Wilful behaviour

Wilful Behaviour

Also by Donna Leon

Death at La Fenice

Death in a Strange Country

The Anonymous Venetian

A Venetian Reckoning

Acqua Alta

The Death of Faith

A Noble Radiance

Fatal Remedies

Friends in High Places

A Sea of Troubles

Donna Leon

-X

I dubbi, i sospetti Gelare me fan.

Doubts and suspicions Turn me to ice.

Mozart

Le Nozze di Figaro

I

The explosion came at breakfast. Brunetti's position as a commissario of police, though it made the possibility of explosion more likely than it would be for the average citizen, did not make the setting any less strange. The location, however, was related to Brunetti's personal situation as the husband of a woman of incandescent, if inconsistent, views and politics, not to his profession.

'Why do we bother to read this disgusting piece of garbage?' Paola exploded, slamming a folded copy of the day's Gazzettino angrily on to the breakfast table, where it upset the sugar bowl.

Brunetti leaned forward, pushed the edge of the paper aside with his forefinger and righted the bowl. He picked up a second brioche and took a bite, knowing that clarification would follow.

'Listen to this,' Paola said, picking up the paper and reading from the headline of the leading article on the front page:' "Fulvia Prato Recounts her Terrible Ordeal."' Like all of Italy, Brunetti was familiar with Fulvia Prato, the wife of a wealthy Florentine industrialist, who had been kidnapped thirteen months before and kept in a cellar for that entire time by her kidnappers. Freed by the Carabinieri two weeks before, she had spoken to the press for the first time the previous day. He had no idea what Paola could find especially offensive in the headline.

'And this’ she said, turning the paper to the bottom of page five.' "EU Minister Confesses to Sexual Harassment in Her Former Workplace’ Brunetti was familiar with this case, as well: a female commissioner on the European Commission, he couldn't remember what her exact position was - one of those trivial ones they give to women - had yesterday said at a press conference that she had been the victim of sexual aggression twenty years ago when she worked in a firm of civil engineers.

A man who had learned patience in his more than twenty years of married life, Brunetti awaited Paola's explanation. 'Can you believe they'd use that word? Signora Prato did not have to confess to having been the victim of kidnapping, but this poor woman confessed to having been the victim of some sort of sexual attack. And how typical of these troglodytes’ she said with a vicious jab at the paper, 'not to explain what happened, only to say that it was sexual. God, I don't know why we bother to read it.'

'It is hard to believe, isn't it?' Brunetti agreed, himself genuinely shocked by the use of the word and more shocked that he had not registered its dissonance until Paola pointed it out to him.

Years ago, he had begun to make gentle fun of what he then dubbed her 'coffee sermons', the fulminations with which she greeted her reading of the morning papers, but over the years he had come to see that there was great sense in seeming madness.

'Have you ever had to deal with this sort of thing?' she asked him. She held the bottom half of the paper towards him, so he knew she was not referring to the kidnapping.

'Once, years ago’

'Where?'

'In Naples. When I was assigned there’ 'What happened?'

'A woman came in to report that she had been raped. She wanted to make an official denuncia.' He paused, letting memory return. It was her husband’

Paola's pause was equally long; then she asked, 'And?'

The questioning was done by the commissario I was assigned to at the time’

'And?'

'He told her to think about what she was doing, that it would cause her husband a great deal of trouble.'

This time Paola's silence was enough to spur him on.

'After she listened to him, she said she needed time to think about it, and she left’ He could still remember the set of the woman's shoulders as she left the office where the questioning had taken place. 'She never came back.'

Paola sighed, then asked, 'Have things changed much since then?'

'A bit.'

'Are they any better?'

'Minimally. At least we try to have female officers do the first interview.' Try?'

'If there are any on duty when it happens, when they come in’

'And if there aren't?'

'We call around and see if a woman can come on duty’ 'And if not?'

He wondered how breakfast had somehow become an inquisition. 'If not, then they are interviewed by whoever's available’

That means, I suppose, that men like Alvise or Lieutenant Scarpa could do the questioning’ She made no attempt to disguise her disgust.

'It's not really questioning, Paola, not like when we have a suspect’

She pointed at the Gazzettino, her fingernail tapping out a quick triple beat on the second headline. 'In a city where this is possible, I hate to think of what any sort of questioning is like’

He was just at the point of opposition when she, perhaps sensing this, changed her tone entirely and asked, 'How's your day look? Will you be home for lunch?'

Relieved, aware that he was tempting fate but helpless to stop himself, he answered, 'I think so. Crime seems to be on holiday in Venice’

'God, I wish I could say the same about my students’ she said with tired resignation.

'Paola, you've only been back at work six days’ he couldn't prevent himself from saying. He wondered how she had managed to monopolize the right to complain about work. After all, he had to deal, if not on a daily basis, then at least with upsetting frequency, with murder, rape and battery, while the worst thing that could happen in her classroom was that someone would ask the identity of the Dark Lady or forget what happened at the end of Washington Square. He was about to say something to this effect when he caught the expression in her eyes.

'What's the matter?' he asked.

'Huh?' He knew evasion when he heard it, saw it.

1 asked you what was the matter’

'Oh, difficult students. The usual stuff’

Again, he recognized the signs that she was reluctant to discuss something. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He came to her side of the table, braced his hand on her shoulder, and bent to kiss the top of her head.

‘I’ll see you at lunch’

'I'll live in that single hope’ she answered and leaned forward to sweep up the spilled sugar.

Left alone at the table, Paola was faced with the decision of whether to finish reading the paper or to wash the dishes: she chose the dishes. That task finished, she glanced at her watch and saw that her only class of the day began in less than an hour, and so she went back to the bedroom to finish dressing, her mind absorbed, as was often the case, with the writing of Henry James, though in this case it was only to the extent that he might have influenced Edith Wharton, whose novels were to be the subject of her lecture.

She had been lecturing, recently, on the theme of honour and honourable behaviour and the way it was central to Wharton's three great novels, but she was preoccupied with whether the concept still had the same meaning for her students; indeed, whether it had any meaning for her students. She had wanted to talk about this with Guido that morning, for she respected his opinions on the subject, but the headline had diverted her.

After decades, she could no longer feign not to notice his usual response to her coffee sermons: that quickened desire to leave the table. She smiled to herself at the term he'd invented and at the affection with which he generally used it. She knew she responded too quickly and too strongly to many stimuli; indeed, in a moment of high anger, her husband had once drummed out a damning list of just which subjects would push her until she was past reason hunted. She refused to dwell upon his catalogue, its accuracy still enough to cause her a tremor of nervousness.

The first autumn chill had fallen on the city the day before so Paola took a light woollen jacket from the closet, picked up her briefcase and left the apartment. Though she walked through the city of Venice to reach her classroom, it was New York that was on her mind, the city where the drama of the lives of the

women in Wharton's novels had played out a century ago. Attempting to navigate the shoals of social custom, old and new money, the established power of men, and the sometimes greater power of their own beauty and charm, her three protagonists found themselves perpetually buffeted against the hidden rocks of honour. But passage of time, Paola reflected, had vaporized from the common mind any universal agreement on what constituted honourable behaviour.

Certainly the books did not suggest that honour triumphed: in one case it cost the heroine her life; another lost her happiness because of it; the third triumphed only because of a constitutional inability to perceive it. How, then, to argue for its importance, especially to a class of young people who would identify - if indeed students were any longer capable of identification with characters who were not in film - only with the third?

The class went as she had expected, and she found herself, at the end of it, tempted to quote to them from the Bible, a book for which she had no special fondness, the bit about those who have eyes and fail to see, ears and fail to hear, but she refrained, realizing that her students would be as insensitive to the evangelist as they had proven themselves to be to Wharton.

The young people filed from the room, and Paola busied herself replacing papers and books in her briefcase. The failure of her profession no longer troubled her to the extent it had years ago, when she had first realized how incomprehensible much of what she said, and probably of what she believed, was to her students. During her seventh year of teaching, she'd made a reference to the Iliad and, in the face of general blankness, had discovered that only one of the students in the class had any memory of having read it, and even he was utterly incapable of understanding the concept of heroic behaviour. The Trojans had lost, hadn't they, so who cared how Hector had behaved?

The times are out of joint’ she whispered to herself in English and then started in surprise, realizing that someone was standing next to her, one of the students, a young girl, now probably convinced that her professor was mad.

'Yes, Claudia?' she asked, fairly certain that was the girl's name. Short, dark of hair and eye, the girl had a creamy white complexion that looked as though she had never been out in the sun. She'd taken a class with Paola the year before, seldom spoken, made frequent notes, and done very well in her exams, leaving Paola with a vague overall impression of a bright young woman handicapped by shyness.

'I wonder if I could speak to you, Professoressa’ the girl said.

Remembering that she could be acerbic only with her own children, Paola did not ask her if that was not what they were doing. Instead, she clipped shut her briefcase and said, turning to face the girl, 'Certainly. What about? Wharton?'

'Well, sort of, Professoressa, but not really.'

Again, Paola refrained from pointing out that only one of these answers could be true. 'What about, then?' she asked, but she smiled when she asked the question, unwilling to make this usually silent girl reluctant to go on. To avoid any suggestion that she might be eager to leave, Paola removed her hand from her briefcase, leaned back against the desk, and smiled again.

'It's about my grandmother’ the girl said, glancing at Paola inquisitively, as if to ask if she knew what a grandmother was. She looked towards the door, back at Paola, then back to the door. 'I'd like to get an answer about something that's bothering her.' Having said that, she stopped.

When it seemed that Claudia was not going to continue, Paola picked up her briefcase and made slowly towards the door. The girl eeled around her and opened it, stepping back to allow Paola to pass through first. Pleased by this sign of respect and displeased with herself for being so,

Paola asked, not that she could see it mattered much but thinking that the answer might provide the girl with a reason to give further information, 'It is your mother's or your father's mother?'

'Well, really neither, Professoressa.'

Promising herself a mighty reward for all the unpronounced replies this conversation, if that’s what it was, had so far cost her, Paola said, 'Sort of an honorary grandmother?'

Claudia smiled, a response which seemed to manifest itself primarily in her eyes and was all the sweeter for that. That's right. She's not my real grandmother, but I've always called her that. Norma Hedi. Because she's Austrian, you see.'

Paola didn't, but she asked, 'Is she related to your parents, a great-aunt or something?'

This question obviously made the girl uncomfortable. 'No, she's not, not in any way.' She paused, considered, then blurted out, 'She was a friend of my grandfather's, you see.'

'Ah,' Paola replied. This was all growing far more complicated than the girl's simple request had seemed to suggest, and so Paola asked, 'And what is it that you wanted to ask about her?'

'Well, if s really about your husband, Professoressa.' Paola was so surprised that she could only echo the girl's remark, "My husband?'

‘Yes. He's a policeman, isn't he?' 'Yes, he is.'

'Well, I wonder if you'd ask him something for me, well, something for my grandmother, that is.'

'Certainly. What would you like me to ask him?' 'Well, if he knows anything about pardons.' 'Pardons?'

'Yes. Pardons, for crimes.' 'Do you mean an amnesty?'

'No, that’s what the government does when the jails are full and it's too expensive to keep people there: they just let them all out and say it’s because of some special event or something. But that's not what I'm talking about. I mean an official pardon, a formal declaration on the part of the state that a person wasn't guilty of a crime.'

As they talked, they had progressed very slowly down the stairs from the fourth floor, but now Paola stopped. 'I'm not sure I understand much of this, Claudia.'

That doesn't matter, Professoressa. I went to a lawyer and asked him, but he wanted five million lire to give me an answer, and then I remembered that your husband was a policeman, so I thought that maybe he could tell me.'

Paola let a quick nod serve for understanding. 'Could you tell me exactly what it is you want me to ask him, Claudia?'

If there is any legal process by which a person who has died can be given a pardon for something they were put on trial for.'

'Only put on trial for?'

‘Yes’

The edges of Paola's patience showed through as she asked, 'Not convicted and sent to prison for?'

'Not really. That is, convicted but not sent to prison’

Paola smiled and placed a hand on the girl's arm. 'I'm not sure I understand this. Convicted but not sent to prison? How can that happen?'

The girl glanced over the railing and at the open door to the building, almost as if Paola's question had spurred her to consider flight. She looked back at Paola and answered, 'Because the court said he was mad’

Paola, careful not to inquire about who the person might be, considered this before she asked, 'And where was he sent?'

To San Servolo. He died there’

Like everyone else in Venice, Paola knew that the island of San Servolo had once been the site of the madhouse, had served that purpose until the Basaglia Law closed the madhouses and either freed the patients or removed them to less horrendous locations.

Sensing that the girl would not tell her, Paola asked anyway. 'Do you want to tell me what the crime was?'

'No, I don't think so,' the girl said and started down the steps. At the bottom she turned and called back to Paola, 'Will you ask him?'

'Of course,' Paola answered, knowing that she would, as much now for her own curiosity as for any desire to do a favour for this girl.

Then thank you, Professoressa. I'll see you in class next week, then.' With that Claudia walked to the door, where she paused and looked up at Paola. 'I really liked the books, Professoressa,' she called up the stairway. 'It broke my heart when Lily died like that. But it was an honourable death, wasn't it?'

Paola nodded, glad that at least one of them seemed to have understood.

2

Brunetti, for his part, gave little thought to honour that morning, busy as he was with the task of keeping track of minor crime in Venice. It seemed at times as though that were all they did: fill out forms, send them off to be filed, make up lists, juggle the numbers and thus keep the crime statistics reassuringly low. He grumbled about this, but when he considered that accurate figures would require even more paperwork, he reached for the documents.

A little before twelve, just as he was beginning to think longingly of lunch, he heard a knock on his door. He called out, 'Avanti’ and looked up to see Alvise.

'There's someone to see you, sir,' the officer said with a smile.

'Who is it?'

'Oh, should I have asked him who he was?' Alvise asked, honestly surprised that such a thing could be expected of him.

'No, just show him in, Alvise,' Brunetti said neutrally. Alvise stepped back and waved his arm in obvious imitation of the white-gloved grace of traffic officers in Italian movies.

The gesture led Brunetti to believe that no less a personage than the President of the Republic might be entering, so he pushed back his chair and started to get to his feet, if only to maintain the high level of civility Alvise had established. When he saw Marco Erizzo come in, Brunetti walked around his desk and took his old friend by the hand, then embraced him and patted him on the back.

He stepped back and looked at the familiar face. 'Marco, how wonderful to see you. God, it's been ages. Where have you been?' It had been, how long, a year, perhaps even two, since they'd spoken, but Marco had not changed. His hair was still that rich chestnut brown, so thick as to cause his barber difficulty, and the laugh lines still radiated in happy abundance from around his eyes.

'Where do you think I've been, Guido?' Marco asked, speaking Veneziano with the thick Giudecchino accent his classmates had mocked him for almost forty years ago, when he and Brunetti had been at elementary school together. 'Here, at home, at work.'

'Are you well?' Brunetti asked, using the plural and thus including Erizzo's ex-wife and their two children as well as the woman he now lived with and their daughter.

'Everyone's good, everyone's happy’ Marco said, an answer that had become his standard response. Everything was always fine, everyone was always happy. If so, then what had brought him to the Questura this fine October morning, when he certainly had more urgent things to do running the many shops and businesses he owned?

Marco glanced down at his watch. Time for un'ombra?'

For most Venetians, any time after eleven was time for un'ombra, so Brunetti didn't hesitate before assenting.

On the way to the bar at the Ponte dei Greci, they talked about nothing and everything: their families, old friends, how stupid it was that they so seldom saw one another for longer than to say hello on the street before hurrying off to whatever it was that occupied their time and attention.

Once inside, Brunetti walked towards the bar, but Marco put a hand on his elbow and pulled him to a bench at a booth in front of the window; Brunetti sat opposite him, sure he'd find out now what it was that had brought his friend to the Questura. Neither of them had bothered to order anything, but the barman, from long experience of Brunetti, brought them two small glasses of white wine and went back to the bar.

'Cin tin,' they both said and took small sips. Marco nodded in appreciation. 'Better than what you get in most bars.' He took another small sip and set the glass down.

Brunetti said nothing, knowing that this was the best technique to induce a reluctant witness to speak.

'I won't waste our time, Guido’ Marco said in a different, more serious, voice. He took the short stem of his wine glass between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and moved the glass in a small circle, a gesture instantly familiar to Brunetti. Ever since he'd been a small boy, Marco's hands had always betrayed his nervousness, whether it was by breaking the points of his pencils during exams or plucking at the top button of his shirt whenever he had to speak to a girl he liked. 'Are you guys like priests?' Marco asked, glancing up for an instant, then back at the glass.

'Which guys?' Brunetti asked, honestly confused by the question.

'Cops. Even if you're a commissario. I mean, if I tell you something, can it be like it used to be when we were kids and went to confession: the priest couldn't tell anyone?'

Brunetti sipped at his wine to hide his smile. 'I'm not sure it's the same thing, Marco. They weren't allowed to tell, no matter what we told them, no matter how bad it was. But if you tell me about a crime, I'll probably have to do something about it.'

'What sort of crime?' When Brunetti didn't answer, Marco went on, I mean, how big a crime would it have to be before you had to tell?'

The urgency in Marco's voice showed this was not some sort of parlour game, and so Brunetti considered the question before he answered, ‘I can't say. That is, I can't give you a list of things I'd have to report. Anything serious or anything violent, I suppose.'

'And if nothing's happened yet?' Marco asked.

Brunetti was surprised by this question from Marco, a man who had always lived in the real, the concrete. It was very strange to hear him posing a hypothetical question; Brunetti wondered if he'd even ever heard Marco use a complex grammatical structure, so accustomed was he to his use of the simple declarative.

'Marco’ he said, 'why don't you just trust me and tell me what it is and then let me think about how to handle it?'

'It's not that I don't trust you, Guido. God knows I do; that’ s why I came to talk to you. If s just that I don't want to get you into any sort of trouble by telling you something you might not want to know about.' He looked in the direction of the bar, and Brunetti thought he was going to call for more wine, but then he looked back, and Brunetti realized Marco was checking to see if anyone could hear what they were saying. But the other men at the bar seemed busy with their own conversation.

'All right, I'll tell you,' Marco said. 'And then you can decide what to do with it.'

Brunetti was struck by how similar Marco's behaviour, even the rhythm of his speech, was to that of so many suspects he had questioned over the years. There always came a point where they gave in and stopped resisting their desire to make it clear just how it was or had been or what had driven them to do what they had done. He waited.

'You know, well, maybe you don't know that I bought a new shop near Santa Fosca’ Marco began and paused for Brunetti to respond.

'No, I didn't.' Brunetti knew better than to give anything but a simple answer. Never ask for more, never request clarification. Just let them talk until they run themselves out and have nothing else to say: that was when you began to ask questions.

'If s that cheese shop that belonged to the balding guy who always wore" a hat. Nice guy; my mother used to go to his father when we lived over there. Anyway, last year they tripled his rent so he decided to retire, and I paid the buon' uscita and took over the lease.' He glanced at Brunetti to see that he was following. 'But because I want to sell masks and souvenirs, I've got to have show windows so people can see all the stuff. He just had that one on the right side where he had the provolone and scamorza, but there's one on the left, too, only his father closed it up, bricked it over, about forty years ago. But it's on the original plans, so it can be opened up again. And I need it. I need two windows so people can see all the junk and take a mask home to Dusseldorf.'

Neither he nor Brunetti needed to comment upon the folly of this, nor on the fact that so much of what would be sold in his shop as 'original Venetian handcrafts' was made in third world countries where the closest the workers ever came to a canal was the one behind their houses that served as a sewer.

'Anyway, I took over the lease and my architect drew up the plans. That is, he drew them up a long time ago, as soon as the guy agreed I could take over, but he couldn't present them in the Comune until the lease was in my name.' Again he looked at Brunetti. 'That was in March.' Marco raised his right hand in a fist, shot up his thumb, repeated 'March,' and then counted out the months. That's seven months, Guido. Seven months those bastards have made me wait. I'm paying the rent, my architect goes into the planning office once a week to ask where the permits are, and every time he goes, they tell him that the papers aren't ready or something has to be checked before I can be given the permissions.'

Marco opened his fist and laid his hand flat on the table, then put the other beside it, fingers splayed open. 'You know whaf s going on, don't you?' he asked.

'Yes’ Brunetti said.

'So last week I told my architect to ask them how much they wanted’ He looked across, as if curious to see if Brunetti would register surprise, perhaps shock, at what he was telling him, but Brunetti's face remained impassive.

Thirty million’ Marco paused for a long time, but Brunetti said nothing. 'If I give them thirty million, then I'll have the permissions next week and the workers can go in and start the restorations’

'And if you don't?' Brunetti asked.

'God knows’ Marco said with a shake of his head. 'They can keep me waiting another seven months, I suppose’

'Why haven't you paid them before this?' Brunetti asked.

'My architect keeps saying it isn't necessary, that he knows the men on the planning commission and if s just a question of lots of requests before mine. And I've got problems with other things.' Brunetti thought for a moment that Marco would tell him about them, too, but all he said was, 'No, all you need to know about is this one’

Brunetti remembered the time, a few years ago, when a chain of fast food restaurants had done extensive restorations in four separate locations, keeping their crews working day and night. Almost before anyone knew it, certainly before anyone had any idea that they were going to open, there they were, in business, the odour of their various beef products filling the air like summer in a Sumatran slaughterhouse.

Have you decided to pay them?'

1 don't have much of a choice, do I?' Marco asked tiredly. ‘I already spend more than a hundred million lire a year for a lawyer as it is, just keeping ahead of the lawsuits people bring against me in the other businesses and trying to resolve them. If I bring a civil suit against people who work for the city for wilfully preventing me from running my business or whatever crime my lawyer can think of to charge them with, it would just cost me more and drag on for years, and in the end nothing would happen anyway’

'Why did you come to me, then?' Brunetti asked.

‘I wondered if there was anything you could do? I mean, if I marked the money or something.. ‘ Marco's voice petered out and he tightened his fists. 'It's really not the money, Guido. I'll make that back in a couple of months; so many people want to buy that junk. But I'm just sick to death of having to do business this way. I've got shops in Paris and Zurich, and none of this shit goes on there. You apply for building permission, they process your papers, and when they're ready they give you the permissions and you begin the work. No one's there, sucking at your tit’ His fist smashed down on the table. 'No wonder this place is such a mess’ His voice rose, suddenly high-pitched and sharp as, for a moment that frightened Brunetti, Marco seemed to lose all control. 'No one can run a business here. All these bastards want to do is suck us dry’ Again, his hand came smashing down on the table. The two men and the bartender looked over at them, but none of this was new in Italy, so they nodded in silent agreement and went back to their own conversation.

Brunetti had no idea whether Marco's condemnation was of Venice in particular or Italy in general. It hardly mattered: he was right either way.

'What are you going to do?' Brunetti asked.

Implicit in his question, and both men knew it, was the acknowledgement that there was no way Brunetti could help. As a friend he could commiserate and share Marco's anger, but as a policeman he was impotent. The bribe would be paid in cash and so, as is the way with cash, it would leave no traces. If Marco made an official complaint against someone working in the planning commission, he might just as well close up his shops and go out of business, for he would never obtain another permit, no matter how minor, no matter how urgent.

Marco smiled and shifted to the end of the bench. ‘I just wanted to let off steam, I guess. Or maybe I wanted to push your nose in it, Guido, since you work for them, sort of, and if that was the reason, then I'm sorry and I apologize’ His voice sounded normal, but Brunetti watched his fingers, this time folding the four corners of a paper napkin into neat triangles.

Brunetti was surprised at how deeply he was offended that any friend of his should consider him as working for 'them'. But, if he didn't work for 'them', then whom did he work for?

'No, I don't think that was why,' he finally said. 'Or at least I hope it wasn't. And I'm sorry, too, because there's nothing I can do. I could tell you to make una denuncia, but I might as well tell you to commit suicide, and I don't think I want to do that’ He wondered how Marco could continue to open new businesses if this was the sort of thing he met at every turn. He thought about that restless boy, the one with the big dreams, who had shared his school bench for three years in a row, and he remembered how Marco could never sit still for long, yet he always managed to find the patience to complete one task before rushing off to another. Maybe Marco was programmed like a bee and had no option but to work at something and fly off to something new as soon as he'd finished.

'Well,' Marco began, slipping out of the bench and getting to his feet. He reached into his pocket, but Brunetti held up a monitory hand. Marco understood, took his hand out of his pocket and extended it to the still-sitting Brunetti.

'Next time, mine?'

'Of course’

Marco glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got to run, Guido. I've got a shipment of Murano glass’ he began, placing a light smile and heavy emphasis on Murano', 'coming in from the Czech Republic and I've got to be at the Customs to see it gets through without any trouble.'

Before Brunetti could rise from the bench, Marco was gone, walking quickly, as he had always walked, off to some new project, some new scheme.

3

Though Brunetti and Paola listened, after dinner, to each other's account of the day, neither of them saw much of a connection between the two events; certainly neither of them connected the stories they'd heard to the idea of honour or its demands. Paola, in sympathy with Marco, said she'd always liked him, surprising Brunetti into saying, 'But I thought you didn't.'

'Why's that?'

‘I suppose because he's so different from the sort of person you tend to like.' 'Specifically?'

‘I always thought you considered him something of a hustler.'

'He is a hustler. That's precisely why I like him.' When she saw his confusion, she explained, 'Remember, I spend most of my professional life in the company of students or academics. The first are usually lazy, and the second are always self-satisfied. The first want to talk about their delicate sensibilities and wounded souls, some sudden injury to which has prevented them from completing what they were meant to do for class; and the second want to talk about how their last monograph on Calvino's use of the semicolon is going to change the entire course of modern literary criticism. So someone like Marco, who talks about tangible things, about making money and running a business, and who has never, once, in all these years, tried to impress me with what he knows or where he's been or burdened me with long stories of his suffering; someone like Marco's a glass of prosecco after a long afternoon spent drinking cold camomile tea.'

'Cold camomile tea?' he inquired.

She smiled. ‘I threw it in for the effect achieved by the contrast with the prosecco. If s a technique of artful exaggeration, akin to the reductio ad absurdum, that I've picked up from my colleagues.'

'Who, I imagine, are not at all like prosecco.'

She closed her eyes and put her head back in an attitude of exquisite pain, the sort usually observed in pictures of Saint Agatha. 'There are days when I'm tempted to steal your gun and take it with me.'

'Who would you use it on, students or professors?'

'Surely you're joking,' she said in feigned astonishment.

'No, who?'

'On my colleagues. The students, poor babies, they're just young and callow and will grow up, most of them, and turn into reasonably pleasant human beings. It's my colleagues I long to destroy, if only to put a stop to the endless litany of self-congratulation I have to listen to.'

'All of them?' he asked, accustomed to hear her denounce particular people and thus surprised at her scope.

She considered this, as if she knew there were six bullets in his gun and she was preparing a list. After a while she said, not without a certain disappointment, 'No, not all of them. Maybe five or six.'

'But that’s still half of your department, isn't it?' Twelve on the books, but only nine teach.' 'What do the other three do?' 'Nothing. But if s called research.' 'How can that be?'

'One of them is aggressive and probably gaga; Professoressa Bettin had what is described as a crisis of nerves and has been put on medical leave until further notice, which probably means until she retires; and the Vice-Chairman, Professore Delia Grazia, well, he's a special case.'

'What does that mean?'

'He's sixty-eight and should have retired three years ago, but he refuses to leave.' 'But he doesn't teach?' 'He can't be trusted with female students.' 'What?'

'You heard me. He can't be trusted with female students. Or, for that matter,' she added after a reflective pause, 'with female faculty.'

'What does he do?'

'With the students it's a kind of dirty-minded subtext to everything he says during his tutorials, well, when he still used to have them. Or he'd read graphic descriptions of sex in his classes. But always from the classics, so no one could complain, or if they did, he'd take on an attitude of shocked disdain, as if he were the only protector of the Classical tradition.' She paused for him to respond, but when he didn't she went on: 'With the younger faculty members I've been told that he blocks their chance of promotion unless there's an exchange of sex. He's the Vice-Chairman of the department, so he gets to approve promotions or, in some cases, disapprove them.'

‘You said he's sixty-eight’ Brunetti said, not without a certain disgust.

'Which, if you think about it, just gives you some idea of how long he's got away with it.' 'But no longer?'

To a lesser degree, at least since he was taken out of the classroom.'

'What does he do?' ‘I told you, research.' 'What does that mean?'

'It means he collects his salary and, when he decides to leave, he'll collect a generous bonus and then an even more generous pension."

'Is all of this common knowledge?'

'Among the faculty, certainly; probably among the students, as well.'

'And nothing is done about it?'

As soon as he spoke, he knew what she was going to answer, and she did. 'If s no different from what Marco told you today. Everyone knows these things go on, but no one is willing to take the risk of making a formal complaint because of the consequences. To be the first one to make this public would be professional suicide. They'd be sent to some place like Caltanissetta and made to teach a class in something like...' He watched her attempting to formulate a subject of sufficient horror. 'Elements of Bardic Verse in Early Catalan Court Poetry.'

'It's strange,' he said. I suppose we've all come, more or less, to expect this sort of thing in a government office. But we all think, or maybe we hope - or maybe I do, anyway - that it's somehow different in a university.'

Paola repeated her imitation of Saint Agatha and soon after they went to bed.

In the morning, over coffee, Paola asked, 'Well?'

Brunetti knew exactly what this referred to: the answer he had not given the previous evening, when Paola had told him about the request of her student, and so he said, It depends on what the crime was that was committed, and what the sentence was’

'She didn't say what the crime was, only that he was convicted and sent to San Servolo’

Idly stirring his coffee, Brunetti asked, 'And the woman's Austrian? Did she say who the man was?'

Paola thought back to her hurried conversation with the girl, trying to remember details. 'No, but she did say the woman was an old friend of her grandfather, so I assume she's talking about him.'

'What's the girl's name?' Brunetti asked.

'Why do you need to know that?'

'I could ask Signorina Elettra to see if there's anything in the files’

'But the old woman isn't related to her,' Paola protested, somehow reluctant to give the girl up to police investigation, no matter how delicate and no matter how well intended that investigation might be. Who knew the consequences of introducing her name into the police computer?

'Presumably her grandfather would be,' Brunetti said, sounding far more pedantic than he wanted to but irritated that his wife had brought this homework back with her.

'Guido,' Paola said in a voice she herself found unusually firm, 'all she wanted to know was whether it was theoretically possible that a pardon could be granted. She didn't ask for a police examination, just for information.' Paola, a professor of the old school, could not shake herself of the belief that, in some way, she functioned in loco parentis to her students, a belief which hardened her resolve not to reveal the girl's name.

He set his cup down. 'I don't think I can do anything until I know what he was convicted of, this man who is or is not her grandfather’ If things like this had ever come up in any of his university law classes, he had long since forgotten. 'If it was something minor, like theft or assault, a pardon would hardly be necessary, especially after all this time, but if it was a major crime, like murder, then perhaps, perhaps..He considered further. ‘Did she say how long ago it happened?'

'No, but if he was sent to San Servolo, then it had to be before the Legge Basaglia, and that was in the Seventies, wasn't it?' Paola said.

Brunetti considered this. 'Umm,' he muttered. After a long silence, he said, 'It’ll be hard, even if we learn his name.'

'We don't need to know his name, Guido,' Paola insisted. 'All the girl wants is a theoretical answer.'

Then the theoretical answer is that no other kind of answer is possible until I know what the crime was.'

'Which means no answer is possible?' Paola asked acerbically.

'Paola,' Brunetti said in much the same tone, 'I'm not making this up. If s like asking me to put a value on a painting or a print without letting me see it.' Both of them, later, were to recall this comparison.

'Then what am I supposed to tell her?' Paola asked.

Tell her exactly what I've said. It's what any lawyer of good conscience . . .' he began, ignored Paola's raised eyebrows at this most absurd of possibilities, and went on, 'would tell her. What is it that schoolmaster in that book you're always quoting says? "Facts, facts, facts"? Well, until I have the facts or anyone else has the facts, that's the only answer she's going to get’

Paola had been weighing the cost and consequences of further opposition and had decided they were hardly worth it. Guido was acting in good faith, and the fact that she didn't much like his answer didn't make it any less true. 'Good, I'll tell her,' she said. Thank you.' Smiling, she added, 'It makes me feel like that other Dickens character and makes me want to tell her that she's saved five million lire in lawyer's costs and should go right out and spend it on something else.'

Toil can always find whatever you're looking for in a book, can't you?' he asked with a smile.

Instead of a simple answer, something she seldom gave him, Paola said, 'I think it was Shelley who said that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. I don't have any idea if that's true or not, but I do know that novelists are the unacknowledged gossip-mongers of the world. No matter what it is, they thought of it first.'

He pushed back his chair and stood. 'I'll leave you to the contemplation of the splendours of literature.'

He leaned down to kiss her head and waited for her to come up with another literary reference, but she did not. Instead, she reached behind with one hand and patted him on the back of his calf, then said, Thank you, Guido. I'll tell her’

4

Because the requests for information came from what might be termed minor players in their lives, both Brunetti and Paola forgot about them or at least allowed them to slip to the back of their minds. A police department burdened with the increase in crime resulting from the flood of unregulated immigration from Eastern Europe would no more have concerned itself with the attempt to stamp out minor corruption in a city office than Paola would have turned from rereading The Golden Bowl to attend to those semicolons in Calvino.

When Claudia did not show up for the next lecture, Paola realized that she felt almost relieved. She didn't want to be the bringer of her husband's news, nor did she want to grow more involved in the personal life or non-academic concerns of one of her students. She had, as had most professors, done so in the past, and it had always either led nowhere or ended badly. She had her own children, and their lives were more than enough to satisfy whatever nurturing instincts the current wisdom told her she must have.

But the girl was present the following week. During the lecture, which dealt with the parallels between the heroines of James and those of Wharton, Claudia behaved as she always did: she took notes, asked no questions, and seemed impatient with the student questions that displayed ignorance or insensitivity. When the class was over, she waited while the other students left the room and then came up to Paola's desk.

‘I’m sorry I wasn't here last week, Professoressa.'

Paola smiled but before she could say anything Claudia asked, 'Did you have time to speak to your husband?'

It occurred to Paola to ask the girl if she thought that perhaps she might not have had occasion to speak to her husband during the last two weeks. Instead, she turned to face Claudia and said, ‘Yes, I asked him about it, and he said that he can't give you an answer until he has an idea of the seriousness of the crime for which the man was convicted.'

Paola watched the girl's face register this information: surprise, suspicion, and then a quick assessing glance at Paola, as if to assure herself that no trick or trap lay in her answer. These expressions flashed by in an instant, after which she said, 'But in general? I only want to know if he thinks if s possible or if he knows there's some sort of process that would allow, well, that would allow a person's reputation to be restored.'

Paola did not sigh, but she did speak with a sort of over-patient slowness. That's what he can't say, Claudia. Unless he knows what the crime was.'

The girl considered this, then surprised Paola by asking, 'Could I speak to your husband myself, do you think?'

Either the girl was too obsessed with finding an answer to care about the distrust her question showed of Paola or too artless to be aware of it. In either case, Paola's response was a lesson in equanimity. ‘I see no reason why you couldn't. If you call the Questura and ask for him, I'm sure he'd tell you when you could go and speak to him.'

'But if they won't let me speak to him?'

Then use my name. Tell them you're calling for me or that I told you to call. That should be enough to make them put you through to him.'

'Thank you, Professoressa,' Claudia said and turned to leave. As she turned, she bumped her hip against the edge of the desk, and the books she was holding fell to the floor. Bending to pick them up, Paola, with the instinct of every lover of books, had a look at them. She saw a book with a title in German, but because it was upside down she couldn't make it out. There was Denis Mack Smith's history of the Italian monarchy as well as his biography of Mussolini, both in English.

'Do you read German, Claudia?'

'Yes, I do. My grandmother spoke it to me when I was growing up. She was German’

'Your real grandmother, that is?' Paola said with an encouraging smile.

Still on one knee, arranging the books, the girl shot her a very suspicious glance but answered calmly, 'Yes, my mother's mother.'

Not wanting to be perceived as prying, Paola contented herself with saying only, How lucky you were to be raised bilingual’

‘You were, too, weren't you, Professoressa?'

‘I learned English as a child, yes’ Paola said and left it at that. She did not add that it had not been from her family but from a succession of English nannies. The less any student knew about her personal life, the better. With a gesture to the Mack Smith books, Paola asked, 'What about you?'

Claudia got to her feet. 'I've spent summers in England.' That, it seemed, was the only explanation Paola was going to get.

‘Lucky you’ Paola said in English and then added with a smile, 'Ascot, strawberries, and Wimbledon’

It's more like mucking out the stables at my aunt's place in Surrey’ Claudia answered in the same accentless English.

'If your German is as good, it must be quite extraordinary’ Paola said, not without a trace of envy.

'Oh, I seldom get to speak it, but I still like to read in it. Besides’ she said, hefting the books on to her hip, 'it's not as if there were any Italian accounts of the war that are particularly reliable.'

‘I think my husband will be pleased to talk to you, Claudia. He's very fond of history, and I've listened to him say for years what you've just said.'

'Really? He reads?' Claudia asked, then, aware of how insulting that sounded, added lamely, 'History, I mean.'

'Yes’ Paola answered, gathering up her papers and resisting the impulse to add that her husband was also able to write. In a voice just as pleasant as previously, she said, ‘Usually the Romans and the Greeks. The lies they tell seem to leave him less angry than the ones contemporary historians tell, or so he says.'

Claudia smiled at this. 'Yes, I can understand that. Would you tell him that I'll call him, probably tomorrow? And that I'm very eager to meet him?'

Paola found it remarkable that this attractive young woman seemed to find nothing at all unusual in telling another woman how eager she was to meet her husband. The girl was by no means stupid, so it must result only from a sort of ingenuousness Paola had not seen in a student in quite some time or from some other motive she could not discern.

It went against everything she had learned about the necessity of avoiding involvement with students, but curious now to know what was behind Claudia's request, she said, 'Yes, I'll tell him.'

Claudia smiled and said, quite formally, 'Thank you, Professoressa’

Bright, apparently widely read, at least trilingual, and respectful to her elders. Considering these things, it occurred to Paola that perhaps the girl had been raised on Mars.

5

Because Paola had told him the night before that the girl wanted to talk to him directly, Brunetti realized who it must be when the guard at the entrance to the Questura phoned him to say that a young woman was downstairs, asking to speak to him.

‘What’s her name?' Brunetti asked.

There was a pause, after which the guard said, 'Claudia Leonardo.'

'Show her up, please,' Brunetti said and set down the phone. He finished reading a paragraph from a meaningless report on spending proposals, set the paper aside and picked up another, not at all unaware that this would show him to be busy when the girl arrived.

There was a knock, the door opened, and he saw a uniformed arm, quickly withdrawn, and then a young woman. She came into the office, certainly looking far too young to be a university student preparing for her last exams, as Paola had said.

He stood, motioning toward the chair that faced him.

'Good morning, Signorina Leonardo. I'm very glad you found time to come and see me’ he said in a tone he attempted to make sound avuncular.

Her quick glance told him she was accustomed to being patronized by older people; it also showed him how little she liked it. She seated herself, and Brunetti did the same. She was a pretty girl in the way young girls are almost always pretty: oval face, short dark hair and smooth skin. But she seemed bright and attentive in a way they seldom are.

'My wife told me there's something you wanted to discuss with me’ he said when he realized she was leaving it for him to speak.

‘Yes, sir.' Her gaze was direct, patient.

'She said you were curious about the possibility of a pardon for something that happened a long time ago and for which, unless I misunderstood what my wife told me, a man was convicted.'

'Yes, sir’ she repeated, her glance so unwavering as to make Brunetti wonder if she were waiting for him to resume patronizing her and was curious only as to what new form it would take.

'She also said that he was sent to San Servolo and died there.'

That's right.' There was no sign of emotion or eagerness on the girl's face.

Sensing that there would be no warming her with these questions, he said, 'She also told me you were reading the Mack Smith biography of Mussolini.'

Her smile revealed two rows of immaculate teeth and seemed to open her eyes wider, until the dark brown irises were completely surrounded with brilliant, healthy white. 'Have you read it?' she asked, her voice charged with eager curiosity.

'Some years ago’ Brunetti answered, then added, 'I usually don't read much modern history, but I had a conversation at dinner one night with someone who started telling us all about how much better it would be if only he were here again, how much better it would be for all of us if he could ...'

‘Instil some discipline into young people’ she seamlessly completed his phrase, 'and restore order to society’ Claudia had somehow managed a perfect echo of the orotund voice of the man who had spoken in favour of Il Duce and the discipline he had managed to instil into the Italian character. Brunetti threw back his head and laughed, delighted and encouraged by the way her imitation dismissed with contempt the man and his claims. ‘I don't remember seeing you there,' he said when he stopped laughing, 'but it certainly sounds like you were at the table and heard him talking.'

'Oh, God, I hear it all the time, even at school,' she said with exasperation. 'It's fine for people to complain about the present. Ifs one of the staples of conversation, after all. But once you start to mention the things in the past that made the present the way it is, then people begin to criticize you for having no respect for the country or for tradition. No one wants to go to the trouble of thinking about the past, really thinking about it, and what a terrible man he was’

'I didn't know young people even knew who Il Duce was,' Brunetti said, exaggerating, but not by much, and mindful of the almost total amnesia he had discovered in the minds of anyone, of whatever age, with whom he had attempted to discuss the war or its causes. Or worse, the sort of cock-eyed, retouched history that portrayed the friendly, generously disposed Italians led astray by their wicked Teutonic neighbours to the north.

The girl's voice drew him back from these reflections. Most of them don't. This is old people I'm talking about. You'd think they'd know or remember what things were like then, what he was like.' She shook her head in another sign of exasperation. 'But no, all I hear is that nonsense about the trains being on time and no trouble from the Mafia and how happy the Ethiopians were to see our brave soldiers’ She paused as if assessing just how far to go with this conservatively dressed man with the kind eyes; whatever she saw seemed to reassure her, for she continued, 'Our brave soldiers come with their poison gas and machine-guns to show them the wonders of Fascism’

So young and yet so cynical, he thought, and how tired she must be already of having people point this out to her. ‘I’m surprised you aren't enrolled in the history faculty’ he said.

'Oh, I was, for a year. But I couldn't stand it, all the lies and the dishonest books and the refusal to take a stand about anything that's happened in the last hundred years’

'And so?'

‘I changed to English Literature. The worst they can do is make us listen to all their idiotic theories about the meaning of literature or whether the text exists or not’ Hearing her, Brunetti had the strange sensation of listening to Paola in one of her wilder moments. 'But they can't change the texts themselves. If s not like what the people in power do when they remove embarrassing documents from the State Archives. They can't do that to Dante or Manzoni, can they?' she asked speculatively, a question that really asked for an answer.

'No,' Brunetti agreed. 'But I suspect that's only because there are standard editions of the basic texts. Otherwise, I'm sure they'd try, if they thought they could get away with it’ He saw that he had her interest, so he added, I've always been afraid of people in possession of what they believe is the truth. They'll do anything to see that the facts are changed and whipped into shape to agree with it’

'Did you study history, Commissario?' she asked.

Brunetti took this as a compliment. 'If I had, I doubt I would have lasted the course, either.' He stopped and they exchanged a smile, both struck by how immediate and democratic was the union of people who sought and found intellectual solace within the pages of books. He went on, giving no thought to the propriety of saying this to someone who was not a member of the forces of order: I still spend most of my time listening to lies, but at least some of the people who tell them to me are presumed to be lying because they're criminals. Ifs not like having to listen to a lie from someone who holds the chair in history at the university’ He almost added, 'Or the Minister of Justice’ but stopped himself in time.

That makes the lies they tell all the more dangerous, doesn't it?' she asked instantly.

'Absolutely,' he agreed, pleased that she so immediately saw the consequences. Almost reluctantly, he took the conversation back to where it had been before becoming an examination of historical truth. 'But what is it you wanted to ask me?' When she didn't answer, he continued, ‘I think my wife told you that I can't give you any information until I know the details.'

‘You won't tell anyone?' she blurted out. The tone in which she asked this reminded Brunetti that the girl was not much older than his own children and that her intellectual sophistication didn't necessarily imply any other sort of maturity.

'No, not if there's no sign of ongoing criminal activity. If what you want to ask about happened far enough in the past, then it’s likely that the statute of limitations has run out or a general amnesty has been granted.' Because the information Paola had given him was so vague, he decided to leave it to the girl to tell him more if she chose to do so.

There followed a pause in which Brunetti had no idea what the girl might be thinking. It went on so long that he looked away from her, and his eyes were automatically drawn to the printed words on the paper on his desk. He found himself, in the silence, beginning to read, almost against his will.

More time passed. Finally, she said, 'As I told your wife, it’s about an old woman I've always thought of as my third grandmother. I need the information for her. She's Austrian, but she lived with my grandfather during the war. My father's father, that is.' She looked across at Brunetti, checking to see if this explanation would suffice; he met her glance, looking interested but certainly not eager.

'After the war, my grandfather was arrested. There was a trial, and during it the prosecution presented copies of articles he had written for newspapers and journals where he condemned "alien art forms and practices". Brunetti recognized this as the Fascist code for Jewish art or art by anyone who was Jewish. 'Despite the Amnesty, they were still admitted as evidence.'

She stopped. When it became evident that she was not going to say more unless he prodded, he asked, 'What happened at the trial?'

'Because of the Togliatti Amnesty he couldn't be prosecuted for political crimes, so he was charged with extortion. For other things that happened during the war,' she explained. 'At least, this is what my grandmother has told me’ she continued. 'When it looked as if he was likely to be convicted, he had a sort of breakdown, and his lawyer decided to plead insanity.' Anticipating Brunetti's question, she added, ‘I wondered about that, but my grandmother said it was a real breakdown, not a fake one like they have today’

‘I see’

'And the judges believed it, too, so when they sentenced him, they sent him to San Servolo’

It would have been better to have gone to prison, Brunetti found himself thinking, though this was an idea he decided to spare the girl. San Servolo had been closed decades ago, and it was perhaps best to forget the horrors of what had gone on there for so many years. What had happened, had happened, not only to the other inmates, but probably to her grandfather, and there was no changing it. A pardon, however, if such a thing were possible, might change the way people thought about him. If - he found a cynical voice saying - anyone bothered to think about such things any more or if anyone cared about what had happened during the war.

'And what is it you want to obtain for him? Or your grandmother wants to obtain’ he added, seeking this way to encourage her to be more forthcoming about the source of her request.

'Anything that would exonerate him and clear his name.' Then, lowering both her voice and her head, she added, ‘It’s the only thing I could give her.' Then, more softly, ‘It’ s the only thing she wants.'

This was an area of the law with which Brunetti was not familiar, so he could consider her request only in terms of legal principles. He lacked the courage, however, to tell the girl that the law as it was enacted was not always the result of those principles. 'I think, in legal terms, what might apply here is a legal reversal or overturning of the original judgment. Once it was determined that the verdict was incorrect, your grandfather would, in effect, be declared innocent.'

'Publicly?' she asked. 'Would there be some official document that I could show my grandmother?'

'If the courts issued a judgment, then there would have to be official notice of it’ was the best answer he could supply.

She considered this for so long that Brunetti finally broke into her silence and asked, 'Was his name the same as yours?'

'No. Mine is Leonardo.'

'But he was your father's father?'

She said simply, 'My parents weren't married. My father didn't acknowledge my paternity immediately, so I kept my mother's name.'

Thinking it best not to comment on this, Brunetti asked only, 'What was his name?'

'Guzzardi. Luca’

At the sound of the name, the faintest of faint bells sounded in the back reaches of Brunetti's memory. 'Was he Venetian?' he asked.

'No, the family was from Ferrara. But they were here during the war.'

The name of the city brought the memory no closer. While seeming to consider her answer, Brunetti was busy trying to think of whom he could ask about events in Venice during the war. Two candidates sprang instantly to mind: his friend Lele Bortoluzzi, the painter, and his father-in-law, Count Orazio Falier, both men of an age to have lived through the war and both possessed of excellent memories.

'But I still don't understand,' Brunetti said, thinking that a-display of confusion would be a better means of obtaining information than open curiosity, 'what the purpose of legal action now would be. The original case should have been passed to the Court of Appeals.'

That was done at the time, and the conviction was upheld; so was the decision to send him to San Servolo.'

Brunetti assumed a befuddled expression. 'Then I don't understand, not at all, how a reversal of judgment would be possible or why anyone would want one.'

She gave him such a penetrating glance that he wiped the country bumpkin expression from his face and felt distinct embarrassment at having attempted to trick her into revealing the name of this grandmother who wanted to obtain the pardon, a desire he knew was motivated by nothing more than curiosity.

She started to speak, stopped, studied him as if remembering his attempt to appear less intelligent than he was, then finally said, with an asperity far in advance of her years, 'I'm sorry but I'm not at liberty to tell you that. All I've asked you to do,' she went on, and he was struck by the dignity with which she spoke, claiming equality with him and basing that claim on the brotherhood they'd established in their talk about books, 'is to tell me if if s possible to clear his name.' Even before he could ask, she cut him off and added, 'Nothing more.'

‘I see’ he said, getting to his feet, uncertain that he could be of much help to her but sufficiently charmed by her youth and sincerity to want to try.

She stood up as well. He came around the desk to approach her, but it was she who was the first to extend a hand. They shook hands. Quickly she went to the door and let herself out of the office, leaving Brunetti with the nagging sense that he had behaved foolishly but also with the desire to discover what the memory was that had awakened at the name Guzzardi.

When she was gone, Brunetti pulled the pile of papers that remained on his desk towards him, scribbled his initials on each of them without bothering to read a word, and moved them to his left, whence they would continue to meander through the offices of the Questura. It bothered him not at all to dismiss them thus; he thought it might be an intelligent policy to adopt from now on, or perhaps he could make a deal with one of the other commissari to trade off weeks reading them. He contemplated for a moment the possibility of making the same deal with all of the colleagues he trusted, to diminish this stupid waste of time, but was brought up short by how few names he could put on any such list: Vianello, Signorina Elettra, Pucetti, and one of the new commissari, Sara Marino.

The fact that Marino was Sicilian had at first made Brunetti wary of her, and then the revelation that her father, a judge, had been murdered by the Mafia had made him fear she might be a zealot. But then he had seen her honesty and enthusiasm for work; moreover, Patta and Lieutenant Scarpa both disapproved of her and so Brunetti had come to trust her. Aside from those four - and Sara's name was there only because his gut impulse told him she was an honourable person - there was no one else at the Questura in whom he could place blind trust. Rather than put his security in the hands of colleagues, all sworn to protect and uphold the law, how much sooner would he trust his life, career and fortunes to someone like Marco Erizzo, a man he had just advised to commit a crime.

He decided not to waste any more time sitting and making stupid lists. Instead he would go and talk to his father-in-law, another man he had come to trust, though it was a trust that never failed to make him uneasy. He sometimes thought of Count Orazio Falier as Orazio the Oracle, for he was certain that the myriad connections the Count had spent a lifetime forming could lead to the answer to any question Brunetti might ask about the people or workings of the city. In the past, the Count had passed on to Brunetti intimate secrets about the great and good, information which more often than not called into question both of those adjectives. The one thing he had never revealed, however, was a source, though Brunetti had come to believe implicitly in whatever the Count told him.

He called the Count in his office and asked if he could have a word with him. Explaining that he had an appointment for lunch and was leaving the city immediately afterwards, the Count suggested that Brunetti come over to Campo San Barnaba right then, where they could talk undisturbed about whatever it was Brunetti wanted to know. When he set the phone down, Brunetti realized that the Count's intuition made him nervous. He had assumed that Brunetti would have no other reason to ask to see him than to extract information, though he had mentioned it so casually as to make it impossible for Brunetti to take legitimate offence.

Brunetti left a note on his door, saying he had gone to question someone and would be back after lunch. The day had grown darker and colder, so he decided to take the vaporetto rather than walk. The Number One from San Zaccaria was jammed with an immense tourist group surrounded by a rampart of luggage, no doubt headed for the train station or Piazzale Roma and the airport. He stepped on board and made for the doors of the cabin, only to find his way blocked by an enormous backpack suspended from the shoulders of an even more enormous woman. It seemed to him that in the last few years American tourists had doubled in size. They had always been big, but big in the way the Scandinavians were big: tall and muscular. But now they were lumpish and soft as well as big, agglomerations of sausage-like limbs that left him with the sensation that his hand would come away slick if he touched them.

He knew it was impossible for human physiology to change at less than glacial speed, but he suspected that some shocking transformation had nevertheless taken place in what was required to sustain human life: these people seemed incapable of survival without frequent infusions of water or carbonated drinks, for they all clutched at their litre-and-a-half-bottles as though they alone offered the possibility of continued life.

A recidivist, he opened his Gazzettino and turned his attention to the second section, dedicating himself to its many delights until the vaporetto pulled up at the Ca' Rezzonico stop.

At the end of the long calk, he turned right in front of the church, then down into an ever narrower calle until he found himself at the immense portone of Palazzo Falier. He rang the bell and stepped to the right, placing himself in front of the speaker to announce himself, but the door was opened almost instantly by Luciana, the oldest of the servants who staffed the palazzo and who had, by virtue of devotion and the passage of time, become an ancillary member of the family.

'Ah, Dottor Guido’ she said, smiling and putting her hand on his arm to lead him through the doorway. Her instinctive gesture expressed happiness to see him, concern for his well-being, and something close to love. 'Paola? The children?'

Brunetti recalled that it was only a few years ago, when both children already towered over this tiny woman, that she had stopped referring to them as 'the babies'.

'Everyone's fine, Luciana. And we're all waiting for this .year's honey.' Luciana's son had a dairy farm up near Bolzano, and every year, for Christmas, she gave the family four one-kilo bottles of the different kinds of honey he produced.

'Is it all gone?' she asked, voice quick with worry. 'Would you like some more?'

He pictured her, if he said yes, catching the first train to Bolzano the next morning. 'No, Luciana, we still have the acacia. We haven't opened it yet. And there's still half of the castagno, so we should make it until Christmas. So long as we keep it hidden from Chiara.'

She smiled, long familiar with Chiara's wolfish appetite. Unpersuaded by his answer, she said, 'If you run out, let me know, and Giovanni can send some down. It's no trouble.'

With another pat on his arm, she said, ‘Il Signor Conte is in his office.' Brunetti nodded, and Luciana turned back toward the steps that led up to the first floor and the kitchen, where she reigned supreme; no one could recall a time when she had not done so.

The door to the Count's office was open when Brunetti arrived, so he entered with only a perfunctory tap on the jamb. The Count looked up and greeted him with a smile so warm Brunetti began to wonder if there was some information the Count wanted in exchange for whatever he could supply.

Brunetti had no idea how old the Count was, nor was it easy to gauge it from the man's appearance. Though his close-cropped hair was white, in combination with his sun-darkened skin, it gave an impression of vibrant, active contrast and removed any suggestion that the colour of his hair was an indication of age. Brunetti had once asked Paola how old her father was, and she had answered only that he'd have to find that out by having a look at the Count's passport; she'd gone on gleefully to explain that he had four of them, from four different countries, all with different dates and places of birth.

The piercing blue eyes and the beaked nose would, Brunetti was certain, appear on all of them; Paola had never said whether the names on the passports were all the same, and he had never had the courage to ask.

The Count crossed the room to meet his son-in-law with a firm handshake and a smile. 'How nice of you to come. Have a seat and something to drink. Coffee? Un'ombra?’

'No, thank you,' Brunetti said, taking a seat. 'I know you've got an appointment, so I'll just ask you what I've come for and try to be quick about it.'

Without looking at his watch, the Count said, 'I've got half an hour, so there's plenty of time for a drink.'

'No, really,' Brunetti insisted. 'Maybe after we've talked, if there's time.'

The Count went back around his desk and sat. 'Who is it?' he asked, showing his familiarity with Brunetti.

'An Italian named Luca Guzzardi who was convicted after the war, though I don't know for what crimes, and who, instead of going to prison, was sent to San Servolo, where he died.' Brunetti chose to say nothing about Claudia Leonardo nor to explain the reason for his questions. In any case, the Count usually didn't care why Brunetti wanted to know something; the fact that Brunetti was married to his daughter was sufficient reason to offer him any help he could.

The Count's face remained impassive as Brunetti spoke. When he stopped, the Count pursed his lips and tilted his head to one side, as if listening to a sound from one of the palazzi on the other side of the Grand Canal. When he looked back at Brunetti, he said, 'Ah, life really is long’

Brunetti knew that, like his daughter, the Count would not resist the temptation to elucidate. After a moment, he did so. ‘Luca Guzzardi was the son of a business associate of my father. He called himself an artist’ Seeing Brunetti's confusion, he explained, The son, not the father’

Presumably, the Count was arranging the facts in an orderly way so as to tell the story clearly. He went on.. 'He was not an artist, though he did have a minor talent as an illustrator. This served him in very good stead, for he became a muralist and poster designer for the party in power before and during the war’ There were times when Brunetti had no choice but to admire the Count's arrogance: just as a man in his position did not call his servants by their first names, so too did he refuse to pronounce the name of the political party that had reduced his country to ruins.

Brunetti, who was familiar with Fascisti, now remembered where he had heard the name Guzzardi, or at least read it: in a book on Fascist art, page after numbing page of well-fed factory workers and bright-eyed maidens with long braids, dedicated, in the most glaring of colours, to the triumph of people just like themselves.

'He was quite active during the war, Luca Guzzardi’ the Count went on, 'both in Ferrara, where his family was originally from - I believe they dealt in textiles - and here, where both he and his father held positions of some importance.'

Brunetti had long since abandoned any idea of asking his father-in-law to explain how he came by the information he provided, but this time the Count supplied it. 'As Paola may have told you, we had to leave the country in 1939, so none of us was here during the first years of the war. I was still a boy, but my father had many friends who remained, and after the war, when the family came back to Venice, he learned, and so did I, what had gone on while we were away from the city. Little of it was pleasant’

After this brief explanation, he went on, 'Guzzardi padre supplied cloth to the Army, for uniforms and, I think, tents. Thus he made a fortune. The son, because of his artistic talents, had some sort of job in propaganda, designing posters and billboards that showed the appropriate pictures of life in our great nation. He was also one of the people appointed to decide which pieces of decadent art should be disposed of by galleries and museums’

‘Disposed of?' Brunetti asked.

'It was one of the diseases that came down from the North,' the Count said drily, and then continued.

There was a long list of painters who were declared objectionable: Goya, Matisse, Chagall, and the German Expressionists. Many others, as well: it was enough that they were Jewish. Or that the subjects of their paintings weren't pretty or supportive of Party myth. Any evidence had to be removed from the walls of museums, and many people took the precaution of removing paintings from the walls of their houses.'

'Where did they go?' Brunetti asked.

'Well you may ask,' the Count answered. 'Often, they were the first paintings that were sold by people who needed enough money to survive or who wanted to leave the country, though they got very little for them.'

'And the museums?'

The Count smiled, that peculiarly cynical tightening of the lips his daughter had inherited from him. 'It was Guzzardi figlio whose job it was to decide which things had to be removed’

'And was it his job,' Brunetti asked, beginning to see where this might be leading, 'to decide where they were sent and to keep the records of where they were?'

‘I’m so glad to see that all of these years at the police have done nothing to affect the workings of your mind, Guido’ the Count said with affectionate irony.

Brunetti ignored the remark, and the Count continued, 'Many things seem to have disappeared in the chaos. It seems though, that he went too far. I think it was in 1942. There was a Swiss family living on the Grand Canal in an old place that had been in their family for generations. The father, who had some sort of title,' the Count said with an easy dismissal of all claims to aristocracy that did not go back more than a thousand years, 'was the honorary consul, and the son was always in trouble for saying things against the current government here, but he was never arrested because of his father, who was very well connected. Finally, I can't remember when it was, the son was found in the attic with two British Air Force officers he'd hidden there. The story was very unclear, but it seems that the Guzzardis had found out about it and one of them sent in the police.' He stopped talking, and Brunetti watched him try to call back these memories from more than half a century ago.

The police took all of them away,' the Count went on. 'Later, the evening of the same day, both of the Guzzardis paid a call on the father in his palazzo and, well, there was a discussion of some sort. At the end of it, it was agreed that the boy would be sent home and the matter dropped.'

'And the airmen?'

'I've no idea.'

The Guzzardis, then?' Brunetti asked. 'They are reported to have left the palazzo that night with a large parcel.' 'Decadent art?'

'No one knows. The consul was a great collector of early master drawings: Tiziano, Tintoretto, Carpaccio. He was also a great friend of Venice and gave many things to the museums.'

'But not the drawings?'

'They were not in the palazzo at the end of the war’ the Count explained.

'And the Guzzardis?' Brunetti asked.

‘It seems that the Consul had been at school with the man who was sent here as British ambassador right after the war, and the Englishman insisted that something be done about the Guzzardis.'

'And?'

'Guzzardi, the son, was put on trial. I don't remember what the exact charges were, but there was never any question about what would happen. The ambassador was a very wealthy man, you see, as well as a very generous one, and that made him very powerful.' The Count looked at the wall behind Brunetti, where three Tiziano drawings hung in a row, as if to ask them to prompt his memory.

‘I don't know that the drawings were ever seen again. The rumour I heard at the time was that Guzzardi's lawyer had made a deal and he would be acquitted if the drawings were given back, but then he had some sort of collapse or seizure during the trial, real or fake I don't know, and the judges ended up convicting him - now that I think about it, it might have been for extortion - and sending him to San Servolo. There was talk that it was all a charade, put on so that the judges could send him there. Then they'd keep him there for a few months, then let him out, miraculously cured. That way, the ambassador would get what he wanted, but Guzzardi wouldn't really be punished.'

'But he died?'

‘Yes, he died.'

'Anything suspicious about that?'

'No, not that I can remember ever hearing. But San Servolo was a death pit.' The Count considered this for a moment, then added, 'Not that it's much better with the way things are organized now.'

The window of Brunetti's office looked across to the old men's home at San Lorenzo, and what he saw there was enough to confirm everything he believed about the fate of the old, the mad, or the abandoned who came to be cared for by the current public institutions. He drew himself away from these reflections and glanced at his watch; it was past time for the Count to leave, if he was to be in time for lunch. He got to his feet. Thank you. If you remember anything else...'

The Count interrupted and finished the thought for him, 'I'll let you know.' He smiled, not a happy smile, and said, 'It's very strange to think about those times again.'

‘Why?'

Just like the French, we couldn't forget what happened during the war years fast enough. You know my feelings about the Germans,' he began, and Brunetti nodded to acknowledge the unyielding distaste with which the Count viewed that nation. 'But to give them credit, they looked at what they did.'

‘Did they have a choice?' Brunetti asked.

'With Communists in charge of half the country, the Cold War begun, and the Americans terrified which way they'd go, of course they had a choice. The Allies, once the Nuremberg Trials were over, would never have pushed the Germans' noses in it. But they chose to examine the war years, at least to a certain degree. We never did, and so there is no history of those years, at least none that’ s reliable.'

Brunetti was struck by how much the Count sounded like Claudia Leonardo, though they were separated by more than two generations.

At the door of the office, Brunetti turned and asked, 'And the drawings?'

'What about them?'

'What would they be worth now?'

Thaf s impossible to answer. No one knows what they were or how many of them there were, and there's no proof that it happened.'

'That the Guzzardis took them?'

'Yes.'

'What do you think?'

'Of course they took them,' the Count said. 'That's the sort of people they were. Scum. Pretentious, upstart scum, the usual sort of people who are attracted to that kind of political idea. It's the only chance they'll ever have in their lives to have power or wealth, and so they gang together like rats and take what they can. Then, as soon as the game's up, they're the first to say they were morally opposed all the time but feared for the safety of their families. It's remarkable the way men like that always manage to find some high-sounding excuse for what they did. Then, at the first opportunity, they join the winning side.' The Count threw up one hand in a gesture of angry contempt.

Brunetti could not remember ever seeing the Count pass so quickly from distant, amused contempt into raw anger. He wondered what particular set of experiences had led the Count to feel so strongly about these far-off events. This was hardly the time, however, to give in to his curiosity, so he contented himself with repeating his thanks and shaking the Count's hand before leaving Palazzo Falier to return to his more modest home and to his lunch.

7

In the apartment, he found the children in the middle of an argument. They stood at the door to the living room, voices raised, and barely glanced in Brunetti's direction when he came in. Years of evaluating the tones of their various interchanges told him that their hearts weren't in this one and they were doing little more than going through the motions of combat, rather in the fashion of walruses content to rise to the surface of the water and display their tusks to an opponent. As soon as one backed off, the other would flop down and swim away. The dispute concerned a CD, its ownership as disputed as it was currently divided: Raffi had the disc in his hand, and Chiara held the plastic box.

‘I bought it a month ago at Tempio della Musica’ Chiara insisted.

'Sara gave it to me for my birthday, stupid,' retorted Raffi.

Applauding himself for his self-restraint, Brunetti did not suggest that they emulate a previous judgment, cut the squealing thing in two, and have done with it. Instead, he inquired, 'Is your mother in her study?'

Chiara nodded but turned immediately back to combat. ‘I want to listen to it now’ Brunetti heard her say as he went down the corridor.

The door to Paola's study was open, so he went in, saying, 'Can I claim refugee status?^’

'Hummm?' she asked, looking up from the papers on her desk, peering at him through her reading glasses as though uncertain of the identity of the man who had just walked in unannounced.

'Can I claim refugee status?'

She removed her glasses. 'Are they still at it?' she asked. As formulaic as a Haydn symphony, the children's bickering had moved into an adagio but Brunetti, in expectation of the allegro tempestoso that was sure to come, closed the door and sat on the sofa against the wall.

‘I spoke to your father’

'About what?' she asked.

'This thing with Claudia Leonardo’

'What "thing"?' she asked, refusing to ask him how he came to know her name.

'This grandfather and his criminal behaviour during the war’

'Criminal?' Paola repeated, interested now.

Quickly, Brunetti explained what Claudia had told him and what he had learned from her father.

When he was finished, Paola said, 'I'm not sure Claudia would like other people to know about this. She asked if she could talk to you, but I don't think she's the sort of person who'd like her family's business being made public’

'Talking to your father is hardly making what she told me public’ Brunetti said shortly.

'You know what I mean,' she returned in the same tone. ‘I assumed that she spoke to me in confidence’

‘I didn't make the same assumption,' Brunetti said and waited to see Paola's response. 'She came to see me in the

Questura, so she knows I'm a policeman. How else am I supposed to answer?'

'As I remember, the question was only a theoretical one.'

'I needed to know more about it to be able to answer her,' Brunetti explained for what seemed the hundredth time, conscious of how similar their conversation had become to the one he'd heard on entering the apartment, which conversation, he was happy to note, appeared to have concluded. 'Look,' he added in an effort at reconciliation, 'your father said he'd try to remember more about what happened.'

'But is there any chance of some sort of legal rehabilitation?' she asked. That's all she wants to know.'

'As I said to you before, I can't answer that until I know more.'

She studied him a long time, her right hand fiddling idly with one of the earpieces of her glasses, then said, 'It sounds like you already know enough to be able to give her an answer.'

'That it’s impossible?'

'Yes.'

'It probably is,' he said.

'Then why ask my father about it? Is it because you're curious?' When he didn't answer, she said, in a far softer voice, 'Has my knight in shining armour climbed yet again upon the broad back of his noble steed, prepared to ride off in pursuit of justice?'

'Oh, stop it, Paola,' he said with an embarrassed smile. 'You make me sound like such a fool.'

'No, my dear,' she said, picking up her glasses and putting them on again. ‘I make you sound like my husband and the man I love.' Hiding whatever expression accompanied these words, she looked at the papers and added, 'Now go into the kitchen and open the wine. I'll be out as soon as I finish correcting this paper.'

Wishing the children could see and then emulate the celerity with which he obeyed their mother's command, Brunetti went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of Chardonnay and set it on the counter, opened the drawer to search for the corkscrew, then changed his mind, replaced the bottle, and took out one of prosecco. The workman is worthy of his hire,' he muttered as he popped the cork. Taking glass and bottle, he retreated to the living room in hopes of finishing that day's Gazzettino.

Twenty minutes later, they sat down to lunch. The argument over the CD had apparently been settled, he hoped most fervently in Chiara's favour. She at least still remained browbeaten by her parents into using a Discman: Raffi had last year bought a small stereo system for his room and insisted upon using it to broadcast to the family, and to that part of the world within a fifty-metre radius of their home, a sort of music which made Brunetti think longingly of the symptoms of tinnitus he'd once read about: constant mechanical roaring or buzzing in the ear that blocked out all other sound.

In keeping with the change in season, Paola had made risotto di zucca and into it at the last minute had tossed grated slivers of ginger, its sharp bite softened to amiability by the chunk of butter and the grated parmigiano that had chased it into the pot. The mingled tastes drove all dread of Raffi's music from Brunetti's mind, and the chicken breast grilled with sage and white wine that followed replaced that music with what Brunetti thought must be the sound of angels' singing.

Brunetti set down his fork and turned to his wife. 'Bring me a Braeburn apple, a thin slice of Montasio and a glass of Calvados,' he began, 'and I will cover you in diamonds the size of walnuts, place pearls as white as truffles at your feet, pluck emeralds as large as kiwi fruit...'

Chiara cut him off before he could continue. 'Oh, Papa, all you ever think about is food’ Coming from someone as voracious as she, this was the basest sort of hypocrisy, but before Brunetti could reproach her, Paola put a large bowl of apples in front of him. 'Besides’ Chiara continued, 'how could anyone wear an emerald as big as a kiwi fruit?'

His plate disappeared, replaced by a clean fruit plate, a small knife and fork.

'Mamma would just use it as a paperweight, anyway’ Raffi said, reaching for an apple. He bit into it and asked if he could be excused to go and finish his calculus homework.

If I hear a single note of that noise before three this afternoon, I will come into your room and drive bamboo shoots into your eardrums, permanently deafening you’ his loving mother said, nodding to him that he could leave the table and letting Brunetti know who had won possession of the CD. Raffi grabbed two more apples and left, quickly followed by Chiara, who slipped away in his wake.

'You spoil him’ Brunetti said, cutting a not particularly thin slice of Montasio. ‘I think you should be firmer with him, perhaps begin by threatening to tear out his fingernails.'

'He's only two years younger than some of my students’ Paola said, picking up an apple and beginning to peel away the skin. 'If I began doing any of these things to him, I'm afraid of what I might be led to do to the students. I might be maddened by the smell of teenage blood.'

'It can't be that bad’ Brunetti said in an interrogative voice.

Once the apple was peeled, Paola quickly cut it into eight slices and removed the pieces of core. She jabbed her fork into the first and ate it before she said, ‘No, I suppose it's not as bad as what you do. But, believe me, there are days when I long to be locked in a cell: me, two strong policemen, one of the students, and a wide array of fearsome implements.'

'Why is it so bad all of a sudden?' Brunetti asked.

‘It’s not really all of a sudden. It's more that I've become aware of how bad it's become.'

'Give me an example’ he said.

Ten years ago, I could force them into accepting the fact, or at least giving lip service to the idea, that the culture that formed me, all those books and ideas that our generation grew up on - Plato, Virgil, Dante - that it was superior in some way to whatever fills their lives. Or, if not superior, then at least interesting enough to be worthy of study’ She ate three more pieces of apple and a thin slice of Montasio before she went on. 'But that doesn't happen any more. They think, or at least they seem to think, that their culture, with its noise and acquisitiveness and immediate forgettability is superior to all of our stupid ideas’

'Like?'

'Like our no doubt ridiculous idea that beauty conforms to some standard or ideal; like our risible belief that we have the option to behave honourably and should take it; and like our idiotic idea that the final purpose of human existence is something more than the acquisition of wealth.'

'No wonder you want the fearsome implements’ Brunetti said and opened the Calvados.

8

Back in his office that afternoon, faintly conscious that he had perhaps dined too well, Brunetti decided he might try to get more information about Guzzardi from Lele Bortoluzzi, another prime source of the sort of information that in more ordered societies would lead to accusations of slander. Ordinarily, he would have made the trip across the city to Lele's gallery, but today Brunetti felt himself weighed down by the Calvados, though he told himself it had been little more than a whisper, and so decided to phone, instead.

'Si’ Lele answered after the second ring.

'Ciao, Lele’ Brunetti said, not bothering to give his name. ‘I need to pick through your archive again, this time for someone called Luca Guzzardi, who .. ‘

'Quel figlio di mignotta’ Lele interrupted, his voice shot through with an anger Brunetti was unaccustomed to hearing from the painter.

'So you remember him’ Brunetti said with a laugh, trying to disguise his surprise.

'Of course I remember him’ Lele said. 'Bastard: he got exactly what he deserved. The only pity is that he died so soon: he should have been kept alive longer, living there like a larva’

'At San Servolo?' Brunetti asked, though there was little doubt what his friend meant.

'Where he deserved to be. Better than any prison they could have sent him to, the bastard. I'm sorry for the other devils who were kept there: none of them deserved to live like that, worse than animals. But Guzzardi deserved it all, and more’

Brunetti knew that whatever reason Lele had for this passionate disgust would soon be made clear. Prodding, Brunetti said, ‘I never heard you talk about him before. Strange, if you feel so strongly about him.'

Lele continued. 'He was a thief and a traitor, and so was his father. There was nothing they wouldn't do, no one he wouldn't betray.'

Brunetti noticed that Lele's condemnation was so much more forceful than the Count's, but then he recalled that his father-in-law had said he had not been in Venice during the war. Lele had been, for all of it, and two of his uncles had died, one fighting with the Germans and one fighting against them. Brunetti cut into the string of epithets that continued to pour from the phone and said, 'All right, all right, I understand your feelings. Now tell me why’

Lele had the grace to laugh. 'It must be strange, this anger after so long. I haven't heard his name in, oh, I don't know, twenty years, but all I needed was to hear it, and everything I knew about him came back.' He paused for a moment and then added, 'It's strange, isn't it, how some things just don't go away? You'd think time would have softened some of it. But not with Guzzardi’

'What hasn't been softened?' Brunetti asked.

'Well, obviously, how much we all hated him’

'All?'

'My father, my uncles, even my mother’

'Are you sure you have time to listen?' Lele asked.

'Why else call?' Brunetti asked in response, grateful that Lele hadn't bothered to ask why he was curious about Guzzardi.

By way of answer, Lele began by asking, 'You know my father was an antiquarian, a dealer?'

‘Yes’ Brunetti answered. He had a vague memory of Lele's father, an enormous man with a white moustache and beard who had died when Brunetti was still a young boy.

There were a lot of people who wanted to leave the country. Not that there were many places where they could go, not go and be safe, that is. But at any rate, after the war began; some of them approached my father, asking if he could sell things for them.'

'Antiques?'

'And paintings, and statues, and rare books, just about anything that had beauty and value.' 'What did he do?'

'He acted as agent,' Lele said, as though that explained everything.

'What does that mean, that he acted as agent?'

'Just that. He agreed to find buyers. He knew the market and he had a long list of clients. And in return he took ten per cent’

'Isn't that normal?' Brunetti asked, aware that he was missing whatever message Lele thought he was conveying.

There was no such thing as normal during the war’ Lele said, again as though that would explain everything.

Brunetti interrupted. 'Lele, there's too much going on here that I don't understand. Make things clear to me, please’

'All right. I always forget how little people know, or want to know, about what happened then. It was like this. When people were forced to sell things or were put into positions where they had no choice but to sell things, they had the option of trying to do it themselves, which is always a mistake, or they could turn to an agent. Though that was just as often a mistake.' 'Why?'

'Because some of the dealers had smelled the scent of money, great sums of money, and many of them, once they realized how panicked the sellers were, went mad with it.'

'Went mad how?'

'By raising their percentages. People were desperate to sell and get out of the country if they could. Towards the end, most of them finally realized that they would die if they stayed here. No’ he corrected .himself, 'not die: be killed. Be sent off to be murdered. But some of them still lacked the courage to cut and run and leave everything behind them: houses, paintings, clothing, apt, papers, family treasures. That's what they should have done, just left it all and tried to get to Switzerland or Portugal, even to North Africa, but too many of them weren't willing to take the loss. But then finally they had no choice’

'And so?' Brunetti prodded.

'So, in the end, they were forced to sell everything they had, turn it into gold or stones or into foreign currency, into something they thought they could carry out of the country with them’

'Couldn't they?'

This is going to take a long time to explain, Guido’ Lele said, almost apologetically. 'Good’

'All right. It worked, at least many times, it worked like this. They contacted the agents, many of whom were antiquarians, either here or in one of the big cities. Some of the big collectors even tried to deal with Germans, men like Haberstock in Berlin. The word had got around that Prince Farnese in Rome had managed to sell a lot of things through him. But, anyway, people contacted the agents, who came and had a look at what they had to sell, and then they offered to buy what they liked or thought they could sell’ Again, Lele stopped.

Puzzled about what in all of this could have turned Lele pyrotechnic, Brunetti prompted. 'And?'

'And they'd offer a fraction of what the objects were worth and say that's all they could expect to get for them’ Even before Brunetti could ask the obvious question, Lele explained. 'Everyone knew it wasn't worth the trouble to contact anyone else. They'd formed a cartel, and as soon as one of them gave prices, he'd tell all the others what the prices were, and none of them would offer more.'

'But what about men like your father? Couldn't people contact him?'

'By then my father was in prison.' Lele's voice was like ice. 'On what charge?'

'Who knows? What does it matter? He was reported to have made defeatist remarks. Of course he did. Everyone knew we had no chance of winning the war. But he made those remarks only at home, only with us. It was the other agents. They gave his name and the police came around and took him away, and it was made clear to him while he was being questioned that he should no longer work as an agent’

'For people who wanted to leave the country?'

'Among others. He was never told just whom he shouldn't deal with, but he didn't have to be, did he? My father got the message. By the third beating, he got the message. So when they let him go, and he came home, he no longer attempted to help those people.'

'Jews?' Brunetti asked.

'Primarily, yes. But also non-Jewish families. Your father-in-law's, for example’

'Are you serious, Lele?' Brunetti asked, unable to disguise his astonishment.

This is a subject about which I do not joke, Guido’ Lele said with unusual asperity. 'Your father-in-law's father had to leave the country, and he came to my father and asked if he would handle the sale of certain items for him.'

'And did he?'

'He took them. I think there were thirty-four paintings and a large collection of Minutius first editions.'

'He wasn't afraid of the warning he'd just had?'

'He didn't sell them. He gave the Count a certain sum of money and told him he'd keep the paintings and books for him until he came back to Venice.'

'What happened?'

The family, including your father-in-law, went overland to Portugal and then to England. They were among the lucky ones.'

'And the things your father had?'

'He put them in a safe place, and when the Count and his family came back after the war, he returned all of them.'

'Where did he keep them?' Brunetti asked, not because it made any difference but because the historian in him needed to know.

'I had an aunt who was a Dominican abbess, in the convent over by the Miracoli. She put all of them under her bed.' Brunetti was too amazed to say anything, but Lele explained, anyway. 'Actually, there was a large space beneath the floor of the abbess's bedroom, and she placed her bed directly over the entrance to it. I never thought it polite to ask what an abbess would want to hide there, so I don't know what its original purpose was.'

'We can but hope,' Brunetti observed, recalling childhood tales of the misbehaviour between priests and nuns.

'Indeed. At any rate, it all stayed there until the war was over and the Faliers came home, when my father gave everything back. The Count gave him the money. He also gave him a small Carpaccio, the one that’ s now in our bedroom.'

After considering all of this, Brunetti said, I've never heard about this, not in all the time I've know him’

'Orazio doesn't talk about what happened during the war’

Surprised that Lele should speak so familiarly of a man Brunetti had never addressed, not in more than two decades, by his first name, he asked, 'But how do you know about it? From your father?'

'Yes, at least part of it. Orazio told me the rest.'

'I didn't know you knew him that well, Lele’

'We fought together with the Partisans for two years.'

'But he said he was only a boy when they left Venice.'

That was in 1939. Three years later, he was a young man. A very dangerous young man. He was one of the best. Or worst, I suppose, if you were a German.'

'Where were you?' Brunetti asked.

Up near Asiago, in the mountains,' Lele said, paused, and then added, 'Anything else you want to know about this, I think you better ask your father-in-law’

Taking that as the command it so clearly was, Brunetti went back to the subject at hand. Tell me more about your father, before he was arrested’

'Before that, he'd taken only his ten per cent, and he'd done his best to try to get as much as he could for the things his clients had to sell. And, for whatever it's worth, he never bought anything from them. No matter how good the price they offered him, and no matter how much he wanted to own the object, he refused to buy anything for himself’

'And Guzzardi?' Brunetti asked, bringing the story back where he wanted it to be.

'They were a perfect team. The father was the money man and the son was the artist’ Lele's voice dribbled acid on the word. They got into the antiques business almost by accident. They must have smelled how much money they could make at it. People like that always do. At the beginning, they hired someone to work as an appraiser for them, and because both of them were senior Party members, they had no trouble in getting themselves into the cartel. And before you knew it, people here, and in Padova and Treviso, who wanted to sell things and needed to do it fast, well, they ended up dealing with the Guzzardis. And they sold. The Guzzardis sucked up everything. Like sharks.'

'Did they have anything to do with your father's arrest?'

Lele said, cautious as always, given his belief that all phone conversations were monitored by some agency of the state, 'If s always wise business procedure to eliminate the competition.'

'Did they buy only for themselves or also for clients?'

'When they started out - because neither of them had any taste at all - they bought for clients, people who might have heard that a certain collection was for sale and who didn't want to get their hands dirty by being seen to buy things openly. This happened more and more, the closer it got to the end of the war. People wanted the art works, but they didn't want it to be seen that they'd bought them.'

'And the Guzzardis?' Brunetti asked.

Toward the end, they are said to have bought only for themselves. By then Luca had developed a fairly good eye. Even my father admitted that. He wasn't stupid, Luca, not at all.'

'What sort of things?'

'The father bought paintings; Luca was interested in drawings and etchings.'

'Is that what Luca was good at?'

'Not particularly, no, I don't think so. But they're very portable, and because there's always more than one etching and because very often painters made a few sketches or drawings before a painting, it's harder to trace them than if they were unique. And they're very easy to hide.'

1 had no idea any of this went on,' Brunetti said when it seemed that Lele had finished speaking.

'Few people do. And even fewer want to know anything about it. That's what we did, right after Liberation: we all decided that we'd forget what had happened during the last decade, especially in the years since the beginning of the war. Besides, we finished on the winning side, so it was even easier to forget. That’s what we've had since then, the politics of amnesia. If s what we wanted and it's what we've got.'

Brunetti had seldom heard it better named. 'Anything else?' he asked.

‘I could fill a history book with what went on during those years. Then, as soon as the war ended, things went back to business as usual, just like in Germany. Well, no, it took a little longer there because they had to go through all that de-Nazification stuff, not that it served for much. But these pigs, these agents, had their snouts back in the trough almost as soon as the war was over’

‘You make it sound like you know them.'

'Of course I do. A few of them are still alive. One of them even has a portfolio of Old Master drawings in a bank vault, has had it there since he acquired it in 1944.'

'Legally?'

Lele gave a snort of contempt. 'If someone is in fear of his life and sells something, signs a bill of sale - and the Guzzardis were always careful to get them - then the sale's still legal. But if someone were to steal those drawings from the bank vault and give them back to the original owner, I'm sure that would be illegal.' Lele allowed a long pause to draw out from that remark before he said abruptly, ‘I’ll call you if I think of anything,' and then his voice was gone.

9

Brunetti had the entire afternoon to muse upon what Lele had told him. He'd read little of the history of the last war, but certainly other centuries provided sufficient examples of plundering and profiteering to illustrate all that Lele had said. The sack of Rome, the sack of Constantinople: hadn't both of them been followed by vast transfers of wealth and art and by the collateral destruction of even more? Rome had been left in ruins, and Byzantium smouldered for weeks as the victors devoted themselves to looting. Indeed, the bronze horses that pranced above the entrance of the Basilica had been part of the loot the Venetians brought home. Certainly the defeat of those cities must have been preceded by hysteria on the part of those desperate to escape. In the end, no matter how beautiful or precious, what object had any value in comparison to life? Some years ago he had read an account by a French crusader who had been present at the siege and sack of Constantinople: he'd written that 'so much booty had never been gained in any city since the creation of the world'. But what did that count in the face of the loss of so many lives?

Shortly after seven he pulled himself free from these reflections, moved some paper idly from one side of his desk to the other so as to give the appearance that he had done something that afternoon other than try to make sense of human history, and went home.

He found Paola, predictably, in her study, where he joined her, flopping down on the battered sofa she refused to part with. 'You never told me about your father,' he said by way of introduction.

'Never told you what about my father?' she asked. Judging by both his tone and his manner that this would be a long conversation, she abandoned the notes she was preparing.

'About the war. And what he did.'

‘You make it sound as if you'd discovered he's a war criminal’ she observed.

'Hardly’ Brunetti conceded. 'But someone told me today that he fought with the Partisans up near Asiago.'

She smiled. 'So now you know as much as I know.'

'Really?'

'Absolutely. I know that he fought and that he was very young when he was there, but he has never chosen to talk to me about it, and I've never had the courage to ask my mother about it.'

'Courage?'

'From her tone and the way she reacted whenever I brought the subject up, as I did when I was younger, I realized that it was not something she wanted to talk about and that I shouldn't ask him, either. So I didn't, and then I suppose I got out of the habit of being curious about it or wanting to know exactly what he did.' Before Brunetti could respond to this, she added, ‘Just like you with your father. All you've ever told me is that he came back from Africa, went off on the Russian campaign and was gone for years, and when he came back everyone who knew him said he wasn't the same person who had marched away. But you've never told me more than that. And your mother, when she talked about it, never said anything more than that he had been gone for five years’

Brunetti's childhood had been scarred by the results of those five years, for his father had been a man much given to fits of violence that came upon him for no apparent reason. A chance word, a gesture, a book lying on the kitchen table: any of these could set him off into a rage from which only Brunetti's mother could free him. As if possessed of the power of the saints themselves, she could do this merely by placing a hand upon his arm: even the lightest touch sufficed to pull him back from whatever hell he had slipped into.

When not in the grip of these sudden, spectacular moods, he was a quiet man, much given to silence and solitude. Repeatedly wounded in the war, he had been granted a military pension, on which the family tried to live. Brunetti had never understood him and, in a certain sense, had never know him, for his wife always insisted that the real man was the one who marched off to war and not the one who came home. She, by the grace of God or love, or both, loved both of them.

Only once had Brunetti seen evidence of the man his father must have been, the day he came home to announce that he was the only student in his class to have been accepted into the Liceo Classico. When he told his parents, doing his best to hide his bursting pride and fearful how his father would take this news, the older man pushed himself up from the table, where he was helping his wife shell peas, and came to stand beside his son. Placing his hand on Brunetti's cheek, he said, ‘You make me a man again, Guido. Thank you.' The memory of his father's smile was enough to call down the stars, and for the first time since his childhood Brunetti had felt himself melt with love for this gentle, decent man.

'Are you listening to me, Guido?' Paola asked, calling him back to her room and her presence.

'Yes, yes. I was just thinking about something.'

'So,' she went on as though there had been no interruption, 'I know as little about what my father did as you know about yours. They fought and they came back, and neither of them wanted to talk about what happened while they were away.'

'Do you think it was so awful, what they had to do?'

'Or what was done to them,' Paola answered.

There was a difference, though,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Your father came back to fight voluntarily. Or he must have. Lele said,the family got safely to England, so he must have chosen to come back.'

'And your father?'

'My mother always told me he never wanted to join the Army. But he had no choice. They rounded them up, and after they'd trained them to march together without falling over one another, they sent them off to campaign in Africa and Greece and Albania and Russia, sent them off with shoes made out of cardboard because some friend of some friend of someone in the government made a fortune on the contract.'

'He really never talked about it?' Paola asked.

'Not to me, and not to Sergio, no,' Brunetti said.

'Do you think he might have talked to his friends?'

'I don't think he had any friends,' Brunetti said, admitting to what he had always thought of as the great tragedy of his father's life.

'Most men don't, do they?' she asked, but there was only sadness in her tone.

'What do you mean? Of course we have friends.' In the face of her visible sympathy, Brunetti could not keep the indignation from his voice.

‘I think most men don't, Guido, but you know that’ s what I think because I've said it so many times. You have what the Americans call "pals", men you can talk to about sports or politics or cars.' She considered what she had said. 'Well, since you live in Venice and work for the police, I guess you can substitute guns and boats for cars. Things, always things. But in the end it's the same: you never talk about what you feel or fear, not the way women do’

'Are we talking about lack of friends or the fact that we don't talk about the same things women do? I'm not sure they're the same’

This was an old battle, and Paola apparently was in no mood to fight it again that evening, not with Brunetti in so fragile a mood and not with a long class to prepare for the following morning. 'There aren't going to be too many evenings like this one left, do you think?' she asked, holding the remark out as a flag of truce. 'Shall we get a glass of wine and go out and sit on the terrace?'

The sun's already set’ he said, not willing to give in so easily and still stung by the implication that he had no friends.

'We can watch the glow, then. And I'd like to sit beside you and hold your hand.' 'Goose’ he said, moved.

Claudia did not appear in class the following day, a fact which Paola noted but to which she paid little attention. Students were by definition unreliable, though she had to admit that Claudia had seemed not to be. The reason for her absence was made clear to her in a phone call from Brunetti, which reached her at her office at the university later that same afternoon.

‘I have bad news for you’ he began, filling her with instant terror for the safety of her family. Sensing that, Brunetti said, voice as calm as he could make it, 'No, it's not the children’ He gave her a moment to register that and then went on, 'It's Claudia Leonardo. She's dead’

Paola had a flash of memory of Claudia's turning back from the door of the classroom and saying that Lily Bart's death had broken her heart. Please let someone's heart be broken by Claudia's death, she had time to think, before Brunetti went on: There was a burglary in her apartment, and she was killed.'

'When?'

'Last night.'

'How?'

'She was stabbed.' 'What happened?'

'What I was told was that her flatmate came back this morning and found her. Claudia was on the floor: it looks as if she came in and found whoever it was and he panicked.'

'With a knife in his hand?' Paola asked.

‘I don't know. I'm just telling you what it sounds like for now.'

'Where are you?'

There. I just got here. I've got Vianello's telefonino.' 'Why did you call?'

'Because you knew her and I didn't want you to hear about it some other way.'

Paola let a long silence stretch out between them. 'Was it quick?'

1 hope so,' was the only answer he could give. 'Her family?'

'I don't know. I told you I just got here. We haven't even looked at the place yet.' There was a noise in the background, a voice, two voices, and then Brunetti said, 'I've got to go. Don't expect me before tonight.' And then he was gone.

Gone perhaps from the sound of his wife's voice but not from the presence of death, an apartment in Dorsoduro, not far from the Pensione Seguso but back two streets from the Canale della Giudecca.

He handed the telefonino back to Vianello, who put it in the pocket of his jacket. Not for the first time, Brunetti found himself surprised by the sight of Vianello in civilian clothes, the result of his too-long-delayed promotion to Ispettore. Though the wrapping had changed, the contents were the same: reliable, honest, clever Vianello had responded to Brunetti's call, which had caught him at home, just about to spend his day off on a shopping expedition to the mainland with his wife. Brunetti was grateful for Vianello's instinctive willingness to join him: the solid, confident bulk of the man would help him with what was to come.

Vianello had overheard Brunetti's conversation and made no attempt to pretend that he had not. 'Your wife knew her, sir?'

'She was one of her students,' Brunetti explained.

If Vianello thought it strange that Brunetti knew this, he kept it to himself and suggested, 'Shall we go up, sir?'

A uniformed officer stood at the door to the street, another at the top of the second flight of steps, directly before the open door of the apartment. The rest of the building, in which there were three other apartments, might as well have been empty, so profound was the silence that radiated from all the closed doors. Yet Claudia's flatmate was in one of those apartments, he knew, for their landlady had said so when she phoned.

Brunetti did not hesitate at the door but went directly into the apartment. The first thing he saw was her hand, fingers clutched in a death grip among the pieces of fringe at the end of a dark red carpet. A Turkoman, its centre field was filled with hexagonal white ghuls on a deep red field. The design was neat and geometrical, the stylized flowers arranged in rows, white bars creating a border at top and bottom. The pattern was interrupted at one end, where her blood had flowed into the carpet, staining the white with a red just a bit lighter than the red of the carpet. Brunetti saw that one of the flowers had been blotted out; blotted out with her life.

He moved his eyes to the left and saw the back of her head and her neck, white and defenceless. She was turned away, so he walked around to the other side of the room, careful where he set his feet, until he could look down and see her face. It too was white and seemed strangely relaxed. No expression could be read on it, just as no expression could be read on the face of a person who was sleeping. Brunetti wished there were some way he could make this make a difference.

Standing still, he looked around the apartment for signs of violence, but he saw none. A plate holding a few slices of apple, darkened and dry now, stood in the centre of a low table to one side of a print-covered easy chair. On one arm, a book lay face down. Brunetti moved over to the chair and glanced down at the title: The Faustian Bargain. It meant nothing to him, as meaningless as the apparent calm with which she had met her death.

This was no robbery’ Vianello said.

'No, it wasn't, was it?' Brunetti agreed. Then what?'

'Lovers' quarrel?' Vianello offered, though it was obvious he didn't believe this. There had been no quarrel here.

Brunetti went over to the door and asked the young officer there, 'Did the flatmate say anything about the door? Was it open or closed?' He noticed that the young man had nicked his chin shaving, though he seemed barely old enough to need to shave.

‘I don't know, sir. When I got here, one of the neighbours had already taken her downstairs.'

Brunetti nodded in acknowledgement, then asked. The knife? Or whatever it was?'

‘I didn't see anything, sir,' he said apologetically, then added, 'Maybe it's under her.'

‘Yes, that could be’ Brunetti said and turned back toward Vianello. 'Let’s take a look at the other rooms.'

Vianello stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers; Brunetti did the same. Both had forgotten to bring along disposable gloves but knew they could get them when the medical examiner showed up.

The bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom gave up no information other than that one of the girls was much neater than the other and that the neat one was a reader: Brunetti was in little doubt as to which would turn out to be which.

Back in the living room, Vianello asked, The flatmate?'

Again Brunetti went to the door. Pausing only long enough to tell the officer to come down and get him as soon as the medical examiner arrived, Brunetti led the way downstairs.

Obviously they were anticipated, for an elderly woman stood at the open door to one of the apartments below. 'She's in here, sir’ she said, stepping back and leaving room for Brunetti, and then Vianello, to enter.

Seeing that they were in a small foyer, Brunetti asked softly, 'How is she?'

'Very bad, sir. I've called for my doctor, and he'll come as soon as he can.' She was a short woman, somewhat given to stoutness, with light blue eyes and skin that looked as though it would be as cool and dry as a baby's to the touch.

'Have they lived here long?' Brunetti asked.

'Claudia came three years ago. The apartment's mine, and I rent it to students because I like to have the sound of them around me. Only to girls, though. They keep their music lower, and they stop in sometimes for a cup of tea in the afternoon. Boys don't’ she said in final explanation.

Brunetti had a son at university, so he knew all there was to know about the volume at which students liked to keep their music as well as the unlikelihood that they would stop in for a cup of tea in the afternoon.

Brunetti knew he would have to talk to this woman at length, but he wanted to speak to the girl first, to see if there was anything that would help them begin to look for the killer. 'What's her name, Signora?' he asked.

'Lucia Mazzotti’ she said. 'She's from Milano’ she added, as if this would help Brunetti in some way.

'Will you take me to her?' he asked, making a small signal with his hand for Vianello to stay behind. Even though

Vianello no longer wore his uniform, his size might be enough to make the girl nervous.

The old woman turned and, favouring her right leg, led Brunetti back through a small sitting room, past the open door of the kitchen and the closed door of what must be the bathroom, to the one remaining door. ‘I made her lie down’ the woman said. ‘I don't think she's asleep. She wasn't just a few minutes ago, when I heard you on the stairs’

She tapped lightly on the door and, in response to a sound from inside, pushed the door open. 'Lucia,' she said softly, 'there's a man to see you, a policeman.'

She made to step aside, but Brunetti took her arm and said, ‘I think it would be better if you stayed with us, Signora.'

Confused, the old woman froze, glancing from Bruhetti into the room. I think it would be easier for her,' Brunetti whispered.

Persuaded, but still not fully agreeing, the woman stepped into the room and stood to one side of the door, allowing Brunetti to enter.

A young woman with bright red hair lay on top of the covers, leaning back on a plump pillow. Her hands extended on either side of her, palms upwards, and she stared at the ceiling.

Brunetti approached the bed, pulled a chair towards him, and sat, making himself smaller. 'Lucia,' he said, 'I'm Commissario Brunetti. I've been sent to find out what happened. I know that you found Claudia, and I know it must have been terrible for you, but I need to talk to you now because you might be able to help us.'

The girl turned her head and looked at him. Her fine-boned face was curiously slack. 'Help you how?' she asked.

'By telling us what happened when you came home, what you saw, what you remember.' Before she could say anything, he went on, 'And then I'll need for you to tell me anything you can about Claudia that you think might be in some way related to what’s happened’

‘You mean to her?'

Brunetti nodded.

The girl rolled her head away from him and returned her gaze to the yellow lampshade that hung suspended from the ceiling.

Brunetti allowed at least a full minute to pass, but the girl continued to stare at the lamp. He turned back to the old woman and raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

She came to stand beside him, putting a firm hand on his shoulder and pushing him back into the chair when he attempted to stand. 'Lucia,' she said, ‘I think it would be a good thing if you'd speak to the policeman.'

Lucia turned towards the old woman, then towards Brunetti. 'Is she dead?'

'Yes’

'Did someone kill her?' 'Yes,'he said.

The girl considered this for some time and then said, 'I got home at about nine. I spent the night in Treviso and came home to change and get my books. I have a class this morning.' She blinked a few times and looked out the window. Is it still morning?' she asked.

‘It’s about eleven’ the old woman said. 'Would you like me to get you something to drink, Lucia?'

‘I think I'd like some water’ the girl said.

The woman gripped Brunetti's shoulder again and left the room, again favouring her right leg.

When she was gone, the girl went on, ‘I got back and went upstairs and opened the door to the apartment and went in, and I saw her on the floor. At first I thought she'd fallen or something, but then I saw the rug. I stood there and I didn't know what to do. I think I screamed. I must have because Signora Gallante came up and brought me down here. That's all I remember’

"Was the door locked?' Brunetti asked. The door to your apartment?'

She considered this for a moment, and Brunetti could sense her reluctance in having to keep returning to the memory of that scene. Finally she said, 'No, I don't think it was. That is, I don't remember using my key’ There was a long silence, and then she added, 'But I could be wrong’

'Did you see anyone outside?'

When?'

'When you got home.'

'No,' she said with a quick shake of her head. There wasn't anyone’

'Even people you know, neighbours,' Brunetti asked and then, at her quick, suspicious glance, he explained, They might have seen someone.'

Again she shook her head. 'No, no one.'

These questions, Brunetti knew, were probably less than useless. He'd seen the colour of the blood on the carpet and knew it meant Claudia had been dead for a considerable time. The medical examiner would be able to tell him more accurately, but Brunetti would not be surprised to learn that she had lain there all night. He needed to establish in this girl's mind the importance of answering his questions so that, when he got to the ones that might lead to whoever had done this, she would answer without thinking of the consequences, perhaps for someone she knew.

Signora Gallante came back into the room, saying, The doctor's here, sir’

Brunetti got to his feet and said something he tried to make comforting to the girl, then left the room. Signora Gallante went in with a glass of water in her hand. Behind her came a man who looked far too young to be a doctor, the only proof that he was, the black leather bag, obviously new, that he carried in his right hand.

After a few minutes, Signora Gallante came out of the bedroom and approached Brunetti and Vianello. The doctor suggested she stay here with me until her parents can get here from Milano and take her home’

'Have you called them?'

'Yes. As soon as I called you.'

'Are they coming?'

'I spoke to her mother. She's been here a few times to visit Lucia, so she knew who I was. She said she'd call her husband at work, and then she called back and told me they were leaving immediately to come here.'

'How?'

'I didn't ask’ Signora Gallante said, surprised at such a question. 'But the other times they came by car, so I suppose that's how they'll come this time.'

'How long ago did you speak to them?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, half an hour, perhaps an hour ago. It was right after I went up and found Lucia and brought her down here. I called the police first, and then I called her parents.'

Though this would limit the time Brunetti would have to speak to Lucia and complicate all future contact with her, he said, That was very kind of you, Signora’

‘I tried to think of what Td want to happen if it were one of my granddaughters, and then it was easy’

Brunetti couldn't stop himself from glancing towards the door of the bedroom. 'What did the doctor say?'

'When I told him that her parents were coming, he said he wouldn't give her a sedative, but he asked me to give her some linden tea with lots of honey. To work against the shock,' she added.

‘Yes, that's a good idea,' Brunetti said, hearing footsteps outside the apartment and eager to speak to the medical examiner. ‘Perhaps the Ispettore can stay here with you while you do that,' he said, with a significant glance at Vianello, who needed no urging to see to questioning Signora Gallante about Claudia or about anyone who might have visited her in her apartment.

With a polite goodbye, Brunetti left the apartment and went back upstairs. Dottor Rizzardi was already kneeling beside the dead girl, plastic-gloved fingers wrapped around her out-thrust wrist. He glanced up when he heard Brunetti come in and said, 'Not that there's any hope, but it's what the regulations require.' He looked down at the dead girl, removed his hand, and said, 'She's dead.' He allowed silence to expand from those terrible words, then got to his feet. A photographer, who had come in with the doctor, stepped close to the body and shot a few pictures, then moved in a slow circle around her, taking photos from every angle. He moved away and took one last shot from the doorway, then slipped his camera inside its case and went outside to wait for the doctor.

Knowing Rizzardi better than to suggest anything or to point to the colour of the dried blood, Brunetti asked, 'When would you say?'

‘Probably some time last night, but it could have been almost any time. I won't know until I have a look at her.' Rizzardi meant 'inside her'. Both of the men knew that, but neither of them could or would say it.

Looking at her again, the doctor asked, 'Presumably, you want to know what did it?'

‘Yes,' Brunetti said, moving automatically to stand beside the doctor. Rizzardi handed him a pair of transparent gloves and waited while Brunetti slipped them on.

Working together, the two men knelt and slid their hands under her body. Slowly, with the sort of gentleness with which large men usually handle babies, they raised her shoulder and then her hip and turned her over on to her back.

No knife, no instrument or implement, lay beneath her body, but the sticky holes in the front of her cotton blouse made the cause of death shockingly visible. There were, Brunetti thought at first, four of them, but then he noticed another higher up, near her shoulder. The wounds were all on the left side of her body.

Rizzardi opened the two top buttons of her shirt and pulled it aside. He glanced at the wounds, actually pulled one of them open, reminding Brunetti of some perverse poem Paola had once read to him about the wounds in Christ's body looking like lips. 'Some of these look bad enough,' Rizzardi said. 'Once I've done the autopsy, I'll be able to tell you for sure, but there's little doubt.' He closed the blouse and carefully rebuttoned it. He nodded to Brunetti and they got to their feet.

‘I know it’s only stupid superstition, but I'm glad her eyes are closed,' Rizzardi said. Then, with no preparation, 'I'd say you're looking for a person who isn't very tall, not much taller than she was.'

'Why?'

The angle. It looks as if they went in more or less horizontally. If it had been a taller person, they would have gone downward at an angle, depending on how tall the killer was. I can make a rough calculation after I measure them, but that's my first guess.' Thanks.'

It's precious little, I'm afraid.'

Rizzardi moved towards the door, and Brunetti followed in his wake. There won't be much more to tell you, but I'll call your office when I'm finished.'

'Do you have the number of Vianello's telefonino?’

'Yes,' Rizzardi answered. 'Why don't you have your own?'

’I do. But I keep leaving it at work or at home.'

'Why doesn't Vianello just give you his?'

'He's afraid I'll lose it.'

"My, my, hasn't the sergeant come up in the world since he became an ispettore?' Rizzardi asked, but affection glistened through the apparent sarcasm.

'It took long enough,' Brunetti said with the residual anger he felt at the years it had taken Vianello to be given what he had so long deserved.

'Scarpa?' Rizzardo asked, naming Vice-Questore Patta's personal assistant and showing just how intimate he was with the real workings of the Questura.

'Of course. He managed to block it for years, ever since he got here.'

'What changed things?'

Brunetti gazed away evasively and began to say, 'Oh, I've no...' but Rizzardi cut him short. 'What did you do?'

‘I threatened Patta that I'd ask for a transfer to Treviso or Vicenza.' 'And?'

'He caved in.'

'Did you think that would happen?' 'No, quite the opposite. I thought he'd be happy to have the chance to get rid of me.'

'And if Patta had refused to promote him, would you have gone?'

Brunetti raised his eyebrows and pulled up the corner of his mouth in another evasion. 'Would you?'

'Yes,' Brunetti said and walked towards the door. 'Call me when you're done, all right?'

Back downstairs, Brunetti found Vianello in the kitchen, sitting opposite Signora Gallante, a white porcelain teapot and a jar of honey between them. Each had a cup of yellow tea. Signora Gallante started to get to her feet when she saw Brunetti, but Vianello leaned across the table and put a hand on her arm. 'Stay there, Signora. I'll get the Commissario a cup.'

He got up and with the sort of ease that usually comes with long familiarity, opened a cabinet and pulled down a cup and saucer. He sat them in front of the now-seated Brunetti and turned back to open a drawer and get him a spoon. Silently, he poured out a cup of linden tea and took his place again across from the Signora.

Vianello said, 'The Signora's just been telling me a bit about Signorina Leonardo, sir.' Signora Gallante nodded. 'She said she was a good girl, very considerate and thoughtful.'

'Oh, yes, sir,' the old woman interrupted. 'She used to come down here for tea once in a while, and she always asked me about my grandchildren, even asked to see pictures of them. They never made any noise, she and Lucia: study, study, study; it seems that's all they ever did.'

'Didn't friends ever visit them?' Vianello asked when Brunetti made no move to do so.

'No. Once in a while I'd see a young person on the steps, a boy or a girl, but they never caused any trouble. You know how students like to study together. My sons always did that when they were in school, but they made a lot more noise, I'm afraid.' She started to smile, but then remembering just what had brought these two men to her table, her smile faded and she picked up her teacup.

‘You said you met Lucia's mother, Signora’ Brunetti began. 'Did you ever meet Signor and Signora Leonardo?'

'No, that's impossible. They're both gone, you know.' When she saw Brunetti's confusion, she tried to explain. That is, her father's dead. She told me he died when she was just a little girl’

When Signora Gallante said nothing else, Brunetti asked, 'And the mother?'

'Oh, I don't know. Claudia never spoke about her, but I always had the sense that she was gone.'

'Do you mean dead, Signora?'

'No, no, not exactly. Oh, I don't know what I mean. It's just that Claudia never said she was dead; she just made it sound like she was gone, as if she was somewhere else and was never coming back.' She thought for a moment, as if trying to recall conversations with the girl. 'It was all very strange, now that I think about it. She usually used the past tense when she spoke about her mother, but once she spoke of her as though she were still alive’

'Do you remember what she said?' Vianello asked.

'No, no, I can't. I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but I just can't. It was something about liking something, a colour or a food or something like that. Not a specific thing like a book or a movie or an actor, just something general; now that I think about it, it might have been a colour, and she said something like, "My mother likes..." and then she said the name of the colour, whatever it was, perhaps blue. I really don't remember, but I know I thought at the time how strange it was that she spoke of her as though she were still alive.'

'Did you ask her about it?'

'Oh, no. Claudia wasn't the sort of girl you could ask. If she wanted you to know something, she'd tell you. Otherwise, she spoke of other things or just ignored the question.'

'Did that offend you?' Vianello asked.

'Perhaps at first, but then I realized what she was like and that there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, I liked her so much it didn't matter, didn't matter at all.' Signora Gallante picked up her cup and held it to her mouth, lowering her face as if to drink from it, but then the tears got the better of her and she had to put the cup down and reach for a handkerchief. 'I don't think I want to talk about this any more, gentlemen.'

'Of course, Signora,' Brunetti said, finishing his tea, which had grown cold while they talked. ‘I’ll just see if the doctor's finished and have a word with Lucia if that's possible.'

Signora Gallante clearly disapproved of this, but she said nothing and busied herself with wiping away her tears.

Brunetti went to the door of the bedroom and knocked, then knocked again. After a time, the door was opened by the doctor, who put his head out and asked, 'Yes?'

’I’d like to speak to Signorina Mazzotti, Dottore, if that's possible.'

‘I’ll ask her,' the doctor said and closed the door in Brunetti's face. After a few minutes he pulled the door open and his head appeared again. 'She doesn't want to talk to anyone.'

'Dottore, would you explain to her that what we want to do is find the person who killed her friend. I know Signorina Mazzotti's parents are on their way from Milano to take her home, and as soon as that happens it will be very difficult to speak to her.' Brunetti didn't mention the fact that he had the legal right to forbid her to leave the city. Instead, he added, 'We'd be very grateful if she'd agree to talk to us now. It would help us a great deal.'

The doctor nodded his understanding and, Brunetti thought, his sympathy and closed the door again.

When, at least five minutes later, the doctor opened the door again, Lucia Mazzotti stood behind him. She was taller and thinner than he'd thought and now, seeing her full face.

he saw just how pretty she was. The doctor held the door for her and she stepped out into the corridor. Brunetti led her into the sitting room and waited while she took a seat on a straight-backed chair. 'Would you like the doctor to stay here while we talk, Signorina?' he asked.

She nodded, then said yes in a very soft voice.

The doctor sat on the edge of a sofa. He set his bag on the floor at his feet and leaned back, silent and still.

Brunetti took another straight-backed chair and placed it about a metre from Lucia's chair, careful to arrange it so that she remained in shadow and his face in the light that came in from the window behind her. He wanted to create as much of an atmosphere of openness as he could between them to relax her into speaking easily. He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way. She had the green eyes so common to redheads, red-rimmed now from crying.

‘I want to tell you how very sorry I am about this, Signorina,' he began. 'Signora Gallante has been telling us what a sweet girl Claudia was. I'm sure it’s very painful for you to lose such a good friend’

Lucia bowed her head and nodded.

'Could you tell me a little bit about your friendship? How long have you shared the apartment?'

The girl's voice was soft, almost inaudible, but Brunetti, by leaning forward, managed to hear. 'I moved in about a year ago. Claudia and I were enrolled in the same faculty, so we took some classes together, and so when her other flatmate decided to leave school, she asked me if I wanted to take over her room’

‘How long had Claudia been here?'

'I don't know. A year or two before I came.'

'From Milano, is that correct?'

The girl was still looking at the floor, but she nodded in assent.

‘Do you know where Claudia came from?'

‘I think from here’

At first Brunetti wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. 'Venice?' he asked.

'Yes, sir. But she was in school in Rome before she came here.'

'But she was renting her own apartment, not living with her parents?'

'I don't think she had any parents,' Lucia said but then, as if aware of how strange that must sound, she looked directly at Brunetti for the first time and added, 'I mean, I think they're dead.'

'Both of them?'

'Her father, yes. I know that because she told me.' 'And her mother?'

Lucia had to consider this. 'I'm not sure about her mother. I always assumed she was dead, too, but Claudia never said.'

'Did it ever strike you as strange that people as young as her parents probably were could both be dead?'

Lucia shook her head.

'Did Claudia have many friends?'

'Friends?'

'Classmates, people who came here to study or perhaps to have a meal or just talk.'

'Some kids from our faculty would come over to study sometimes, but there was no one special.'

'Did she have a boyfriend?'

'You mean a fidanzato?’ Lucia asked in a tone that made it clear she had not.

'That, or just a boyfriend she went out with occasionally.'

Again, a negative motion of her head.

'Is there anyone at all you can think of that she was close to?'

Lucia gave this some thought before she answered, The only person I ever heard her talk about, or talk to on the phone, was a woman she called her grandmother, but who wasn't.'

Is this the woman called Hedi?' Brunetti asked, wondering what Lucia's response would be to learning that the police already knew about this woman.

Obviously, Lucia found it not at all strange that the police should know, for she answered, 'Yes, I think she was German, or Austrian. That's what they spoke when they talked on the phone.'

'Do you speak German, Lucia?' he asked, using her name for the first time and hoping that his familiarity would sooth her into answering more easily.

'No, sir. I never knew what they were talking about.'

'Were you curious?'

She seemed surprised at the question: whatever could be interesting in conversation between her flatmate and an old foreign woman?

'Did you ever see this woman?'

'No. Claudia went to see her, though. Sometimes she'd bring home cookies or a kind of cake with almonds in it. I never asked about it, just assumed she'd brought it from her.'

'Why did you think that, Lucia?'

'Oh, I don't know. Maybe because no one I know bakes things like that. With cinnamon and nuts.' Brunetti nodded.

'Can you remember anything Claudia might ever have said about her?'

'What sort of thing?'

'About how it was that she was her, well, her adoptive grandmother? Or where she lived?' ‘I think she must live in the city.' Why, Lucia?'

'Because the times she brought back the things to eat, she was never gone for a long time. I mean, not time to get to somewhere else and come back.' She considered this for a while and then said, 'It couldn't even have been the Lido. I mean, it could have been, because you can get to the Lido and back in a short time, but I remember Claudia once said - I forget what we were talking about - that she hadn't been to the Lido for years.'

Brunetti started to ask another question, but suddenly Lucia turned to the doctor and asked, 'Doctor, do I have to answer any more questions?'

Without consulting Brunetti for an answer, the young man said, 'Not unless you want to, Signorina.'

'I don't want to,' she said. That's all I want to say.' She looked at the doctor when she spoke, ignoring Brunetti entirely.

Resigning himself to the fact that any further questioning would have to be done in Milano or by phone, Brunetti got to his feet and said, ‘I’m very grateful for your help.' Then turning to the doctor, ‘For yours, too, Dottore.'

To both of them together, he said, 'Signora Gallante has made tea, and I'm sure she'd be very happy to give you some.' He walked towards the door of the apartment, turned back briefly as if about to say something, but changed his mind and left.

11

Vianello joined him on the stairway. 'Shall we go back to the apartment, sir?' he asked.

By way of an answer, Brunetti started back upstairs. The uniformed officer was still at the door when they arrived and said, when they reached the top of the steps, They've taken her away, sir.'

'You can go back to the Questura, then,' Brunetti told him and went inside. The rug was still there in the centre of the room, the discoloured fringe lying smooth now, as though someone had combed it. Brunetti took the gloves from the pocket of his jacket and slipped them on again. The grey puffs of powder that covered the surfaces of the furniture offered silent evidence that the technical squad had been through the apartment and had dusted for prints.

No matter how many times Brunetti had gone through the artefacts that no longer belonged to the dead, he could never free himself of the uneasiness with which it filled him. He poked and prodded, fingered, plucked and pried into the material secrets left behind by those taken off by sudden death, and no matter how much he willed himself to remain dispassionate about what he did, he never managed to avoid the rush of excitement that came with the discovery of what he sought: is this what a voyeur feels? he wondered.

Vianello disappeared in the direction of the bedrooms, and Brunetti remained in the living room, conscious of how reluctantly he turned his back on the place where she had lain. Just where it should have been, he found a small book of telephone numbers placed neatly on top of the city phone book and to the left of the telephone. He opened it and began to read. It was not until he got to the Js that he found what might be what he was looking for: 'Jacobs'. He paged through the rest of the book but, aside from listings for 'plumber^’ and 'computers', Jacobs' was the only listing that was not a surname ending in a vowel. Further, the number began with 52 and had no out-of-city prefix written in front of it, as had some of the other numbers. He toyed for a moment with the idea of calling the number, but if Claudia had been dear to this woman, then the telephone was not the way to do it.

Instead, he flipped open the phone book and found the few listings under that letter. There it was, 'Jacobs, H.', with an address in Santa Croce. After that, his instinct that he had already found what was most important prevented him from taking much interest in the rest of his search of the apartment. Vianello, emerging from his search of Lucia's room, said only, 'Signorina Lucia seems to divide her time between histories of the Byzantine Empire and Harmony Romances.'

Brunetti, who had told Vianello about Claudia's visit to his office and her strange request for information, said, 1 think I've found the missing grandmother.'

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket for his telefonino, the Inspector asked, 'Would you like to call her first and tell her you're coming?'

Brunetti waved away the offer and resisted the temptation to point out to Vianello that they were standing just beside a telephone and that his phone was unnecessary. 'No. She'd worry if I told her it was the police, and then I'd have to tell her, anyway. Better to go and talk to her directly.'

'Would you like me to come with you?' Vianello asked.

'No, that's all right. Go and have lunch. Besides, it might be better for her if there's only one of us. Before you go, see what you can find out from other people in the building what they know about the girls and if they saw or heard anything last night. Tomorrow we can begin asking questions at the university: my wife might be able to tell me something about the girl, who her friends were, her other professors. When you get back to the Questura, ask Signorina Elettra what she can find out about Claudia Leonardo or this woman, Hedi - I suppose that’ s Hedwig - Jacobs. She might as well see if there's anything about Luca Guzzardi.'

'She'll be glad of the work, I think,' Vianello said in a tone that failed to be neutral.

'Good. Then tell her I want anything at all she can find, even if it goes back to the war.'

Vianello started to say something else, perhaps about Signorina Elettra, but he stopped and instead said only, 'I'll tell her.'

Brunetti knew that the address in Santa Croce had to be somewhere near San Giacomo dell'Orio, so he walked to the Accademia and took the Number One to San Stae. From there, instinct took over and he soon entered Campo San Boldo. In the campo he saw that the numbers were close to the one he was looking for, so he stopped in a tabacchaio and asked for directions. When the man said he wasn't sure, Brunetti explained he was looking for an old Austrian woman. The shopkeeper smiled and answered, 'Keeps me in business, Signora Hedi, and keeps me hopping, taking them up to her. Smokes like a Turk. You've walked past her place. Go out, turn right, and hers is the third door'

He did as he was told and saw, beside the second door on the left, the name Jacobs. As he raised his hand to ring the bell, Brunetti felt a wave of momentary exhaustion sweep over him. He had done this too many times, brought so much terrible news, and he felt an overwhelming reluctance to do it again. How easy it would be if victims never had relatives, were always people who were solitary and unloved and whose death would not radiate out, swamping the small boats around them, washing up more victims on the shoals of life.

Knowing that he was helpless to dismiss this feeling, he waited for it to pass and a few minutes later he rang the bell. After some time, a deep voice, but still a woman's voice, called over the entry phone, 'Who is it?'

'I've come to talk to you, Signora Jacobs,' was the best he could think of.

'I don't talk to people’ she answered and replaced the phone.

Brunetti rang the bell again, keeping his finger on it until he heard her demand, 'Who are you?' The tone was peremptory, without uncertainty or fear.

‘I’m Commissario Guido Brunetti, Signora, from the police. I've come to talk to you.'

There followed a long pause. Finally, she asked, 'About what?'

'Claudia Leonardo.'

The noise he heard, or thought he heard, could simply have been static; it could just as easily have been her breathing. The door snapped open and he went in. The floor of the entrance hall was green with mould, lit only by a dim bulb in a filthy glass case. He started up the stairs, the green of the mould growing lighter as he rose. At the first landing there was another bulb, no brighter, which dimly illuminated the octagonal marble medallions that patterned the floor. A single door, a thick metal porta blindata, stood open to his left and just inside it was a tall, painfully stooped woman, her white hair arranged in an elaborate crown of braids of the sort he was familiar with from photos from the Thirties and Forties. She leaned forward, her hands wrapped around the ivory handle of a walking stick. Her eyes were grey with just the faintest touch of the cloudiness of age, but no less filled with suspicion for that.

‘I’m afraid I have very bad news for you, Signora Jacobs’ he said, halting outside the door. He watched her face for some response, but she gave none.

‘You better come inside to give it to me so I can be sitting down when I hear it,' she said. The longer sentence exposed the Teutonic underpinnings of her speech. ‘It’s my heart, and I'm not at all steady on my feet any more. I need to sit.'

She turned back into the apartment. Brunetti closed the door and followed her. His first breath proved to him that the tobacco dealer was right: if he could have walked into an ashtray, the smell would have been no stronger. He wondered when a window had last been opened in this apartment, so pervasive was the sour smell.

She led him down a wide corridor, and at first Brunetti kept his eyes on her retreating back, concerned that even the thought of bad news might cause her to falter or fall. But she seemed to proceed steadily, if slowly, so he began to pay attention to his surroundings. Looking around him, he stopped dead, assaulted by the beauty he saw spread around him as if by a profligate hand.

The walls on either side of the corridor were crowded with rows of paintings and drawings, lined up shoulder to shoulder like people waiting for a bus. Like those random waiters, the paintings in no way resembled one another: he saw what had to be a small Degas of the familiar seated dancer; what looked like a pear but only a pear as Cezanne could paint a pear; a thick-lidded Madonna of the Sienese school; and what was surely one of Goya's drawings of a firing squad.

As he stood, petrified as Lot's wife, a voice said from somewhere to his left, 'Are you going to come and tell me what it is you have to say, Commissario?'

He turned away from the pictures, eyes skimming over what might have been a tiny Memling, a set of Otto Dix drawings, and an unidentifiable and particularly unerotic nude, and followed the voice into the living room. Again his senses were assaulted: the smell was heavier, thicker, so strong that he could feel it beginning to sink into the cloth of his jacket; and the objects on display had lost even the negligible order imposed upon those along the walls of the corridor. One entire wall was covered with Persian or Indian miniatures in gold frames: there must have been thirty of them. The wall to his left held three tiles that even his eye could distinguish as Iznik as well as a large collection of other Middle Eastern ceramic plates and tiles, but the same wall also held a life-sized wooden crucifix. To his right he saw pen and ink drawings, but before he could begin to examine them closely, his attention was drawn to the old woman as she sank heavily into a velvet-covered armchair.

The chair stood in the centre of a carpet that appeared to be an Esfahani: only fine silk would give the luminous sheen in the small portion at the far end that he could see. All trace of silk, in fact all trace of anything at all, was obscured by a wide arc of ground-in ash that spread in a half-circle beneath and in front of her chair. Automatically, with a gesture that seemed as instinctive and rhythmic as breathing, she took a blue packet of Nazionali from the top of the table beside her and lit one with a cheap plastic lighter.

After she had inhaled deeply, she said, 'Will you tell me now what it is you've come to tell me?'

'It's Claudia Leonardo,' he said. 'She's been killed.'

The hand with the cigarette fell, as if forgotten, beside her. She closed her eyes and, had her spine permitted it, her head would have fallen against the back of the high chair. Instead, the gesture merely raised her head until she was looking directly across at him. When he noticed that the angle seemed difficult for her, he moved a chair opposite her and sat down so that she could lower her head and still see him clearly.

'Oh, God. I thought it couldn't happen,' she said under her breath, perhaps not even conscious that she had spoken out loud. She stared a moment longer at Brunetti, then raised a hand with an effort and covered her eyes.

Brunetti was about to ask her what she meant when he noticed smoke rising from beside her. Immediately, he stood and moved towards her. She seemed not the least interested in the sudden, possibly menacing, action. Brunetti picked up the cigarette and stabbed with his foot at the smouldering patch of silk.

Signora Jacobs seemed entirely unaware that he was there, or of what he was doing. 'Are you all right, Signora?' he said, placing one hand on her shoulder. She gave no sign that she heard him. 'Signora’ he repeated, increasing the pressure of his hand.

The hand she held across her eyes slapped down on to her lap, but her eyes remained closed. He moved away from her a little, willing her to open them. When she did, she said, 'In the kitchen. Pills on the table.'

He ran towards the back of the apartment and down another corridor, this one lined with books. He saw a sink through a door on the left, tossed her cigarette into it and grabbed the single bottle of pills that stood on the table. He paused to fill a glass with water and went back to her. He handed her the bottle and waited while she opened it and tipped out two white pills the size of aspirin. She put them into her mouth and held up a hand to reject the proffered glass of water. She closed her eyes again and sat, utterly quiet. When he saw her relax and some hint of colour begin to seep into her face, he was unable to resist the temptation to look again at the walls.

He was used to manifestations of great wealth, though his perhaps stubborn insistence that the family live on their salaries alone kept the opulence of the Falier family at bay. Nevertheless a few paintings - personal possessions of Paola's, like the Canaletto in the kitchen - had managed to slip into the house, in the manner of homeless cats on rainy nights. He was familiar with his father-in-law's collection, as well as those of some of the Count's friends, to make no mention of what he had observed in the homes of wealthy suspects he had questioned. Nothing he had previously seen, however, could have prepared him for this grandiose promiscuity: paintings, ceramics, carvings, prints jostled one another as if competing for pride of place. Order did not exist, but beauty overwhelmed him.

He glanced at Signora Jacobs and saw that she was looking at him as she groped for her cigarettes. He moved around the chair and sat down again while she lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply, almost defiantly. 'What happened?'

'Her flatmate came home this morning and found her in the apartment. She was dead, probably killed some time yesterday evening.'

'How?'

'Stabbed'

’Who did it?'

'It might have been a thief or a burglar.' Even as he spoke, he realized how unconvincing this sounded.

'Things like that don't happen here,' she said. Without bothering to look to see if there were an ashtray beside her, she flicked the ash from her cigarette on to the carpet at her feet.

'No, they usually don't, Signora. But so far we've found nothing that might suggest another explanation.'

'What have you found?' she demanded, surprising him by the speed with which she had recovered her composure.

'Her address book.'

Intelligence flared in her pale eyes. 'And I just happened to be the first person you came to see?'

'No, Signora. I came to see you because, in a sense, I already knew about you.'

'Knew what about me?' she asked, unsuccessfully attempting to disguise the alarm anyone in Italy would feel at the idea that the police knew something about them.

That Claudia thought of you as her grandmother and that you wanted her to find out about obtaining an official reversal of the conviction of someone who had died on San Servolo.' He saw no reason to hide this from her: sooner or later he would have to question her about this and he might as well begin now, while the shock of what she had just learned might lower her resistance to answering questions of any sort.

She dropped the cigarette on to the carpet and stamped it out, then immediately lit another. Her gestures were slow and careful: she must be, he estimated, well into her eighties. She took three hungry puffs at the cigarette, as though she had not just finished the other. Without asking, Brunetti got up and went to a table behind her and returned with the lid of a jar, which seemed to serve as an ashtray. He set it beside her.

Not bothering to thank him, she said, 'Are you the person she talked to?' 'Yes.'

'I told her to go to a lawyer. I offered to pay for it.'

'She did. He told her it would cost her five million lire.'

She sniffed at the sum, condemning it to eternal insignificance. 'So she came to you?'

'In a way, Signora. First she went to my wife, who is one of her professors at the university, and asked her to ask me. But Claudia was apparently not satisfied with the answer I asked my wife to give her, so she came to the Questura to ask me directly.'

'Yes, she'd do that’ the woman said with a smile that barely touched her lips but warmed her voice. 'What did you tell her when you spoke to her?'

'Essentially what I'd told my wife: that I couldn't give an answer until I had a clearer idea of the crime involved.'

'Did she tell you who it was for?' the woman asked, this time failing to keep the suspicion from her voice.

'No,' Brunetti said. It was a lie, but taking unfair advantage of a sick old woman in shock at the death of someone she loved was just part of the job, after all.

The woman turned her eyes away from him and looked at the wall to her right, the one covered with ceramics. It seemed to Brunetti that she did not see them and was unaware of any of the objects in the room. When she hadn't spoken for a long time, he was no longer sure that she was aware of his presence.

Finally she turned back to him. 'I think that's all,' she said.

'I beg your pardon?' Brunetti asked politely, genuinely not understanding what she meant.

'That's all. That’s all I want to know, and that's all I want to say to you.'

‘I wish it were that simple, Signora’ he said with real sympathy. 'But I'm afraid you have little choice. This is a murder investigation, and you have the duty to answer questions put to you by the police.'

She laughed. It was a noise devoid of all possibility of amusement or pleasure, but it seemed the only response she could find to a statement which was, to her, so obviously absurd.

'Signor Commissario’ she said, ‘I am eighty-three years old, and as my need for those pills ought to have shown you, I am in poor health.' Before he could respond, she went on, 'Even more fortunate, at least in the face of my refusal to speak to you further, is the fact that there does not exist the doctor who would not certify that any questions you might ask me in this matter would put my life at risk.'

'You make it sound as if you don't believe it’ he observed.

'Oh, I do believe it. I was raised in a school far harder than you Italians have any concept of, and I therefore have never been a crybaby, but, believe me, if you could feel how my heart is pounding now, you would know that this is true. Your questions would put my life at risk. I mention the doctor only to make clear to you the lengths to which I will go in order not to continue to speak to you.'

'Is it the questions that would put your life in danger, Signora, or the answers?'

Suddenly aware that her cigarette had gone out, she tossed it to the floor and reached for the packet. 'You can see yourself out, Commissario’ she said, her voice rich with the command that lingers after a youth spent in a house where there are many servants.

12

Brunetti's work had exposed him to the many forms in which despair manifested itself, and so he wasted no more time in what he knew would be a vain attempt to persuade Signora Jacobs to tell him more about the murdered girl.

He left her apartment and decided to walk back to the Questura, using the time to wonder how_’ even if, the old woman and her link to the Guzzardis might be connected to Claudia's death. Why should criminal actions committed decades before the girl's birth be connected to what might have been a simple robbery gone wrong? Simple thieves, the voice of experience and habitual scepticism whispered in his ear, do not carry knives, and simple thieves do not murder the people who discover them at their work; push them aside, perhaps, in attempting to flee, but not stab them until they are dead.

He found himself looking across at the campanile of San Giorgio, studying the angel who perched atop it, restored now after having been blasted to flame by lightning some years ago. Realizing that he must have walked past the Questura without noticing where he was, he turned and went back towards San Lorenzo. The officer at the door saluted him normally and gave no sign that he had seen his superior walk by a few minutes ago.

Brunetti paused outside Signorina Elettra's office and peered inside, relieved to see an abundance of flowers on the windowsill. A step further confirmed his hope that more of them stood on her desk: yellow roses, at least two dozen of them. How he had prayed in the last months that she be returned to her shameless depredation of the city's finances by claiming these exploding bouquets as ordinary office expenses. Every bud, every blossom was rich with the odour of the misappropriation of public funds; Brunetti breathed in deeply and sighed in relief.

She sat, as he had hoped, behind her desk, and he was happy to see she was wearing a green cashmere sweater; he was even happier to see that she was reading a magazine. 'What is it today, Signorina?' he asked, 'Famiglia Cristiana?’

She looked up but she did not smile. 'No, sir, I always give that to my aunt.'

'Is she religious?' Brunetti inquired.

'No, sir. She has a parakeet.' She shut the magazine, preventing him from seeing what it was. He hoped it was Vogue.

'Has Vianello told you?' he asked. 'Poor girl. How old was she?' 'I'm not sure, no more than twenty.' Neither commented on the awful waste. 'He said she was one of your wife's students.' Brunetti nodded. 'I've just been to see an old woman who knew her.'

'Do you have any idea of what happened?' 'It could have been a robbery.' When he saw her reaction, he added, 'Or it could have been something else entirely.' 'Such as?'

'Boyfriend. Drugs’

'Vianello said you had spoken to her’ Signorina Elettra said. 'Does either of those seem possible?'

'My first impulse is to say no, but I don't understand the world any more. Anything is possible. Of anyone’

'Do you really believe that, sir?' she asked, and her tone suggested that her question held greater significance than his remark, which he had made without thinking.

'No’ he said after some thought. 'I suppose I don't believe it. In the end, there are some people it makes sense to trust’

‘Why?'

He had no idea where this line of questioning had come from nor where it might lead them, but he sensed the seriousness with which she was pursuing it. 'Because there are some people, still, who can be trusted absolutely. We have to believe that's so.'

Why?'

'Because if we don't find at least someone we can trust absolutely, then, well, we're made less by not having them. And by not having the experience of trusting them.' He wasn't exactly sure what he meant by this, or perhaps he was just doing a bad job of explaining what it was he did mean, but he knew he felt that he would be a lesser man if there were no one into whose hands he would put himself.

Before he could say or she could ask anything else, the phone rang. She answered it, 'Yes, sir.' She glanced at Brunetti, and this time she did smile. 'Yes, he's just come in, sir. I'll send him in.'

Brunetti wasn't sure if he were relieved or disappointed to have their conversation cut off like this, but he didn't think he could linger to continue it, not once Vice-Questore Patta had been alerted to his arrival.

'If I'm not out in fifteen minutes,' he said, 'call the police’

She nodded and opened the magazine.

Patta sat at his desk, seeming neither pleased nor displeased and looking, as he always did, so suited to a position of responsibility and authority that his promotion could have been the result of natural law. Seeing him, Brunetti realized how used he was to searching for signs of what was to come in Patta's expression, like an augur examining the kidneys of a freshly slaughtered chicken. 'Yes, sir,' he said, taking the seat towards which Patta waved him.

'What’s all this about a dead girl, Brunetti?' Patta asked, short of a demand but somewhere past a question.

'She was stabbed to death some time last night, sir. I'll know more about the time after Dottor Rizzardi gives me his report.'

'Did she have a boyfriend?' Patta asked.

'Not that either her landlady or her flatmate knew of’ Brunetti replied calmly.

'Have you excluded the possibility of robbery?' Patta asked, surprising Brunetti by the suggestion that he did not want to attribute her death to the most obvious cause.

'No, sir.'

What have you done?' Patta asked, not forgetting to come down heavily on the second word.

Deciding that intentions and deeds were interchangeable, at least while he was speaking to his superior, Brunetti said: I've got men questioning the neighbours, asking if they saw anything last night; Signorina Elettra is checking phone records for the girls' apartment; I've already interviewed the girl she shared the apartment with, but she was still too shocked to be of much help; and we've begun asking her friends at the university what they know about her.' Brunetti hoped he'd succeed in getting all of these things in train that afternoon.

'Is that inspector of yours working on this with you?' Patta asked.

Brunetti bit back a remark about the possible ownership of

Lieutenant Scarpa and contented himself with a simple, 'Yes, sir’

'Right, then, I want you to get this taken care of as quickly as possible. The Gazzettino is sure to splash it all over the front page; I just hope the nationals don't pick it up. God knows, enough girls get themselves stabbed to death in other places and no one pays attention. But it's still something of a sensation here, so I suppose we have to prepare ourselves for some bad publicity, at least until people forget about it’ Sighing as if in resignation to yet another of the cares of office, Patta pulled some folders toward him and said, That will be all, Commissario.' Brunetti stood but found himself unable to leave. He stood so long that Patta finally looked up at him and said, ‘Yes, what is it?'

'If s nothing sir. All this bad publicity is a shame, though.'

'Yes, it is, isn't it?' Patta agreed and turned his attention to the first folder. Brunetti devoted his to getting out of Patta's office without opening his mouth.

He recalled, then, something he had seen with Paola, it must have been four years ago. They'd been at an exhibition of the paintings of the Colombian painter, Botero, she drawn to the wild exuberance of his portraits of fat, pie-faced men and women, all possessed of the same tiny rosebud mouth. In front of them was a teacher with a class of children who couldn't have been more than eight or nine. As he and Paola came into the last room of the exhibition, they heard the teacher say, ‘Now, ragazzi, we're going to leave, but there are a lot of people here who don't want to be disturbed by our noise or talking. So what we're all going to do,' she went on, pointing to her own mouth, which she pursed up into a tight, tiny circle, 'is make la bocca di Botero.' Delighted, the children all placed single fingers on their lips and drew their mouths into tight imitations of those in the paintings as they tiptoed giggling from the room. Since then, whenever either he or Paola knew that to speak might be indiscreet, they invoked 'la bocca di Botero', and no doubt thus saved themselves a great deal of trouble, to make no mention of time and wasted energy.

Signorina Elettra had apparently finished the magazine, for he found her leafing through the papers in a file. 'Signorina’ he began, 'I've a number of things I'd like you to do.'

'Yes, sir?' she said, closing the file and making no attempt to cover either the CONFIDENTIAL sticker that ran in bold red letters down the left side of the front cover nor Lieutenant Scarpa's name, which appeared across the top.

'A little light reading?' he inquired.

'Very’ she said with audible disdain, pushing the file to the side of her desk. 'What is it you'd like me to do, sir?'

'Ask your friend at Telecom to see if he can get you a list of calls to and from their phone, and see if either she or Lucia Mazzotti - the flatmate - has a telefonino. And see what you can find out about Claudia: if she has a credit card or a bank account. Any financial information would help.'

'Did you search her apartment?' she interrupted to ask.

'Not well, not then. But a team will take care of it this afternoon.'

'Good, then I'll have them bring me any papers they find.' 'Yes. Good,' he said. 'Anything else?' she asked.

'No, not that I can think of now. We don't know much yet. If you find anything interesting in the papers, follow it up.' He read her expression and explained, 'Letters from a boyfriend. If people write letters any more, that is.' Even before she could ask, he said, 'Yes, tell them to bring you her computer, as well.'

'And you, sir?' she asked.

Instead of answering, he looked at his watch, suddenly aware of how hungry he was. 'I'm going to call my wife’ he said. He turned away, saying, Then I'll be in my office, waiting for Rizzardi.'

The doctor didn't call until well after five, by which time Brunetti was cranky from hunger and annoyed at sitting and waiting.

‘It’s me, Guido,' Rizzardi said.

Speaking without impatience, Brunetti asked only, 'And?'

Two of the stab wounds would have killed her: both of them nicked the heart. She would have died almost instantly.'

'And the killer? Do you still think it was someone short?'

'Well, not someone tall, certainly not as tall as you or I. Perhaps a bit taller than the girl herself. And right handed.'

'Does this mean it could have been a woman?' Brunetti asked.

'Of course, though women usually don't kill like this.' After a moment's reflection, the pathologist added, 'Women don't usually kill at all, do they?'

Brunetti grunted in agreement, wondering if Rizzardi's remark could be interpreted as a compliment to the sex, and, if so, what that said about human nature. The doctor's next remark called him back from these reflections. ‘I think she was a virgin.'

'What?' Brunetti asked.

'You heard me, Guido. A virgin.'

There was silence as they considered this, then Brunetti asked, 'Anything else?'

'She didn't smoke, appeared to be in excellent health.' He paused here and Brunetti had an instant to hope that Rizzardi wouldn't say it. But he did. 'She could have lived another sixty years.'

'Thanks, Ettore,' Brunetti said and replaced the receiver.

Irritable once again, Brunetti felt he could relieve his feelings only by activity, so he walked down to the crime lab, where he asked to see the things brought in from Claudia Leonardo's apartment.

'Signorina Elettra has her address book,' said Bocchese, the chief technician, placing a number of plastic bags on his desk.

As Brunetti picked the bags up by the corners, Bocchese said dismissively, ‘You can touch anything you want. I've dusted the lot, but there's only two sets of prints on everything, hers and her flatmate's.'

Brunetti opened a large envelope which itself contained a number of papers and smaller envelopes. There were the usual things: gas and electric bills, an invitation to a gallery opening, phone bills, credit card receipts. Toward the back of the small packet of papers he found a bank statement, and he read down through the column of deposits. On the first of each month, ten million lire was deposited in Claudia's account. He checked, and there was the same deposit every month since the beginning of the year. It took little skill in arithmetic to arrive at the annual total, a staggering amount to find in a student's account. Yet it wasn't in the account: her current balance was little more than three million lire, which meant that this young girl had, during the course of the last ten months, disposed of almost a hundred million lire.

He studied the statement: on the third of every month, money was transferred from Claudia's account to that of Loredana Gallante, the landlady. The utilities were paid by direct debit. And, each month, with no particular pattern in the date or amount, large transfers in varying amounts were made, though they were listed only as 'Foreign transfers'.

The monthly deposits were explained as 'Transfer from foreign source'. Nothing more. He extracted the bank statement from the stack of papers and asked Bocchese, 'Do I have to sign for this?'

‘I think you better, Commissario,' Bocchese replied, opening a drawer and pulling out a thick ledger. He flipped it open, wrote something, then turned the book towards Brunetti. 'Sign here, sir. With the date, as well, if you don't mind.' Neither of them commented on Bocchese's continuing, but unsuccessful, attempts to have a photocopy machine assigned to his office.

Brunetti did as he was told, folded the bank statement and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

The banks were already closed, and when he went back to her office he saw that Signorina Elettra had already left. Her magazine was lying closed and face down on her desk, but Brunetti could not bring himself to flip it over to read the cover. He did, however, move around her desk and bend over to read the title on the spine. Vogue. He smiled, glad to see this small piece of evidence that Signorina Elettra was once again devoting to Vice-Questore Patta precisely the amount of attention she judged him to deserve.

13

It wasn't until next morning that Brunetti could begin to satisfy his curiosity about the flow of money into and out of Claudia Leonardo's account. This was quickly handled by a phone call to the local office of the Banca di Perugia. For years, Brunetti had been intrigued to observe that, of all the people made nervous by a phone call from the police, bankers seemed to suffer the most. It led him to wonder what it was they got up to behind their broad desks or inside their thick-walled vaults. Before he could pursue this idea further, he was connected to the Director, who passed him along to one of the tellers, who asked for the account number. It took only a few minutes for her to explain that the transfers came in from a bank in Geneva and had been coming in on the first of every month since the account was opened three years ago, presumably when Claudia came to Venice to begin her studies.

Brunetti thanked her and asked that he be faxed copies of all statements for the last three years, which the teller said would arrive that same morning. Again, he hardly needed no

paper and pencil to calculate the sum: almost four hundred million lire, and now there remained less than three million in the account. How could a young girl spend over three hundred million lire in three years? He cast his memory back to the apartment, hunting for signs of great expenditure, but he recalled none. In fact, his guess would be that the flat was rented already furnished, for surely a woman of Signora Gallante's generation would have bought the huge mahogany wardrobes he'd seen in both bedrooms. Rizzardi would have noticed and commented upon any sign of drug use, but what other than drugs could absorb such huge sums of money?

He called down to Bocchese, who told him the names of the officers who had searched the apartment, but when he spoke to them they said that neither girl's clothing had seemed out of the ordinary in quality or quantity and thus could not explain the disappearance of so much money.

For a moment he was tempted to call Rizzardi and ask if he had checked the body for evidence of drug use but stopped himself by imagining what the doctor's response would be. If he'd said nothing, then there was nothing.

He called Paola at home. 'If s me,' he said unnecessarily.

'And what can I do for me?' she asked.

'How would you spend three hundred and sixty million lire in three years?' he asked.

'My own or stolen?' she asked, making it clear that she assumed this to be a work-related question.

'What difference does that make?'

’I’d spend stolen money differently.'

‘Why?'

'Because if s different; that's all. I mean, it's not as if I would have worked for it or struggled to earn it. It's like money you find on the street or win on the lottery. You spend it much more easily, or at least I think you would.'

'And how would you spend it?'

Is that a general you", as in "a person" or is it for me, personally?' 'Both’

Tor me, personally, I'd buy first editions of Henry James’ Ignoring this reference to the person Brunetti had, over the course of years, come to view as the other man in his wife's life, Brunetti asked, 'And if you were just a person in general?'

That would depend on the person, I guess. The most obvious is drugs, but the fact that you're calling me to ask for ideas suggest you've already excluded that possibility. Some people would buy expensive cars or designer clothes, or, oh, I don't know, vacations.'

'No, it was taken out month by month, seldom in one big lump’ he said, remembering the pattern of deposit and withdrawal in Claudia's account.

'Expensive restaurants? Girls?'

‘It was Claudia Leonardo,' he said soberly.

This stopped Paola for a moment, then she said, 'She'd probably give it away.'

'Do what?'

'Give it away,' Paola repeated. 'Why do you say that?'

There was a long pause. 'I really don't know. I've got to admit that: I've no idea why I said it. I suppose it’s my reaction to things she said in class or wrote in her papers, just a general feeling that she had a social conscience, the way so few of them seem to these days.'

Brunetti's reflections were cut off by Paola's question: 'Where did the money come from?'

'A Swiss bank’

‘I think it was Alice in Wonderland who was wont to say, "Curiouser and curiouser.'" After another pause, Paola asked, Is that how much - three hundred and sixty million in three years?'

'Yes. Any more ideas?'

'No. In a way, if s difficult to think of her in terms of money or a great deal of money. She was so, oh, I don't know, simple. No, that's the wrong word. She had a complex mind, at least from what I knew of her. But one would just never, somehow, associate her with money.'

Why?'

'She didn't seem interested in it, not at all. In fact I remember noticing, when she'd comment on why characters in novels did things, that she was always slightly puzzled that people could be led to do things by greed, almost as if she didn't understand it, or it didn't make any human sense to her. So, no, she wouldn't spend it on anything she wanted for herself.'

'But that’ s just books,' he said.

'I beg your pardon,' Paola said, not calmly.

'I mean, you said it was comments she'd make about characters in books. How can that show you what she'd behave like in real life?'

He heard her sigh, but her answer, when it came, showed no lack of patience or sympathy. When we tell people about what's happened to our family or our friends we can judge pretty accurately how decent they are by the way they respond, can't we?'

'Of course.'

'It's no different just because the people you're talking about are characters in a book, Guido. You should know that by now, that is if you've paid any attention to anything I've said during the last twenty years.'

He had, and she was right, but he didn't want to have to say so. 'Give it some thought, would you?' he asked. What she could have done with it?'

'All right. Will you be home for lunch?'

‘Yes. It should be at the regular time.'

'Good. Then I'll cook something special.'

'Many me’ he implored.

She hung up without answering.

He took the bank statement down to Signorina Elettra, who today wore a pair of jeans and a white shirt starched to pert attention. At her throat she wore a light blue scarf that could have been cashmere but could just as easily have been gossamer.

‘Pashmina?' he asked, gesturing towards the scarf.

Her look suggested disdain for his ignorance, but her voice was calm. If I might quote the latest French Vogue, sir, pashmina, is "mega-out"‘

'And so?' he asked, not at all cast down by her remark.

'Cashmere and silk,' she said, as one would speak of thorns and nettles.

'If s much what my wife says about literature: one is always safe with the classics.' He laid the bank statement on her desk. 'Ten million lire was transferred into Claudia Leonardo's'account every month from a bank in Geneva,' he said, sure that this would capture her attention.

'From which bank?'

'It doesn't say. Does that make a difference?'

She placed a finger on the bank statement and slid it closer. 'It does if I want to find out about it. If s much easier for me to do research at the private banks.'

'Research?' he inquired.

'Research,' she repeated.

'Could you find out about this?'

'The bank or the original source?' she asked.

'Both.'

She picked up the statement. ‘I could try. It might take some time. If it's a private bank, well, even if it's something hard to break into like Bank Hofmann, I should still be able to find something, Commissario.'

'Good. I'd like this to start to make some sort of sense.'

'It never will, though, will it?'

'No, I suppose not’ he agreed as he turned away.

Back in his office he decided to try his father-in-law again, to see if he'd had time to learn anything. But when he called, he was told that the Count had gone to Paris for the day, which left him no choice but to call Lele Bortoluzzi and see if there was anything further he could remember. There was no answer at his studio, so he tried the painter at home, where he found him.

After they exchanged pleasantries, Brunetti asked, 'Do you remember a woman called Hedi - Hedwig - Jacobs, who...?' Lele broke in, 'You still asking about Guzzardi, eh?' ‘Yes. And now about Frau Jacobs.'

‘I think that "Frau" is a courtesy title’ Lele said. 'There was never a Herr Jacobs in evidence.'

Did you know her?' Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, but not well. We talked occasionally if we met somewhere. The thing I remember most is that someone as decent as she could be so gone on a person like Guzzardi. Anything he said was marvellous and anything he did was beyond question.' The painter's voice grew reflective. 'I've seen lots of people lose their heads for love, but usually they maintain a little bit of sense. Not her, though. She would have gone down to hell for him if he'd asked her to.'

'But they never married?' Brunetti prodded.

Tie already had a wife, and a son, just a little kid then. He kept them both on a string, the wife and the Austrian. I'm sure they knew about each other, but, given what I know about Guzzardi, I'd guess they had no choice but to accept things the way they were.'

'Did you know them?'

'Who? The women, or the Guzzardis?'

'Any of them?'

‘I knew the wife better. She was a cousin of my godmother's son.' Brunetti wasn't at all sure just how close a link that would have constituted in Lele's family, but the ease and familiarity with which the painter identified the relationship suggested it was no indifferent bond.

'What was she like?' Brunetti asked.

'Why do you want to know all of this?' Lele asked, making no attempt to disguise the fact that Brunetti's curiosity had aroused his own.

'Guzzardi's name has come up in relation to something I'm working on.'

'Can you tell me what?'

'It doesn't matter,' Brunetti answered.

'All right,' Lele said, accepting this. The wife put up with it, as I said. After all, they were difficult times and he was a powerful man.'

'And when he wasn't powerful any more?'

'You mean after the war? When they arrested him?'

‘Yes.'

'She dropped him, as fast as she could. I think I remember being told that she took up with a British officer. I can't remember now. Anyway, she left the city with her son, and with the soldier.'

'And?'

'I never heard a thing about her again, and I would have, if she'd come back.' 'And the Austrian?'

'You have to understand that I was really little more than a kid myself then. What was I when the war ended? Eighteen? Nineteen? And a lot of time has passed, so much of what I remember is a mixture between what I really saw and heard and what, over the years, I've heard people say. The older I get, the harder it is to distinguish between the two.'

Brunetti wondered if he was going to be treated to a meditation on age, but then Lele continued, 'I think I saw her first at a gallery opening. But that was before she met him.'

'What was she doing in Venice?'

'I forget exactly, but I have a vague memory that it had something to do with her father. He worked here or had an office here. Something like that, I think.'

'Do you remember anything about her?'

'She was lovely. Of course, I was more than ten years younger than she was, so I might as well have lived on the moon as far as she was concerned, but I remember that she was beautiful.'

'And was she drawn to him by his power, too, like the wife?' Brunetti asked.

'No, that was the strange thing. She really loved him. In fact I always had the impression, or else the belief was there, in the air, as it were, that she had different ideas from his but put up with his because she loved him.'

'And when he was arrested? Do you remember anything about that?'

'No, not clearly. I think she tried to buy his way out, either as a return for favours or with money. At least there was a rumour that she did.'

'But if he went to San Servolo, then she wasn't very successful, was she?'