana. Gabriele and Sandro had been sent instead, and they’d made a mess of it. This muddle of violence, resentment and lust occupied him as he crossed the courtyard.

Prepared for the darkness that lay all around him, he pulled a torch from his jacket pocket and flashed it across the bar that held the low door closed. He shot it back and yanked the door towards him, pulling hard against the weight of water. A high-arched space stretched out in front of him. Chairs and tables floated on the oily surface of the water, stored there during the restoration and abandoned in what had once been an inner boat dock, sunk half a metre below the level of the courtyard and protected from the canal beyond by another heavy wooden door, this one secured by a chain. It would be a minute’s work, when he was finished with her, to open the door and float her out into the deeper water of the canal.

To his left, he heard the slap of water and turned the beam of the torch towards it. The eyes that gleamed back at him were too small and set too close together to be human; with a flick of its long tail, the rat turned away from the light and paddled off behind a floating box.

Lust vanished. He turned the light slowly to the right, pausing long enough to examine each of the small alcoves carved into the wall and now covered with a hand’s breadth of water. He saw her at last, slumped sideways in one of the alcoves, knees pulled up in front of her, head limp on top of them. The light lingered on her, but she didn’t move.

Nothing for it, then, but to cross the water to her and get it finished. He steeled himself and stepped off into the deeper water, extending his foot slowly until he was sure it rested securely on the first slimy step, and then the second. He cursed violently as he felt the water spill over the top and down inside his boot. For a moment, he wanted to rip off the offending boot, make it easier to move, but then he remembered the red eyes he had seen on the surface of the water just across the room, and he changed his mind. Tentatively, braced for what he knew was coming, he lowered the other foot into the water and felt it flood down into his shoe. He slid his right foot out in front of him, certain there were only three steps, but not willing to believe it until his feet confirmed the fact. That done, he fixed the beam of light on the form hunched in the alcove and pushed towards her through water which rose up to the middle of his thigh.

As he moved, he planned, determined to get what little pleasure he could out of this. There was nowhere he could rest the torch, so he would have to keep it upended in his pocket, hoping that it would give enough light for him to watch her face as he killed her. It didn’t look as if there was any fight left in her, but he had been surprised in the past, and he hoped the same would happen this time. He didn’t want too much of a struggle, not with all this water, but he felt he deserved at least a token resistance, especially if he was going to be denied the other pleasures he might have had from her.

As he splashed towards her, she raised her head and looked at him with eyes that gaped wide, blinded by the light. ^‘Ciao, bellezza,’ he whispered, and laughed his father’s laugh.

She closed her eyes and lowered her head back on to her knees. With his right hand, he placed the torch in his jacket pocket, careful to angle it forward so that the light shone in the general direction of the woman in front of him. He could see her only vaguely, but he supposed it would be good enough.

Before he began what he had come to do, he couldn’t resist the temptation to pat her lightly on the side of the jaw, touching her with the delicacy of one who taps a piece of fine crystal to hear it sing. He bent aside, momentarily distracted, to adjust the torch, which had rolled towards the back of his pocket. Because he was looking at the torch and not at his victim, he did not see her clenched fist as it arched out from beside her. Nor did he see the antique iron belt hook that protruded from her fist. He was aware of it only as its dull point dug into his throat, just where the angle of the jaw meets the neck. He felt the force of the blow and pulled back from the pain. He staggered to the right and looked back at her in time to see a thick red stream spray out. When he realized it was his blood, he screamed, but by then it was too late. The light was extinguished as he fell beneath the surface of the water.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sound of the key turning in the lock caused both Brunetti and La Capra to turn towards the door, which opened to reveal Vianello, soaked and dripping. ‘Who are you?’ demanded La Capra. ‘What are you doing here?’

Vianello ignored him and spoke to Brunetti. ‘I think you’d better come with me, sir.’

Brunetti moved instantly, passing in front of Vianello and out of the door without bothering to speak. Only at the end of the corridor, before they stepped out into the rain that continued to pour down, did Brunetti ask, ‘Is it I’americana?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s with her friend, sir, but I don’t know how she is. She’s been in the water a long time.’ Without waiting to hear more, Brunetti strode out and ran quickly down the steps.

He found them just beyond the end of the stairs, hunched together under Vianello’s overcoat. At that instant, someone in the house must have switched on the lights, for suddenly the entire courtyard was filled with blinding light, so bright that the two women were turned into a dark Piet à placed on the low ledge that ran along the inner wall of the courtyard.

Flavia knelt in the water, one arm wrapped around Brett, propping her body against the wall with the weight of her own. Brunetti bent down over the two women, not daring to touch them, and called Flavia’s name. She looked up at him, terror palpable in her glance, forcing him to look at the other woman. Brett’s hair was matted with blood; blood streaked across her face and down the front of her clothing.

‘Madre di Dio,’ he whispered.

Vianello splashed up beside him.

‘Call the Questura, Vianello,’ he ordered. ‘Not from here. Get outside and do it. Have them send a boat, with as many men as they can find. And an ambulance. Now. Do it now.’

Vianello was splashing towards the heavy wooden door even before Brunetti finished speaking. When he pulled open the door, a low wave rippled across the courtyard and came to lap against Brunetti’s legs.

From above him, Brunetti heard La Capra’s voice. ‘What’s happening down there? What’s going on?’ Brunetti turned away from the two women, who remained motionless, arms wrapped around each other, and looked towards the top of the stairs. The other man stood there, surrounded by a radiant nimbus of light that poured from the open door behind him, a malign Christ poised at the threshold of some evil tomb.

‘What are you doing down there?’ he demanded again, voice more insistent and a pitch higher. He walked out into the rain and stared down at them, at the two huddled women and a man who was not his son. ‘Salvatore?’ he called out into the rain. ‘Salvatore, answer me.’ The rain pounded down.

La Capra wheeled around and disappeared into the palazzo. Brunetti bent down and touched Flavia’s shoulder. ‘Flavia, get up. We can’t stay here.’ She gave no sign that she had heard him. He shifted his glance to Brett, but she stared at him vacantly, seeing nothing. He placed one hand under Flavia’s arm and pulled her up, bent towards Brett and did the same. He took a step towards the still-open door that led to the calle, one arm dragged down by Brett’s shambling weight. She slipped, and he let go of Flavia to wrap both arms around Brett. Dragging her upright again, he half-carried her, forcing his legs through the chill waters towards the door, barely conscious of Flavia beside him, moving in the same direction.

‘Salvatore, figlio mio, dove sei?’ The voice broke out above them, high-pitched, keening and wild. Brunetti looked up and saw La Capra at the head of the steps, a shotgun clutched in one hand, staring down at them. With deliberate slowness, he began to walk down the steps, ignoring the sheets of rain that blew at him from every direction.

Slowed by Brett’s pendulous weight, Brunetti knew he could never reach the door before La Capra got to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Flavia,’ he said, voice fast and urgent. ‘Get out of here. I’ll bring her: Flavia looked from him to La Capra, still descending the stairs like some relentless fury, and then to Brett. And to the open door to the street, only metres away. Before she could move, three men appeared at the top of the stairs, and she recognized two of them as the men she had driven from Brett’s apartment.

‘Capo,’ one of them called to the descending figure of La Capra.

He turned slowly towards them. ‘Go back. This is mine.’ When they remained motionless, he raised the gun in their direction, but he did it casually, not really aware of what he held in his hands. ‘Go back. Stay away from this.’ Fearful, trained to obey, they retreated indoors, and La Capra turned to continue down the steps.

He moved quickly now, so quickly that he was at the bottom of the steps before Flavia moved.

‘He’s inside,’ Flavia said softly to Brunetti, gesturing with her chin to the door that hung ajar at the far side of the courtyard.

La Capra stepped into the water as if it weren’t there, but he acknowledged the presence of the three people who stood in the pounding rain by keeping the barrel of his shotgun levelled at them as he walked across the courtyard. At the door to the cellar, he paused and cried out into the space that loomed beyond it, ‘Salva? Salva, answer me.’

His knees disappeared into the water as he started down the first step. For an instant, he looked back towards Brunetti and the two women. But then he seemed simply to forget about them as he turned back towards the dark cavern, into which he sank as he took another step, and then another.

‘Flavia, quick!’ Brunetti said. He pivoted around, Brett’s weight balanced against his hip, and pushed her, stumbling limply, towards Flavia. Surprised by the sudden motion, Flavia put out her arms without thinking and grasped at Brett, but she lacked the strength to support her and they both sank to their knees in the water. Leaving them, Brunetti ran across the courtyard, splashing heavily. Beyond the door, he could hear La Capra’s voice as he called his son’s name again and again. He grabbed the side of the door with both hands and forced its leaden weight through the water, then viciously kicked it closed, hand scrambling at the bar until he shot it home.

From behind the door, the shotgun boomed out, filling the trapped space with its echo. Pellets pattered against the wooden door, but the full blast missed the door and pitted the stone wall beside it. Again it roared out, but La Capra fired blind, and the blast crashed uselessly into the water.

Brunetti splashed back across the courtyard towards Flavia and Brett, who were on their feet now and moving slowly towards the main door that still stood open. He moved to Brett’s other side, and gripped her around the waist, urging her forward. As they neared the door, they heard loud splashings and equally loud shouts approaching them in the calle beyond. Brunetti looked up and saw Vianello push through the doorway, followed by two uniformed policemen with pistols drawn.

‘Three of them are upstairs,’ Brunetti told them. ‘Be careful. They’re probably armed. There’s another one in the storeroom. He’s got a shotgun.’

‘Is that what we heard?’ Vianello asked.

Brunetti nodded, then he looked beyond them. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Coming,’ Vianello said. ‘I called from the bar up in the campo. They put out a radio call. Cinquegrani and Marcolini were nearby, so they answered the call,’ he explained, nodding towards the two officers, who had taken up a position under the balcony, out of the possible line of fire from the upper storeys of the palazzo.

‘Do we go and get them?’ Vianello asked, looking up towards the door at the top of the steps.

‘No,’ Brunetti said, seeing no sense in it. ‘We wait for the others to get here.’ As if summoned by his words, a two-pitched siren wailed in the distance and grew louder as it approached. Behind it, he heard another, waning its way up the Grand Canal from the direction of the hospital.

‘Flavia,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘Go with Vianello. He’ll take you down to the ambulance.’ Then, to the sergeant: ‘Get them down there and come back. Send the men up here.’ Vianello splashed to his side and, with the ease of great strength, bent and lifted Brett into his arms. With Flavia following, he carried her from the courtyard and down the narrow calle towards the embankment, where two blue lights flashed intermittently through the endless rain.

There followed a lull. As Brunetti allowed himself to relax a little, his body began to pay the price, and his teeth rattled together while he shook with a dead chill. He forced himself to move through the water and joined the two officers under the protection of the balcony, at least out of the rain.

A scream of pure animal terror rang out from behind the door to the storeroom, and then La Capra began to howl his son’s name again and again. After a time, the name disappeared and was replaced by a shrill waning that flowed out from behind the door and filled the courtyard with his grief.

Brunetti winced at the sound, silently urging Vianello to hurry. He recalled the sight of Semenzato’s battered skull, the sound of Brett’s tortured speech, but still he shied away from the sound of the man’s grief.

‘Hey, you down there,’ a man called from the door at the top of the stairs. ‘We’re coming down. We don’t want any trouble.’ When he turned, Brunetti saw the three men standing with their arms raised over their heads.

Vianello came in then, with four men wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying machine guns. The three men on the stairs saw them, too, and stopped to call out again. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’ The four armed men fanned out inside the courtyard, pulled by instinct and training to take cover behind the marble columns.

Brunetti started towards the door to the storeroom but froze when he saw two of the machine guns turned towards him. ‘Vianello,’ he called out, now with something to be angry at, ‘tell them who I am.’ He realized that he must be no more than a rain-sodden man with a pistol in his hand.

‘It’s Commissario Brunetti,’ Vianello called across the courtyard to them; the machine guns turned away from him and redirected themselves at the men frozen on the stairs.

Brunetti continued towards die door, from which the wailing still issued unabated. He moved the bolt and pulled the door back. It stuck, and he had to force its swollen bottom across the stone pavement towards him. Outlined by the bright lights flooding the courtyard, he presented a perfect target to anyone safe inside the darkened storeroom, but he didn’t think of this; the wailing made that impossible.

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside, but when they did, he saw La Capra kneeling to his waist in the water, bent down in a masculine piet à that was a grotesque copy of the one Brunetti had just seen in the courtyard. But this image held a finality the other lacked, for here a parent keened over a dead and only son whose body he had pulled to himself from the filthy water.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brunetti opened the door to his office and, finding it no more than warm and the heating system silent, breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Saint Leandro, even though weeks had passed since he had worked his yearly miracle. There were other signs of spring: at home that morning, he had noticed that the pansies on the balcony were battering their way through the winter-hardened earth in the vases, and Paola had said she had to replant them this weekend; the wooden table, legs injected with poison, baked in the sun beside them; that morning, he’d seen the first of the black-headed seagulls that spent a brief spring holiday on the waters of the canals each year before heading off elsewhere; and the air breathed with a sudden softness that flowed like a benediction across the islands and the waters.

He hung his coat in the cupboard and walked over to his desk, but he veered away from it and went to stand at the window. There was motion on the scaffolding that covered San Lorenzo this morning; men moved up and down on the ladders and scrambled across the roof. Unlike the bursting insistence of nature, all of this man-made activity, Brunetti was sure, was no more than a false spring and would quickly end, no doubt with the renewal of the contracts.

He stood at the window for some time, until he was distracted by Signorina Elettra’s cheerful ‘Buon giorno.’ Today she was in yellow, a soft silk dress that fell to her knees, and heels so sharp he was glad his floor was stone and not parquet. Like the flowers and the gulls and the soft breezes, she brought grace into the room with her, and he smiled with something that felt like joy.

‘Buon giorno, signorina,’ he said. ‘You look especially lovely today. Like spring itself.’

‘Ah, this rag,’ she said dismissively and flipped fingers down towards the skirt of the dress that must have cost her more than a week’s salary. Her smile was at odds with her words, so he didn’t insist.

She handed him two files with a letter clipped to the top of them. ‘This needs your signature, Dottore.’

‘La Capra?’ he asked.

‘Yes. It’s your statement about why you and Officer Vianello went into the palazzo that night.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he muttered while he read quickly through the two-page document, written in response to the complaint of La Capra’s lawyers that Brunetti’s entrance into his home two months before had been illegal. Addressed to the Praetore, it explained that, during the course of his investigation, he had become increasingly convinced that La Capra had played some role in Semenzato’s murder and cited as evidence the fact that Salvatore La Capra’s fingerprints had been found in Semenzato’s office. Acting upon that and spurred by Dottoressa Lynch’s disappearance, he had gone to the La Capra palazzo with Sergeant Vianello and Signora Petrelli. Upon arriving, they had found the door to the courtyard open (as mentioned in the statements given by both Sergeant Vianello and Signora Petrelli) and had entered when they heard what sounded like the screams of a woman. His report carried a full description of events pursuant to their arrival (again, confirmed by the statements of Sergeant Vianello and Signora Petrelli); he offered this explanation to the Praetore to set his mind at rest that their entrance into the property of Signor La Capra had been well within the limits of the law, as it is, beyond question, the right, indeed, the duty, of even a private citizen to answer a call for help, especially if easy and legal access is available to do so. There followed a respectful closing. He took the pen Signorina Elettra held out to him and signed the letter.

‘Thank you, signorina. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes, Dottore. Signora Petrelli called and confirmed your meeting with her.’

More proof of spring. More grace.

‘Thank you, signorina,’ he said, taking the files and returning the letter to her. She smiled and was gone.

* * * *

The first file was from Carrara’s office in Rome and contained a complete list of the articles in La Capra’s collection that the art fraud police had been able to identify. The list of provenance read like a tourist’s, or policeman’s, guide to the plundered troves of the ancient world: Herculaneum, Volterra, Paestum, Corinth. The Orient and Middle East were well represented: Xian, Angkor Wat, the Kuwait Museum. Some of the pieces appeared to have been acquired legitimately, but they were in the minority. More than a few pieces had been declared to be fakes. Good ones, but still fakes. Documents sequestered in La Capra’s home proved that many of the illegal pieces had been acquired from Murino, whose shop was closed to allow the art police to make a complete inventory of the pieces there and in the warehouse he kept in Mestre. He denied all knowledge of illegally acquired pieces and insisted that they must have been brought in by his former partner, Dottor Semenzato. Had it not been for the fact that he had been arrested while accepting delivery of four boxes of alabaster ashtrays made in Hong Kong and of the four statues contained with them, he might have been believed. As it was, he was under arrest, and his lawyer had the responsibility of producing the invoices and dockets that would implicate Semenzato.

La Capra, in Palermo, where he had taken his son’s body for burial, seemed to have lost all interest in his collection. He had ignored all orders to produce further documents that could prove either purchase or ownership. The police, therefore, had confiscated all pieces known or believed to be stolen and were continuing to search for the source of those few which had still not been identified. Brunetti was pleased to note that Carrara had seen to it that the pieces taken from the Chinese show at the Ducal Palace were not listed in the inventory of objects found in La Capra’s house. Only three people - Brunetti, Flavia and Brett - knew where they were.

The second file contained the mounting papers on the case against La Capra, his late son, and the men arrested with him. Both of the men who had beaten Dottoressa Lynch had been in the palazzo that night and were arrested along with La Capra and another man. The first two admitted the beating but claimed that they had gone there to rob her apartment. They insisted they knew nothing about the murder of Dottor Semenzato.

La Capra, for his part, maintained that he had no idea that the two men, whom he identified as his driver and his bodyguard, had attempted to rob the apartment of Dottoressa Lynch, a woman for whom he had the highest professional regard. At the beginning, he also asserted that he neither knew nor had dealings of any sort with Dottor Semenzato. But as information flowed in from those places where he and Semenzato had met, as various dealers and antiquarians signed statements linking the two men together in a host of business dealings, La Capra’s story ebbed away as did the waters of acqua alta with the turning of the tide or a favourable change in the wind. And with the change of this particular tide came the memory that he had, in the past, perhaps bought a piece or two from Dottor Semenzato.

He had been ordered to return to Venice or risk being carried back by the police, but he had placed himself under doctor’s care and had been committed to a private clinic, suffering from ‘nervous collapse resulting from personal grief. He remained there, physically and, in a country where only the bond between parent and child remained sacred, legally untouchable.

Brunetti pushed the files away from him and stared at the empty surface of his desk, imagining the forces that had already been brought into play in this. La Capra was a man not without influence. And he now had a dead son, a young man of violent temper. Hadn’t the two thugs, the day after they’d spoken to their lawyer, recalled hearing Salvatore once say that Dottor Semenzato had treated his father without respect? Something about a statue that he had bought for his father that turned out to be false - something like that. And, yes, they thought they could remember hearing him say he would make the Dottore sorry he had ever recommended false artifacts for his father or for him to buy for his father.

Brunetti had no doubt that, as time passed, the two thugs would remember more and more, and all of it would point to poor Salvatore, bent on nothing else but the mistaken defence of his father’s honour and his own. And they’d probably recall the many occasions when Signor La Capra had tried to persuade his son that Dottor Semenzato was an honest man, that he had always acted in good faith when he endorsed pieces that were then sold by Murino, his partner. Perhaps the judges, if the case ever got that far, would have to listen to a tale of Salvatore’s desire to give his father nothing but pleasure, devoted son that he was. And Salvatore, not at all a sophisticated boy, but good, good at heart, would have tried to procure these presents for his beloved father in the only way he could think of, by seeking the advice of Dottor Semenzato. And given his devotion to his father, his intense desire to please him, it was but a short step to imagine his rage when he discovered that Dottor Semenzato had attempted to take advantage of both his innocence and his generosity by selling him a copy instead of an original piece. From there, it was but no distance at all to the injustice of adding to a father’s grief, a father who had to bear in one blow the death of his beloved only son and the sad knowledge of the lengths to which that son was capable of going in his attempts both to give his father pleasure and to defend their family honour.

Yes, it would hold, and the association between La Capra and Semenzato would, instead of working as evidence of his guilt, be used as the opposite, as an explanation of the underlying good faith between the two men, a trust destroyed by the dishonesty of Semenzato and the impulsiveness of Salvatore, alas, now beyond the power of the law. Brunetti had no doubt that the final legal decision would be that Salvatore had killed Semenzato. Well, he might have; no one would ever know. Either he or La Capra had done it, or had it done, and both of them had paid in their own way. Were he a man more given to sentimentality, Brunetti would judge La Capra to have paid the greater price, but he was not, so it seemed to him that Salvatore had paid the greater price for Semenzato’s death.

Brunetti pushed himself up, away from the desk and from the files that led to this conclusion. He had seen La Capra with his son, had pulled him from the slimy waters and helped the screaming man float his son’s body to the foot of the three low steps. And there, it had taken him and Vianello and two of the other officers to separate them, to pull La Capra away from his futile attempt to close with his own fingers the bloodless hole in the side of his son’s neck.

Brunetti had never believed that a life could be paid for with another life, so he again dismissed the idea that La Capra had paid for Semenzato’s death. All grief was separate and discrete, relating only to one loss. But he found it difficult to feel any personal rancour for the man he had last seen howling in the arms of a policeman whose only concern was to keep him from seeing his son’s body as it was carried away on a stretcher, face covered by Vianello’s rain-soaked coat.

He pushed these memories away. It was all beyond him now, taken into the hands of another agency of the law, and he could no longer affect the outcome in any way. He’d had enough of death and violence, enough of pilfered beauty and the lust for the perfect. He longed for springtime and its many imperfections.

* * * *

An hour later, he left the Questura and walked towards San Marco. Everywhere, he saw the same things he’d been seeing for days, but today he chose to call them signs of spring. Even the omnipresent pastel tourists lifted his heart. Via XXII Marzo pulled his steps down towards the Accademia Bridge. On the other side of it, he saw the season’s first long line of tourists waiting to enter the museum, but he had seen enough of art for a while. The water drew him now and the thought of sitting in the young sun with Flavia, having a coffee, talking of this and that, seeing the way her face went so quickly from ease to joy and back again. He was to meet her at Il Cucciolo at eleven, and he already delighted in the thought of the sound of the waters stirring under the wooden deck, of the desultory motion of the waiters, not yet thawed from their winter lethargy, and of the large valiant umbrellas which insisted on creating shade, long before there was any need of it. He took even greater delight in the thought of the sound of her voice.

Ahead of him he saw the waters of the Giudecca Canal and, beyond them, the happy fa ç ades of the buildings on the other side. From the left, a tanker steamed into view, riding high and empty in the water, and even its streaked grey hull seemed bright and beautiful in this light. A dog scampered past, kicked up its hind legs, then circled back upon itself, bent on capturing its tail.

At the water’s edge, he turned left and walked towards the open deck of the bar, searching for her. Four couples, a lone man, another, a woman and two children, a table with six or seven young girls whose giggles were audible even as he approached. But no Flavia. Perhaps she was late. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her. He began again at the first near table and studied everyone again, in the same order. And saw her, sitting with the two children, a tall boy and a young girl still plump with the fat of childhood.

His smile disappeared, and a different one took its place. Using this one, he approached their table and took her extended hand.

She smiled up at him. ‘Oh, Guido, how wonderful to see you. What a glorious day.’ She turned to the boy and said, ‘Paolino, this is Dottor Brunetti.’ The young boy stood, almost as tall as Brunetti, took his hand and shook it.

‘Buon giorno, Dottore. I’d like to thank you for helping my mother.’ It sounded as if he had practised the line, and he delivered it formally, as from one trying to be a man to one who already was. He had his mother’s dark eyes, but his face was longer and narrower.

‘Me too, Mamma,’ the girl piped up, and, when Flavia was slow to respond, stood and held her hand out to Brunetti. ‘I’m Victoria, but my friends call me Vivi.’

Taking her hand, Brunetti said, ‘Then I’d like to call you Vivi.’

She was young enough to smile, old enough to look away before she blushed.

He pulled out a chair and sat, then angled the chair to get his face info the sun. They talked generally for a few minutes, the children asking him questions about being a policeman, whether he carried a gun, and when he said he did, where it was. When he told them, Vivi asked if he had ever shot anyone and seemed disappointed when he said that he had not. It didn’t take the children long to realize that being a policeman in Venice was a great deal different from being a cop on Miami Vice, and after that revelation, they seemed to lose interest both in his career and in him.

The waiter came and Brunetti ordered a Campari soda; Flavia asked for another coffee, then changed it to a Campari. The children grew audibly restless, until Flavia suggested that they walk up along the embankment to Nico’s and get themselves gelato, an idea that was met with general relief.

When they were gone, Vivi hurrying to keep up with Paolo’s longer steps, he said, ‘they’re very nice children.’ Flavia said nothing, so he added, ‘I didn’t know you’d brought them to Venice with you.’

‘Yes, it’s seldom that I get a chance to spend a weekend with them, but I’m not scheduled to sing the matinee this Saturday, so we decided to come here. I’m singing in Munich now,’ she added.

‘I know. I read about you in the papers.’

She gazed out over the water, across the canal to the church of the Redentore. ‘I’ve never been here in the early spring before.’

‘Where are you staying?’

She pulled her eyes back from the church and looked at him. ‘At Brett’s.’

‘Oh. Did she come back with you?’ he asked. He had last seen Brett in the hospital, but she had stayed there only overnight, then she and Flavia had left for Milan two days later. He’d had no word of either of them until the day before, when Flavia had called and asked him to meet her for a drink.

‘No, she’s in Zurich, giving a lecture.’

‘When will she come back?’ he asked politely.

‘She’ll be in Rome next week. I finish in Munich next Thursday night.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then London, but only for a concert, and then China,’ she said, voice carrying her reproach that he had forgotten. ‘I’m invited to give master classes at the Beijing Conservatory. Don’t you remember?’

‘Then you’re going to go through with it? You’re going to take the pieces back?’ he asked, surprised that she would do it.

She made no attempt to disguise her own delight. ‘Of course we are. That is, I am.’

‘But how can you do that? How many pieces are there? Three? Four?’

‘Four. I’m carrying seven pieces of luggage, and I’ve arranged it that the Minister of Culture will meet me at the airport. I doubt that they’re going to look for antiques being smuggled into the country.’

‘What if they find them?’ he asked.

She gave a purely theatrical wave of the hand. ‘Well, I can always say that I was bringing them to donate to the people of China, that I was going to present them after I’d taught the classes, as a token of my gratitude for their having invited me.’

She’d do it, too, and he was certain she’d get away with it. He laughed at the thought. ‘Well, good luck to you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, certain that she’d need no luck there.

They sat in silence for a while, Brett a third party, invisible but present. Boats puttered past; the waiter brought their drinks, and they were glad of the diversion.

‘And after China?’ he finally asked.

‘Lots of travelling until the end of summer. That’s another reason I wanted to spend the weekend with the children. I’ve got to go to Paris, then Vienna; and then back to London.’ When he said nothing she tried to lighten the mood by saying, ‘I get to die in Paris and Vienna, Lucia and Violetta.’

‘And in London?’ he asked.

‘Mozart. Fiordiligi. And then my first attempt at Handel.’

‘Will Brett go with you?’ he asked and sipped at his drink.

She looked over to the church again, the church of the Redeemer. ‘She’s going to stay in China for at least a few months,’ was all the answer Flavia gave.

He sipped again and looked out over the water, suddenly conscious of the dance of light on its rippled surface. Three tiny sparrows came and landed at his feet, hopping about in search of food. Slowly, he reached forward and took a fragment of the brioche that still lay on a plate in front of Flavia and tossed it to them. Greedily, they pounced on it and tore it into pieces, then each flew off to a safer place to eat.

‘Her career?’ he asked.

Flavia nodded, then shrugged. ‘I’m afraid she takes it far more seriously than . . .’ she began, but then she trailed off.

‘Than you take yours?’ he asked, not ready to believe it.

‘In a way, I suppose that’s true.’ Seeing that he was about to protest, she placed her hand on his arm and explained. ‘Think of it this way, Guido. Anyone at all can come and listen to me and shout his head off, and he doesn’t have to know anything about either music or singing. He just has to like my costume, or the story, or perhaps he just shouts “brava” because everyone else does.’ She saw that he didn’t believe this and insisted, ‘It’s true. Believe me. My dressing room is filled with them after every performance, people who tell me how beautiful my singing was, even if I sang like a dog that night.’ He watched the memory of this play across her face, and then he knew she was speaking the truth.

‘But think about what Brett does. Very few people know anything about her work except the people who really know what she’s doing; they’re all experts, so they understand the importance of her work. I suppose the difference is that she can be judged only by her peers, her equals, so the standards are much higher, and praise really means something. I can be applauded by any fool who chooses to cheer.’

‘But what you do is beautiful.’

She laughed outright. ‘Don’t let Brett hear you say that.’

‘Why? Doesn’t she think it is?’

Still laughing, she explained, ‘No, Guido, you misunderstand. She thinks what she does is beautiful, too, and she thinks the things she works with are as beautiful as the music I sing.’

He remembered then that there had been something unclear in Brett’s statement and he had wanted to ask her about it. But there had been no time: she’d been in the hospital and then had left Venice immediately after signing a formal statement. ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ he began and then laughed outright when he realized how very true that was.

Her smile was tentative, questioning. ‘What?’

‘It’s about Brett’s statement,’ he explained. Flavia’s face relaxed. ‘She wrote that La Capra had shown her a bowl, a Chinese bowl. I forget what century it was supposed to be from.’

‘The third millennium before Christ,’ Flavia explained.

‘She told you about it?’

‘Of course she did.’

‘Then maybe you can help me.’ She nodded and he continued. ‘In her statement, she said that she broke it, that she let it fall to the floor, knowing it would break.’

Flavia nodded. ‘Yes, I talked to her. That’s what she said. That’s what happened.’

‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ Brunetti said.

‘What?’

‘If she loves these things so much, if she’s so devoted to them, to saving them, then the bowl had to have been a false one, didn’t it, another of those fakes that La Capra bought, thinking that they were real?’

Flavia said nothing and turned her head away to stare off towards the abandoned mill that stood at the end of the Giudecca.

‘Well?’ Brunetti insisted.

She turned and faced him, sun shining down on her from the left and chiselling her profile against the buildings across the canal. ‘Well what?’ she asked.

‘It had to be a fake, didn’t it, for her to destroy it?’

For a long time, he thought she was going to ignore him or refuse to answer him. The sparrows came back and, this time, Flavia tore the remaining heel of brioche into tiny fragments and tossed it down to them. They both watched as the small birds swallowed the golden crumbs and looked up towards Flavia for more. At the same time, they glanced up from the peeping birds, and their eyes met. After a long moment, she glanced away from him and off down the embankment, where she saw her children coming back towards them, ice cream cones in their hands.

‘Well?’ Brunetti asked, needing an answer.

They both heard Vivi’s hoots of laughter ring out over the water.

Flavia leaned forward and put her hand on his arm again. ‘Guido,’ she began, smiling. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’