Friends in High Places

20

Leaving Zecchino in front of the house, Brunetti started towards home, but he found no consolation in the soft spring evening, nor in the long walk along the water he permitted himself. His route would take him far out of his way, but he wanted the long views, the smell of the water, and the comfort of a glass of wine at a small place he knew near the Accademia to cleanse him of the memory of Zecchino, especially of the way he had grown furtive and feral at the end of their meeting. He thought of what Paola had said, that she was glad never to have found drugs attractive for fear of what might have happened; he lacked her openness of mind and had never tried them, not even as a student when everyone around him was smoking something or other and assuring him that it was the perfect way to liberate his mind from his choking middle-class prejudices. Little did they imagine how he, then, aspired to middle-class prejudice; middle-class anything, for that matter.

The memory of Zecchino kept breaking into his reflections, blotting out thought. At the foot of the Accademia Bridge he hesitated for a moment but decided to make a wide circle and pass through Campo San Luca. He started over the bridge, eyes on his feet, and noticed how many of the strips of white facing were broken or torn off the front edge of the steps. When had it been rebuilt, the bridge? Three years ago? Two? And already many of the steps were in need of repair. His mind veered away from contemplation of how that contract must have been awarded and returned to what Zecchino had told him before he began to lie. An argument. Rossi injured and trying to escape. And a girl willing to go up into the lair Zecchino had in that attic, there to engage in whatever it was the combination of drugs and Gino Zecchino would lead her to.

At the sight of the broad horror of the Cassa di Risparmio, he veered to the left, past the bookstore, and then into Campo San Luca. He went into Bar Torino and ordered a spritz, then took it and stood at the window, studying the figures who still congregated in the campo.

There was no sign of either Signora Volpato or her husband. He finished his drink, put the glass on the counter, and offered some bills to the barman.

‘I don’t see Signora Volpato,’ he said casually, tilting his head toward the campo.

Handing him his receipt and change, the barman said, ‘No, they’re usually here in the morning. After ten.’

‘I have to see her about something,’ Brunetti said, sounding nervous but smiling awkwardly at the barman, as if in search of his understanding of human need.

‘I’m sorry,’ the barman said and turned to another customer.

Outside, Brunetti turned left, and left again, and went into the pharmacy, just closing now.

‘Ciao, Guido,’ his friend Danilo the pharmacist said, locking the door behind them. ‘Let me finish and we’ll go have a drink.’ Quickly, with the ease of long practice, the bearded man emptied the cash register, counted the money, and took it into the back of the pharmacy, where Brunetti could hear him moving around. A few minutes later he came out, wearing his leather jacket.

Brunetti felt the scrutiny of those soft brown eyes, saw the beginning of a smile. ‘You look like you’re in search of information,’ Danilo said.

‘Is it that obvious?’

Danilo shrugged. ‘Sometimes you stop for medicine, and you look worried; sometimes you stop for a drink, and you look relaxed; but when you come looking for information, you look like this,’ he said, beetling his brows together and staring at Brunetti with what appeared to be the first signs of incipient madness.

‘Va là,’ Brunetti said, smiling in spite of himself.

‘What is it?’ Danilo asked. ‘Or who is it?’

Brunetti made no move towards the door, thinking it might be better to have this conversation inside the closed pharmacy than in one of the three bars in the campo. ‘Angelina and Massimo Volpato,’ he said.

‘Madre di Dio,’ Danilo exclaimed. ‘You’d be better taking the money from me. Come on,’ he said, grabbing Brunetti’s arm and pulling him towards the back room of the pharmacy, ‘I’ll open the safe and then say the thief wore a ski mask, I promise.’ Brunetti thought it was a joke until Danilo continued, ‘You aren’t thinking of going to them, are you, Guido? Really, I’ve got money in the bank you can have, and I’m sure Mauro could let you have more,’ he said, including his boss in his offer.

‘No, no,’ Brunetti said, laying a quieting hand on Danilo’s arm. ‘I just need to know about them.’

‘Don’t tell me they’ve finally made a mistake, and someone’s filed a complaint against them?’ Danilo said with the beginnings of a smile. ‘Ah, what joy.’

‘You know them that well?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I’ve known them for years,’ he said, almost spitting out his disgust. ‘Especially her. She’s in here once a week, with her little pictures of her saints, and her rosary in her hands.’ He hunched over and brought his hands together under his chin. He tilted his head to one side and looked up at Brunetti, his mouth pulled together in a purse-lipped smile. Turning his usual Trentino dialect into purest Veneziano and pitching his voice into a high squeal, he said, ‘Oh, Dottor Danilo, you don’t know how much good I’ve done to the people in this city. You don’t know how many people are grateful to me for what I’ve done for them and how they should pray for me. No, you have no idea.’ Though Brunetti had never heard Signora Volpato speak, he heard in Danilo’s savage parody the echo of every hypocrite he’d ever known.

Suddenly Danilo stood upright, and the old woman he had become disappeared. ‘How does she do it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘People know her. And him. They’re always in the campo, one of them, in the morning, and people know where to find them.’

‘How do they know?’

‘How do people ever know anything?’ Danilo asked by way of response. ‘Word gets around. People who need enough to pay their taxes, or who gamble, or who can’t meet the expenses for their business until the end of the month. They sign a paper saying they’ll pay them back in a month, and the interest has always been added to the sum. But these are people who will have to borrow more money to pay that money back. Gamblers don’t win; people never get any better at running their businesses.’

‘What amazes me,’ Brunetti said after a moment’s reflection, ‘is that all of this is legal.’

‘If they’ve got the paper, drawn up by a notary and signed by both parties, nothing is more legal.’

‘Who are the notaries?’

Danilo named three of them, respectable men with wide practices in the city. One of them worked for Brunetti’s father-in-law.

‘All three?’ Brunetti asked, unable to hide his astonishment.

‘You think the Volpatos declare what they pay them? You think they pay taxes on what they earn from the Volpatos?’

Brunetti was not in the least surprised that notaries would sink to being part of something as squalid as this; his surprise was only at the names of the three men involved, one of them a member of the Knights of Malta and another a former city councillor.

‘Come on,’ Danilo encouraged him, ‘let’s have a drink, and you can tell me why you want to know all this.’ Seeing Brunetti’s expression, he amended this to, ‘Or don’t tell me.’

Across the calle at Rosa Salva, Brunetti told him no more than that he was interested in the moneylenders in the city and their twilight existence between the legal and the criminal. Many of Danilo’s clients were old women, and most of them were in love with him, so he was often the recipient of their endless streams of gossip. Amiable and patient, always willing to listen to them as they talked, he had over the years accumulated an Eldorado of gossip and innuendo and in the past had proven an invaluable source of information for Brunetti. Danilo named a few of the most famous moneylenders to Brunetti, describing them and cataloguing the wealth they had managed to accumulate.

Sensitive to both Brunetti’s mood and his sense of professional discretion, Danilo kept up his stream of gossip, aware that Brunetti would ask him no more questions. Then, with a quick glance at his watch, Danilo said, ‘I’ve got to go. Dinner’s at eight.’

Together they left the bar and walked as far as Rialto, chatting idly about ordinary things. At the bridge they separated, both hurrying home for dinner.

The scattered pieces of information had been rattling about in Brunetti’s mind for days now, and he’d been prodding them and toying with them, trying to work them into some sort of coherent pattern. People at the Ufficio Catasto, he realized, would know who was going to have to do restorations or would have to pay fines for work done illegally in the past. They’d know how much the fines were. They might even have had some say in deciding how much the fines should be. Then all they’d have to do would be find out what sort of financial shape the owners were in – there was never any trouble in finding that out. Surely, he reflected, Signorina Elettra was not the only genius in the city. Then to anyone who complained that they didn’t have enough money to pay the fine, all they had to do was suggest they go and have a talk with the Volpatos.

It was high time to visit the Ufficio.

When he arrived at the Questura the next morning, a bit after eight thirty, the guard at the door told him a young woman had come in earlier, asking to speak to him. No, she hadn’t explained what it was she wanted and, when the guard told her Commissario Brunetti had not arrived yet, had said she’d go and have a coffee and come back. Brunetti told the young man to bring her up when she did.

In his office, he read the first section of the Gazzettino and was thinking about going out to get a coffee when the guard appeared at his door and said that the young woman had returned. He stepped aside and a woman who seemed little more than a girl slipped into the room. Brunetti thanked the guard and told him he could return to duty. The officer saluted and closed the door as he left. Brunetti gestured to the young woman, who still stood by the door as if fearful of the consequences of coming any farther into the room.

‘Please, Signorina, make yourself comfortable.’

Leaving it to her to decide what to do, he walked slowly around his desk and took his normal place.

Slowly she crossed the room and sat on the edge of the chair, her hands in her lap. Brunetti gave her a quick glance then bent to move a paper from one side of his desk to the other to give her some time to relax into a more comfortable position.

When he looked back at her, he smiled in what he thought might be a welcoming way. She had dark brown hair cut as short as a boy’s and wore jeans and a light blue sweater. Her eyes, he noticed, were as dark as her hair, surrounded by lashes so thick that at first he thought they were false until he noticed that she wore no makeup at all and dismissed the idea. She was a pretty girl in the way most young girls are pretty: delicate bones, short straight nose, smooth skin, and a small mouth. Had he seen her in a bar having a coffee, he wouldn’t have looked twice at her, but seeing her here, the thought came to him of how lucky he was to live in a country where pretty girls were so thick upon the ground and far more beautiful ones a normal enough event.

She cleared her throat once, twice, and then said, ‘I’m Marco’s friend.’ Her voice was extraordinarily beautiful, low and musical and rich with sensuality, the sound one would expect from a woman who had lived a long life filled with pleasure.

Brunetti waited for her to explain, but when she said nothing further, Brunetti asked, ‘And why have you come to speak to me, Signorina?’

‘Because I want to help you find the people who killed him.’

Brunetti kept his face expressionless while he processed the information that this must be the girl who had called Marco from Venice. ‘Are you the other rabbit, then?’ he asked kindly.

His question startled her. She pulled her closed hands up towards her chest and automatically pursed her lips into a narrow circle, making herself look, indeed, very like a rabbit.

‘How do you know about that?’ she asked.

‘I saw his drawings,’ Brunetti explained, then added, ‘and I was struck both by his talent and by the obvious affection he had for the rabbits.’

She bowed her head and at first he thought she had begun to cry. But she did not; instead, she raised her head again and looked at him. ‘I had a pet rabbit when I was a little girl. When I told Marco about that, he told me how much he hated the way his father used to shoot and poison them on their farm.’ She stopped here, then added, ‘They’re pests when they’re outside. That’s what his father said.’

Brunetti said, ‘I see.’

Silence fell but he waited. Then she said, as if no mention had been made of the rabbits, ‘I know who they are.’ Her hands tortured one another in her lap, but her voice remained calm, almost seductive. It occurred to him that she had no idea of its power or its beauty.

Brunetti nodded to encourage her, and she continued, ‘Well, that is, I know the name of one of them, the one who sold it to Marco. I don’t know the name of the people he gets it from, but I think he’d tell you if you frightened him enough.’

‘I’m afraid we’re not in the business of frightening people,’ Brunetti said, smiling, wishing it were true.

‘I mean frightening him so that he’d come and tell you what he knows. He’d do that if he thought you knew who he is and were going to get him.’

‘If you give me his name, Signorina, we can bring him in and question him.’

‘But wouldn’t it be better if he came in by himself and told you what he knows, told you voluntarily?’

‘Yes, it certainly would…’

She interrupted him. ‘I don’t have any proof, you know. It’s not like I can testify that I saw him sell it to Marco or Marco told me that he did.’ She moved around uneasily in her chair, then put her folded hands back in her lap. ‘But I know he’d come in if he didn’t have any other choice, and then it wouldn’t be so bad for him, would it?’

This intense concern could be directed only at family, Brunetti realized. ‘I’m afraid you haven’t told me your name, Signorina.’

‘I don’t want to tell you my name,’ she answered, some of the sweetness gone from her voice.

Brunetti opened his hands, spreading his fingers wide in symbol of the liberty he extended, ‘That’s entirely your right, Signorina. In that case, the only thing I suggest to you is that you tell this person that he should come in.’

‘He won’t listen to me. He never has,’ she said, adamant.

Brunetti considered his options. He studied his wedding band, saw that it was thinner than it was when he had studied it last, worn away by the years. He looked up and across at her. ‘Does he read the newspaper?’

Surprised, her answer was instant, ‘Yes.’

‘The Gazzettino?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you see that he reads it tomorrow?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘Good. I hope it will be enough to make him talk to us. Will you encourage him to come?’

She looked down after he said this, and again he thought she was going to begin to cry. Instead, she said, ‘I’ve been trying to do that since Marco died.’ Her voice broke, and her hands balled themselves into tight fists again. She shook her head. ‘He’s afraid.’ Again, a long pause. ‘I can’t do anything to make him. My par… ‘ she broke off before finishing the word, confirming what he already knew. She shifted her weight forward, and he saw that, message delivered, she was ready to escape.

Brunetti got slowly to his feet and came around the desk. She stood and turned towards the door.

Brunetti opened it for her. He thanked her for having come to talk to him. As she started down the stairs, he closed the door, ran back to the phone, and dialled the number of the guard desk at the front door. He recognized the voice of the young man who had brought her up.

‘Masi, say nothing. When that girl comes down, take her into your office and see that she stays there at least a few minutes. Tell her you have to record in your ledger what time she left, make up some sort of story, but keep her there. Then let her leave.’

Giving him no chance to answer, Brunetti replaced the phone and walked to the large wooden closet that stood against the wall by the door. He yanked the door open, letting it slam back against the wall. Inside, he saw an old tweed jacket he had left there more than a year ago and ripped it from the hanger. Clutching it in one hand, he moved to the door of his office, opened it, looked down the stairs and took them two at a time down to the officers’ room on the floor below.

Panting at the effort, he ran into the room and gave a sigh of silent thanks when he saw Pucetti at his desk. ‘Pucetti,’ he said, ‘get up and take off your jacket.’

Instantly, the young officer was on his feet and his jacket flung on the desk in front of him. Brunetti handed him the woollen jacket, saying, ‘There’s a girl downstairs near the entrance. Masi’s holding her for a few minutes in his office. When she leaves, I want you to follow her. Follow her all day if you have to, but I want to know where she goes, and I want to know who she is.’

Pucetti was already moving towards the door. The jacket hung loosely on him, so he flipped over the cuffs then pushed them up his forearms; he ripped off his tie and tossed it in the general direction of his desk. When he left the office, asking Brunetti for no explanation, he looked like a casually dressed young man who had chosen to wear a white shirt and dark blue trousers that day but had offset the military cut of the trousers by wearing an overlarge Harris tweed jacket with the sleeves pushed up in quite a dashing manner.

Brunetti went back to his office, dialled the news office of Il Gazzettino and identified himself. The story he gave them explained how the police investigating the drug-related death of a young student had discovered the identity of the young man believed to have been responsible for selling the drugs that had caused his death. An arrest was imminent, and it was hoped that this would lead to the arrest of even more people involved in the drug traffic in the Veneto area. When he put the phone down, he hoped only that this would be enough to force the young girl’s relative, whoever he was, to find the courage to come into the Questura so that something positive could come of the stupid waste of Marco Landi’s life.

He and Vianello presented themselves at the Ufficio Catasto at eleven. Brunetti gave his name and rank to the secretary on the first floor, and she told him that Ingeniere dal Carlo’s office was on the third floor and she’d be glad to call ahead and tell him that Commissario Brunetti was on the way up. Brunetti, a uniformed Vianello silent in his wake, walked up to the third floor, amazed at the number of people, almost all of them men, who flowed up and down the stairs in two opposing streams. On each landing, they milled outside the doors of offices, rolls of blueprints and heavy folders of papers held to their chests.

Ingeniere dal Carlo’s was the last office on the left. The door was open, so they went in. A small woman who looked old enough to be Vianello’s mother sat at a desk facing them, next to the immense screen of a computer. She glanced at them over the thick lenses of her half-frame reading glasses. Her hair, heavily streaked with grey, was pulled back in a tight bun that forced Brunetti to think of Signora Landi, and her narrow shoulders were hunched forward as if with the beginning of osteoporosis. She wore no makeup, as if she’d long ago abandoned the idea of its possible utility.

‘Commissario Brunetti?’ she asked, remaining in her seat.

‘Yes. I’d like to speak to Ingeniere dal Carlo.’

‘May I ask what this is in aid of?’ she asked, speaking precise Italian and using a phrase he hadn’t heard in decades.

‘I’d like to ask some questions about a former employee.’

‘Former?’

‘Yes. Franco Rossi,’ he said.

‘Ah yes,’ she said, raising a hand to her forehead and shielding her eyes. She lowered her hand and removed her glasses, then looked up. ‘The poor young man. He’d worked here for years. It was terrible. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’ There was a crucifix on the wall above her desk, and she turned her eyes to it, her lips moving in a prayer for the dead young man.

‘Did you know Signor Rossi?’ Brunetti asked, then continued, as if he hadn’t quite caught her name, ‘Signora…?’

‘Dolfin, Signorina,’ she answered briefly and paused, almost as if waiting to see how he responded to the name. She continued, ‘His office was just across the hall. He was always a polite young man, always very respectful to Dottor dal Carlo.’ From the sound of it, Signorina Dolfin could think of no higher praise.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, tired of listening to the sort of empty compliments which death demanded be paid. ‘Would it be possible for me to speak to the Ingeniere?’

‘Of course,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘You must excuse me for talking so much. It’s just that one doesn’t know what to do in the face of a tragic death like that.’

Brunetti nodded, the most efficient way he’d ever found to acknowledge cliché.

She led them the few steps that separated her desk from the door to the inner office. She raised her hand and tapped twice, paused a moment, and then added a third small tap, as though she had, over the years, devised a code which would tell the man inside just what sort of visitor to expect. When the man’s voice from inside called out ‘Avanti’, Brunetti saw an unmistakable gleam in her eyes, noticed the way the corners of her mouth tilted up.

She opened the door, stepped inside and to one side to allow both men to enter, then said, ‘This is Commissario Brunetti, Dottore.’ Brunetti had glanced in as they entered and seen a large, dark-haired man behind the desk, but he kept his eyes on Signorina Dolfin as she spoke, intrigued by the change in her manner, even in the tone of her voice, far warmer and richer than when she had spoken to him.

‘Thank you, Signorina,’ dal Carlo said, barely glancing at her. ‘That will be all.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said and, very slowly, turned away from dal Carlo and left the office, closing the door quietly behind her.

Dal Carlo got to his feet, smiling. He was in his late fifties, but had the taut skin and erect carriage of a younger man. His smile revealed teeth capped in the Italian manner: one size larger than necessary. ‘How pleased I am to meet you, Commissario,’ he said, extending his hand to Brunetti and, when he returned the gesture, giving it a firm, manly shake. Dal Carlo nodded to Vianello and led them to some chairs at one side of the room. ‘How may I help you?’

Taking his seat, Brunetti said, ‘I’d like to know something about Franco Rossi.’

‘Ah, yes,’ dal Carlo said, shaking his head a few times. ‘Terrible thing, tragic. He was a wonderful young man, an excellent worker. He would have had a very successful career.’ He sighed and repeated, ‘Tragic, tragic.’

‘How long had he worked here, Ingeniere?’ Brunetti asked. Vianello took a small notebook from his pocket, opened it, and started to take notes.

‘Let me see,’ dal Carlo began. ‘About five years, I’d say.’ Smiling, he said, ‘I can ask Signorina Dolfin. She’d be able to give you a more precise answer.’

‘No, that’s fine, Dottore,’ Brunetti said with a casual wave of his hand and went on: ‘What, exactly, were Signor Rossi’s duties?’

Dal Carlo put his hand to his chin, a thinking gesture, and looked down at the floor. After a suitable time, he said, ‘He had to examine plans to see that they conformed to restorations that were performed.’

‘And how did he do that, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked.

‘He looked at the blueprints here in the office and then inspected the actual place where the work had been done to see that it had been done properly.’

‘Properly?’ Brunetti asked, his voice filled with layman’s confusion.

‘That it was the same as shown on the plans.’

‘And if it wasn’t?’

‘Then Signor Rossi would report the discrepancies, and our office would initiate proceedings.’

‘Such as?’

Dal Carlo looked across at Brunetti and appeared to weigh not only the question but the reason Brunetti was asking it.

‘Usually a fine and an order that the work performed be redone to conform to the specifications on the blueprints,’ dal Carlo answered.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, nodding to Vianello to make a special point of that last answer. ‘That could be a very expensive inspection.’

Dal Carlo looked puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Commissario.’

‘I mean that it could cost a great deal, first to do the work and then to do it again. To make no mention of the fines.’

‘Of course,’ dal Carlo said. ‘The code is quite precise about that.’

‘Doubly expensive, then,’ Brunetti said.

‘Yes, I suppose so. But few people are so rash as to attempt such a thing.’

Brunetti allowed himself a start of surprise here and looked over at dal Carlo with the small smile one conspirator gives another. ‘If you say so, Ingeniere,’ he said. Quickly, he changed topic and the tone of his voice and asked, ‘Had Signor Rossi ever received any threats?’

Again, dal Carlo seemed confused. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand that, either, Commissario.’

‘Let me be clear with you, then, Dottore. Signor Rossi had the authority to cost people a great deal of money. If he reported that illegal work had been done on a building, the owners would be liable both for fines and for the cost of further work to correct the original restorations.’ He smiled here and added, ‘We both know what building costs are in this city, so I doubt that anyone would be pleased if Signor Rossi’s inspection discovered discrepancies.’

‘Certainly not,’ dal Carlo agreed. ‘But I doubt very much that anyone would dare to threaten a city official who was doing no more than his duty.’

Suddenly Brunetti asked, ‘Would Signor Rossi have taken a bribe?’ He was careful to watch dal Carlo’s face as he asked his question and saw that he was taken aback, one might even say shocked.

Instead of answering, however, dal Carlo gave the question considerable attention. ‘I’d never thought of that before,’ he said, and Brunetti had no doubt he was telling the truth. Dal Carlo did everything but close his eyes and put his head back to give proof of further concentration. Finally he said, lying, ‘I don’t like to speak ill of him, not now, but that might be possible. Well,’ with an awkward hesitation, ‘might have been possible.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Brunetti asked, though he was fairly certain it was nothing more than a rather obvious attempt to use Rossi as a means to cover the tracks of his own probable dishonesty.

For the first time, dal Carlo looked steadily into Brunetti’s eyes. Had he needed it, Brunetti could have found no surer proof that he was lying. ‘You must understand it was nothing specific I can name or describe. His behaviour had changed in the last few months. He’d become furtive, nervous. It is only now, that you ask this question, that the possibility occurs to me.’

‘Would it be easy to do?’ Brunetti asked, and when dal Carlo seemed not to understand, he prompted: ‘Take a bribe?’

He all but expected dal Carlo to say he had never thought of such a thing, in which case Brunetti didn’t know if he could stop himself from laughing. They were, after all, in a city office. But the engineer restrained himself and said, eventually, ‘I suppose it would be possible.’

Brunetti was silent for a long time, so long that dal Carlo was finally forced to ask, ‘Why are you asking these questions, Commissario?’

At last Brunetti said, ‘We’re not completely satisfied,’ having found it always far more effective to speak in the plural, ‘that Rossi’s death was an accident.’

This time, dal Carlo could not hide his surprise, though there was no way of knowing if it was surprise at the possibility or surprise that the police had discovered it. As various ideas played through his mind, he gave Brunetti a sly glance that reminded him of the look Zecchino had given him.

With the idea of the young drug addict in his mind, Brunetti said, ‘We might have a witness that it was something else.’

‘A witness?’ Dal Carlo repeated in a loud, disbelieving voice, as though he had never heard the word.

‘Yes, someone there at the building.’ Brunetti got to his feet suddenly. ‘Thank you for your help, Dottore,’ he said, extending his hand. Dal Carlo, obviously disconcerted by the strange turn the conversation had taken, pushed himself to his feet and shot out his hand. His grip was less hearty than when they had come in.

After opening the door he finally gave voice to his surprise. ‘I find it incredible,’ he said. ‘No one would have killed him. There’s no reason for such a thing. And that building’s empty. How could anyone have seen what happened?’

When neither Brunetti nor Vianello spoke, dal Carlo walked through the door, ignoring Signorina Dolfin, busy at her computer, and saw the two policemen to the outer door of the office. None of them bothered with farewells.