Doctored Evidence

6

After the woman had gone, Brunetti went back to his desk, considering what he had just heard, not only from Signora Gismondi, but from Lieutenant Scarpa. What the first had told him seemed an entirely plausible story: people left the city and events continued in their absence. Often enough, people chose to have no contact with home, perhaps the better to savour the sense of being away or, as she had told Scarpa, to immerse themselves totally in a foreign language or culture. He tried to think of a reason why a woman as apparently sensible and honest as Signora Gismondi should invent such a story and hold to it in the face of what he was sure must have been Scarpa's opposition. He came up with no convincing explanation.

It was far easier to speculate about Scarpa's motives. To accept her story was to accept that the police had acted with unwonted haste in accepting a convenient solution to the crime. It was also to require an explanation of the whereabouts of the money that had disappeared while in police custody. Both matters had been in the hands of Lieutenant Scarpa. More importantly, to accept her story would demand a re-examination of the case, or rather, it would demand that, more than three weeks after the murder, the case finally be examined for the first time.

Brunetti had been on vacation when Signora Battestini's body was discovered and had returned to Venice only after the case had been set aside, when he had continued with the investigation of the baggage handlers at the airport. Since the accused had been repeatedly filmed rifling through and stealing from passengers' luggage and since some of them were willing to testify against the others in the hope of receiving lighter sentences, there was very little for Brunetti to do save to keep the papers and files straight and interview those who had not yet confessed but who might perhaps be persuaded to do so. He had read about the murder while he had been away and, foolishly lulled into believing what he read in the papers, had been convinced that the Romanian woman was guilty. Why else should she try to leave the country? Why else that panicked attempt to flee from the police?

Signora Gismondi had just provided him with alternative answers to these questions: Florinda Ghiorghiu left the country because her job was gone, and she tried to escape the police because she was a citizen of a country where the police were believed to be as corrupt as they were violent and where the thought of falling into their hands was enough to drive a person to flee in maddened panic.

When Brunetti had seen Scarpa in Signorina Elettra's office an hour before, the lieutenant was stiff with anger at what he insisted were a witness's lies. Sensing his rage, Signorina Elettra suggested to the lieutenant, 'Perhaps someone else could get the truth out of her.'

Brunetti was astonished by Signorina Elettra's civility to the lieutenant and by her apparent willingness to believe him. Her craft became evident only when she turned to him and said, 'Commissario, it seems the lieutenant has laid the groundwork by seeing through this woman's story. Maybe someone else could try to find out what's motivating her.' Turning back to the lieutenant and raising her hands in a gesture rich with deferential uncertainty, she added, 'If you think that might help, Lieutenant, of course.' He noticed that she was wearing a simple white cotton blouse: perhaps it was the tightly buttoned collar that made her seem so innocent.

Atavistic suspicion of Signorina Elettra flashed across Scarpa's face, but before he could speak, Brunetti interrupted, saying to Signorina Elettra, 'Don't look at me. I've got the airport to worry about, so I don't have time to be bothered with something like this.' He turned to leave.

Brunetti's reluctance prompted Scarpa into saying, 'She's just going to keep telling me the same story. I'm sure of that.'

It was a statement, not a request, and Brunetti held firm. 'I've got the airport case.' He continued towards the door.

That was enough to provoke Scarpa. 'If this woman's lying about a murder, it's more important than petty theft at the airport,' he said.

Brunetti stopped just short of the door. He turned towards Signorina Elettra, who said, with resignation, 'I think the lieutenant's right, sir.'

Brunetti, a man of sorrows and afflicted with grief, said, with perhaps too much resignation, 'All right, but I don't want to get involved. Where is she?'

Thus it was that he had spoken to Signora Gismondi, and everything she said led him to believe that he had indeed done as Signorina Elettra suggested and got the truth out of her.

Now he went downstairs to Signorina Elettra's office and found her talking on the phone. She raised a hand and held up two fingers to signal that it would take but a moment to finish the call, bent and took a few notes, then said thank you and hung up.

'How did that happen?' he asked, nodding with his chin to the point where Lieutenant Scarpa had stood.

'Know thy enemy’ she answered.

'Meaning?' he asked.

'He hates you, but he's only deeply suspicious of me, so all I had to do was offer him the chance to force you to do something you didn't want to do, and the desire to do that was enough to overcome his distrust of me.'

'You make it sound so easy’ he said, 'like something in a textbook.'

'The carrot and the stick’ she said, smiling. 'I offered him the carrot, which he thought he could turn into a stick he could use to beat you.' Then, suddenly serious, she asked, 'What did the woman say?'

'That she took the Romanian woman to the train station, bought her a ticket to Bucharest, and left her there.'

'How long before the train left?' she asked instantly.

He was pleased that she too could see the weakest link in Signora Gismondi's story. 'About an hour before the train left.'

'The newspapers said it happened over by the Palazzo del Cammello.'

'Yes.'

'There would have been more than enough time, then, wouldn't there?' 'Yes.' 'And?'

'Why bother?' he asked. "This woman, Assunta Gismondi, says she gave the Romanian woman about seven hundred Euros’ he began, and when he saw Signorina Elettra raise her eyebrows he continued, 'and I believe she did.' Cutting off her question, he said, 'She's impulsive, the Gismondi woman, and I think generous.' Indeed, he was convinced that these were two of the qualities that had brought her to the Questura this morning, those and honesty.

Signorina Elettra pushed her chair back from her desk and crossed her legs, revealing a short red skirt and a pair of shoes with heels so high they would have raised her above even the worst acqua alta.

'If you will permit me a seemingly impertinent question, Commissario’ she began, and at his nod she continued, 'is this your head or your heart speaking?'

He considered for a moment, then answered, 'Both.'

'Then’ she said, getting to her feet, a process which raised her almost to his height, 'I think I'd better go down to Scarpa's office and make a copy of the file.'

'Isn't it in there?' he asked, waving a hand towards her computer.

'No. The lieutenant prefers to type up his reports and keep them in his office.'

'Will he give them to you?'

She smiled. 'Of course not.'

Feeling not a bit foolish, he asked, 'Then how will you get it?'

She bent down and opened a drawer. From it she took a thin leather case, and when she opened it he saw a set of picks and tools frighteningly similar to the ones he sometimes used. ‘I'll steal it, Commissario. And make a copy. Then put it back where I found it. And, as the lieutenant is a suspicious man, I shall be especially careful when I replace the half-toothpick which he leaves between the seventh and eighth pages of files he thinks are important and which he fears other people will try to see.'

Her smile broadened. Tf you'd like to wait for me in your office, Commissario, I'll bring the copy up as soon as I've made it.'

He had to know. 'But where is he?' What he really wanted to ask was how she knew that Scarpa was not in his office.

'On one of the launches, on his way to Fondamenta Nuove.'

Brunetti was put in mind of the stand-off scenes he'd seen in so many of the westerns he'd watched while growing up, where the good guy and the bad guy stood face to face, each trying to stare the other down. Here, however, there was no question of good guy and bad guy; unless, of course, one were to take the narrow-minded view that breaking into a room at the Questura to make an unauthorized copy of state documents was in any way reprehensible. Brunetti's vision of the law was far too lofty to accept such a view, so he went to hold the door open for her. As she passed in front of him, she said, smiling, ‘I won't be long.'

How did she do it? he found himself asking as he walked back to his office. He wasn't curious about the means at Signorina Elettra's command, the computer and the friends at the other end of the phone, always willing to do a favour and break a rule, or a law. Nor did he particularly care about the techniques she used to learn as much as she did about the life and weaknesses of her superiors. What puzzled him was how she found the courage to oppose them so consistently and so openly and to make no attempt to disguise where her loyalties lay. She had once explained to him how it was that she had given up a career in banking and accepted what must be, in the eyes of her family and her friends, a vastly inferior job with the police. She had acted on principle in leaving the bank, and he supposed she was acting on principle now, but he had never had the courage to ask her just what those principles were.

Back at his desk, he made a list of the information he needed: the extent of Signora Battestini's estate; to what degree Avvocatessa Marieschi was involved in Signora Battestini's affairs and what those affairs were; whether the dead woman's name had ever appeared in police files; same with her husband; what the people in the neighbourhood knew of bad feelings between her and anyone else; and, unlikely after three weeks, whether anyone remembered having seen someone other than the Romanian woman entering or leaving her apartment that day and would be willing to tell the police about it. He would also need to speak to the woman's doctor.

By the time he finished making this list, Signorina Elettra was back, careful to knock on his door before coming in.

'Did you make one for Vianello?' he asked.

'Yes, sir,' she said, placing a thin file on his desk and holding up an identical one.

'Do you know where he is?' he asked, careful to place no special emphasis on 'he' and thus avoid suggesting that she'd somehow had computer chips placed behind the ears of everyone in the Questura and was now able to keep tabs on them all by means of a satellite hook-up to her computer.

'He should be here this afternoon, sir.'

'Have you looked at this?' he asked, nodding at the folder.

'No.'

He believed her.

'Why don't you take a look at Vianello's copy before you give it to him?' He didn't need to explain why he wanted her to do this.

'Of course, sir. Would you like me to start checking the most obvious things?'

Years ago, he would have asked her what she had in mind, but familiarity had taught him that the 'things' were probably identical to the notes on his desk, and so he said only, 'Yes. Please.'

'Very well,' she said and left.

First in the file was the autopsy report. Long experience made Brunetti turn immediately to the signature; the same experience underlay his relief at seeing the scrawled letters indicating that Rizzardi had performed it.

Signora Battestini was eighty-three at the time of her death. She might well, the doctor suggested, have lived another ten years. Her heart and other organs were in excellent shape. She had given birth at least once but had had a hysterectomy at some time in the past. Apart from that, there was no evidence of her ever having had a major illness or a broken bone. Because of her weight, more than a hundred kilos, her knees showed signs of excessive wear to such a degree that walking would have been very difficult for her, climbing stairs impossible. The slackness of her muscle tissue confirmed a general lack of activity.

Death was caused by a series of blows -Rizzardi estimated five – to the back of the head. Because the blows were all clustered at or near the same place, it was impossible to determine which of them had killed her: more likely it was the result of accumulated trauma. The killer, probably right-handed, was either much taller than the victim or had been standing behind the seated woman. The enormous damage wrought by the repeated blows suggested this second possibility, for the difference in height would have created an arc of almost a metre for the descending blows.

As to the weapon, Rizzardi refused to speculate, and it was impossible to know if he had been told about the statue found near the body. His report said only that the weapon was a rough-edged object weighing anywhere from one to three kilos. It could have been wood; it could have been metal: beyond that the pathologist stated only that the pattern of shattered skull was indicative of an object with a series of edges or ridges running along it horizontally.

Attached to this page was the laboratory report stating that the ridges on the bronze statue matched the shatter pattern on Signora Battestini's skull and that the blood found on it was the same type as hers. There were no fingerprints.

Death had resulted from trauma and loss of blood; the extensive damage to brain tissue had caused so much neurological impairment that the affected organs would soon have ceased to function, even had she been found before she bled to death.

The police examination of the scene of death appeared to have been, at best, cursory. Only one room had been dusted for prints, and there were just four photos in the file, all of Signora Battestini's body. These gave little evidence of whatever else might have been in the room and none at all of the 'hurried search' the report said appeared to have taken place. Brunetti had no idea if this laxity resulted from the rapid conclusion that the Romanian woman must have been guilty: he hoped it had not become standard procedure. He checked for the signatures at the bottom of the written report describing the scene, but the initials were illegible.

Next was the passport Florinda Ghiorghiu had been carrying. If the document was false, then what was the real name of this woman buried in Villa Opicina? He didn't even know that much, since nothing in the report actually said where she had been buried. The photo showed dark eyes and dark hair, the face utterly devoid of a smile: she stared at the camera as though she feared it was going to harm her. In a way, it had: the photo had led to the passport, leading to the job, leading to the scene on the train and her doomed flight across the tracks.

The next sheet of paper was a photocopy of Florinda Ghiorghiu's residence and work permits. Repeated on them both was the information on the passport. She had been granted permission to remain in Italy for six months, though the date of entry into Italy stamped on her passport was more than a year ago. Signora Gismondi had said the woman had appeared in the late spring: that left eight or nine months unaccounted for.

That was all. There was no information about how Florinda Ghiorghiu had come to be working for Signora Battestini. There were no receipts acknowledging that she had been paid, neither from employer nor employee. Brunetti knew that this was standard and that most of these women worked in the black economy -indeed, most of those who took care of the steadily ageing population were undocumented women, either from Eastern Europe or the Philippines – so the absence of such papers did not surprise him.

He picked up the file and went downstairs, conscious of how unprofessional his behaviour was going to be. When he entered her office, Signorina Elettra glanced up calmly, as if expecting him.

‘I checked the records at the Ufficio Stranieri for the Veneto’ she began, then added, 'Don't worry. I did it legally. All that information is here in our computer.'

He ignored this. 'What did you find?'

'That Florinda Ghiorghiu had a completely legitimate work permit,' she said, but then she looked up at him and smiled.

'And what else?' he asked in response to her smile.

"That there are three women using the same passport.' 'What?'

'Three,' she repeated. 'One here in Venice, another in Milano, and a third in Trieste.' 'But that's impossible.'

'Well,' she conceded, 'it should be impossible, but apparently it's not.' Before he could ask if it was the same woman, applying for work in different cities, she explained, 'One of them started working in Trieste while the one registered here was working for Signora Battestini.'

'And the other?'

'I don't know. I have trouble with Milano.'

Rather than ask her to unravel the enigma of this remark, he said, 'Isn't there some central office or register for these things?'

'There's meant to be,' she agreed, 'but there's no cross-referencing between provinces. Our records include only the Veneto’

'Then how did you find out?' he asked with real curiosity and without a hint of uneasiness as to the legality of her methods.

She gave his question long consideration and finally answered, ‘I think I'd rather not say, Commissario. That is, I could easily invent an answer so technically complex you'd never understand it, but I think it would be more honest simply to say that I'd rather not tell you.'

'All right,' he agreed, knowing she was right. 'But you're sure?'

She nodded.

As if she'd read his mind, she said, 'The fingerprints’ referring to the government's boast that, within five years, it would have a complete fingerprint register of everyone living in the country, foreign or Italian. Brunetti had laughed when he first heard about the proposal: the railways can't keep the trains on the tracks, schools collapse at the faintest tremors of the earth, three people can use the same passport; and they want to collect more than fifty million sets of fingerprints.

An English friend of his had once remarked that living here was like living in something he called 'the loony bin'. Brunetti had had no idea of what the loony bin actually was, nor where it was located, but that hadn't prevented him from believing that his friend was correct: further, he thought it as precise a description of Italy as any he had ever heard.

'Do you know where they are, these other women? Do you have their addresses?'

'I do for the woman living in Trieste, but not for the one in Milano.'

'Have you checked the other provinces?'

'No. Just the North. It's not really worth the time to check the rest. No one much troubles with things like residence or work permits down there.'

As always, when his own prejudices were expressed he heard how they sounded and felt no small chagrin. 'Down there', The South.' How many times had he heard those phrases, how many times had he used them? He thought he had been careful and never spoken like that in front of the kids, at least not in the tone of contempt and distaste that he still so often heard. But Brunetti could not deny that he had long since come to the conclusion that the South was a problem with no solution, that it would remain a criminal netherworld long after he had ceased to have any professional interest in it.

These reflections were interrupted by his sense of fair play and by intruding memories of some of the things he'd recently witnessed here in the oh-so-superior North. He was pulled from these reflections by Signorina Elettra's voice, saying,'… can go and look at her apartment'.

'What was that?' he asked, ‘I was thinking about something else. What did you say?'

'That it might be an idea to see if you can have a look at the things in her apartment to try and get a sense of what might have happened.'

'Yes, by all means,' he agreed. He pointed to the file he'd placed on her desk and asked, 'Were her keys in the original?'

'No. Nothing.'

'There's no reference to them, either. Scarpa didn't say whether the apartment was still sealed, did he?'

'No.'

Brunetti considered this. If there were no keys, then he'd have to ask Scarpa for them, which he did not want to do. To request them from Signora Battestini's next of kin would alert people, who might well fall into the category of suspects, that the police were taking a renewed interest in the case, and that would be enough to alarm them into caution.

At last he turned to Signorina Elettra and asked, 'Could I borrow your picks?'