Doctored Evidence

8

After a few minutes' discussion, Brunetti went downstairs and made a few photocopies of the paper. When he came back, he and Vianello wrote out the full names of the banks beside each of the abbreviations. When they had them all, Brunetti asked, 'Are you good enough to get into them?' leaving it to Vianello to infer that he meant with a computer and not with a pickaxe and crowbar.

Regretfully, Vianello shook his head and said, 'Not yet, sir. She let me try it once, with a bank in Rome, but I left a trail so broad that a friend of hers sent her an email the next day to ask her what she thought she was doing.'

'He knew she did it?' Brunetti asked.

'The man told her he recognized her technique in the way I first entered the system’

'Which was?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, you wouldn't understand, sir’ Vianello said in a haunting echo of the cool, objective tone Signorina Elettra used and which the inspector had probably learned from her. 'She started me off using an opening code, then she let me try to find a specific piece of information.'

'Which was?' Brunetti said, adding, 'if I might ask.'

'She wanted me to see if I could discover how much money had been transferred into a particular account from a numbered account in Kiev.'

'Whose account?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello pressed his lips together, considering, and then named the Assistant Minister in the Department of Commerce who had been most active in arranging government loans to the Ukraine.

'Did you find out?'

'Alarm bells’ Vianello began, then explained, 'figuratively, that is – began to sound. So I got out as quickly as I could, but not before I'd left very obvious signs that I'd been in there’

'Why would she want to know something like that?' Brunetti mused.

'I think she already knew, sir’ Vianello said, then added, 'In fact, I'm sure she did. That's how she knew how to help me get in.'

'Did she explain to her friend?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, no, sir. That would just have made it worse, if he knew she was helping the police’ 'You mean none of these people she asks for

help knows where she works?' asked an astonished Brunetti.

'Oh, no. That would be the end of it, if they did.'

'Then where do they all think she's working?' He had some vague idea that any messages she sent must be traceable to the Questura. They all had email addresses: he'd even used his a few times, and he knew it was perfectly clear that it was at the Venice Questura.

‘I think she reroutes things, sir,' Vianello said cautiously.

Though Brunetti wasn't clear how this could be done, the verb made it clear that it had been done. 'Reroutes it how, through what?'

'Probably her last working address.'

'The Banca d'ltalia?' asked an astonished Brunetti. At Vianello's nod, Brunetti demanded, 'Do you mean she's sending and getting information via an address at a place where she hasn't worked for years?' At the second nod, Brunetti raised his voice. 'It's the national bank, for God's sake. How can they allow a person who hasn't worked there for years to use their address as if she still did?'

‘I don't think they would allow it, sir,' Vianello agreed, then explained, 'that is, if anyone there knew she was using it.'

To continue with this conversation, Brunetti suddenly realized, would lead either to madness or, more dangerously, to criminal knowledge which, at some time in the future, he might have to deny under oath. But, unable to control his curiosity, he asked, 'Did you find out?'

'Find out what?'

'How much was deposited?'

'No.'

'Did she?'

'I assume so.'

'Why? Did she tell you?'

'No. She said it was privileged information, and I couldn't have it unless I found it out myself.'

Hearing this, the expression, 'Honour among thieves', did flit through Brunetti's mind, but his admiration and respect caused him to swat it aside and return his attention to the matter at hand. 'Then we have to ask her to do this?'

‘I think so. Yes.'

Together they got to their feet and, Vianello carrying the sheet of paper with the deciphered initials, they went downstairs to see if Signorina Elettra was in her office.

She was, but unfortunately so was her immediate superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, today wearing a cream linen suit with a black shirt, also of linen. His tie, of slate-coloured silk, had threads of the same colour as the suit running diagonally across it. Brunetti noticed, as he had failed to do earlier, that Signorina Elettra was wearing a black linen suit and a cream-coloured silk blouse. It occurred to him that, had the two of them planned this,

Patta would probably have been motivated by emulation, she by parody.

Seeing Vianello with a sheet of paper in his hand, Patta demanded, 'What's that, Inspector? Something to do with the Commissario's nonsensical idea that that woman was not murdered by the Romanian?'

'No, Vice-Questore,' a humbled Vianello said. 'It's a code I use for choosing teams for the Totocalcio.' He brought the paper out from behind him and made as if to show it to Patta, saying, 'You see, this first column is the code for the team name, and then here are the numbers of the players I think are going to…'

That's enough, Vianello’ Patta said with undisguised irritation. Then, to Brunetti, 'Unless you're busy choosing your winning teams, too, Commissario, I'd like to have a word with you.' He turned towards the door to his office.

'Of course, sir’ said Brunetti and followed him, leaving Vianello to talk to Signorina Elettra.

Patta went to his desk but didn't invite Brunetti to sit, a good sign, for it meant the Vice-Questore was in a hurry. It was almost five: Patta would barely have time for the police launch to take him over to the Cipriani for a swim and get him home in time for dinner.

'I won't keep you, Commissario. I want to remind you that this case is settled, regardless of what your ridiculous ideas about it might be’ he began, not bothering to specify which of Brunetti's ideas he found ridiculous and thus allowing himself the option of considering them all to be so. 'The facts speak for themselves. The Romanian killed that poor old woman, tried to escape the country, and then gave clear proof of her guilt by trying to escape from a routine police inspection at the border.' He put his hands together, making a steeple out of his ringers, and covered his mouth for a second with his forefingers, then separated them and said, ‘I don't want the work of this police department called into question by a suspicious and irresponsible press.'

He raised his chin and devoted his full attention, and gaze, to Brunetti. 'Have I made myself clear, Cornmissario?'

'Excellently clear, sir’

'Good’ he said, taking Brunetti's affirmation as agreement that he would do as he was told. 'Then I won't keep you any longer. I have a meeting to attend.'

Brunetti murmured polite words and left the office. Outside, Signorina Elettra sat at her desk, reading a magazine; there was no sign of Vianello. When she looked up, Brunetti raised a finger and pointed at his nose, then upwards in the direction of his office. He heard Patta's door open behind him. Signorina Elettra glanced back at her magazine, ignoring Brunetti, and idly flipped a page. He left and went up to his office to wait for her.

Vianello was by the window of Brunetti's office when he arrived, standing on his toes and leaning out of the window, looking down at the dock in front of the Questura. Brunetti heard the motor of one of the launches start up, then listened as it pulled away and started down towards the Bacino and, presumably, off towards the Cipriani. Saying nothing, Vianello drew his head back inside and moved towards a chair.

A moment later Signorina Elettra came in and closed the door behind her. She took the chair next to Vianello; Brunetti leaned back against his desk.

He hardly thought it necessary to ask her if Vianello had told her what had to be done. 'Will you be able to check them all?' he asked.

'Only this one will be difficult,' she said, pointing to a name halfway down the list. 'Deutsche Bank. They've taken over two other banks, but their office here is new, and I've never had to ask them for anything, so it might take me some time, but I can make the requests to the others this afternoon: I should have the answers by tomorrow.' The way she phrased it, one not familiar with her tactics would assume that all of this would be done according to strict banking procedure: all information given in compliance with court orders which, in turn, had been supplied in response to police inquiries filed through the proper channels. Since this was a process which ordinarily took months and which new laws made increasingly difficult, if not impossible, the reality was that the information would be plucked from the files of the banks as effortlessly as the wallet from the back pocket of an unsuspecting Belgian tourist on the Number One vaporetto.

Looking at Vianello, Brunetti asked, 'What do you think?'

With a polite nod at Signorina Elettra to show that she had told him about Brunetti's conversation with Signora Gismondi, Vianello said, 'If the woman you spoke to is telling the truth, then it's not likely that Signora Ghiorghiu killed the old woman. Which means that someone else did, and I agree that these bank records are a good first place to look for a reason why.'

Signorina Elettra interrupted here. 'Do you think there's any chance that she might have been the murderer?'

Vianello glanced at him, equally curious, and Brunetti said, 'If you've seen the photos of Signora Battestini's body, you've seen what the blows did to her head.' Taking their silence for assent, he went on, 'It doesn't make any sense to me that the Ghiorghiu woman would go back and do that in cold blood. She had a lot of money, she had a train ticket home, and she was already at the station. And from what Signora Gismondi said, it sounds as though she'd had time to calm down. I can't see any reason why she'd go back and kill the old woman, and if she did, not in that way. That was rage, not calculation.'

'Or calculation disguised as rage,' suggested Vianello.

This opened vistas of malice Brunetti preferred not to contemplate, but he nodded in reluctant assent. Rather than speculate about the possible, however, he wanted them to discuss the actual, and so he turned his attention to Signorina Elettra. ‘I’ll talk to her lawyer tomorrow and to the relatives.' Turning to Vianello, he said, 'I'd like you to go and see if people in the neighbourhood remember seeing anything that day.'

'Is this official?' Vianello asked.

Brunetti sighed. ‘I think it would be better if you managed to make your questions casual, if such a thing is possible.'

'I'll ask Nadia if she knows anyone who lives over there,' Vianello said. 'Or maybe we'll go over there for a drink or have lunch in that new place on the corner of Campo dei Mori.'

Brunetti acknowledged Vianello's plan with a grin, then turned to Signorina Elettra and said, 'The other thing I'd like checked is any possible involvement she might have had with us.'

'Who? The Romanian?'

'No. Signora Battestini.'

'A master criminal in her eighties,' she chortled. 'How I'd love to discover one.'

Brunetti named a former Prime Minister and suggested she might begin by searching the files for information about him.

Vianello laughed outright and she had the grace to smile.

'And her husband and her late son while you're about it,' Brunetti said, returning them to the business at hand.

'Shall I have a look for the lawyer?' 'Yes.'

'I love to hunt for lawyers’ Signorina Elettra could not prevent herself from saying. 'They think they're so clever at hiding things, but it's so easy to flush them out of the undergrowth. Almost too easy.'

'Would you prefer to give them a sporting chance?' Vianello asked.

The question brought her back to her senses. 'Give a lawyer a sporting chance? Do you think I'm mad?'