Wilful behaviour

23

Brunetti walked away with knees he was surprised to find unsteady. He didn't know if it was the effect of the woman's strange gesture, one that had, he realized, created in him the obligation to see that she received the money that would bring her family to her, or whether his response was to the importance of

the receipts she had given him.

From a bar he called Lele Bortoluzzi and arranged to meet him at his gallery in twenty minutes, which is what he estimated it would take him to get there if he took the 82 from Rialto. When he arrived, the artist was talking to a client, an American who insisted on looking at all of his paintings, asking about the technique, the kind of paint, the light, Lele's mood when he painted each picture and who, after almost a quarter of an hour, left the gallery without buying anything.

Lele came over to Brunetti, who stood in front of a seascape, and embraced him, then kissed him on both cheeks. The closest friend of Brunetti's late father, Lele had always displayed a paternal concern and affection for him, as if he could thus make up for Brunetti's father's inability to display whatever emotion he felt for his sons.

With a nod of his head towards the painting, Brunetti said, Thaf s beautiful.'

'Yes, it is, isn't it?' the artist replied without the least awkwardness. 'Especially that cloud on the left, there, just above the horizon’ He placed the tip of his right forefinger just above the canvas, then tapped the end of his nail on the cloud once, twice. 'It's the most beautiful cloud I've ever painted, really wonderful’

It was unusual for Lele to comment on his own work, so Brunetti took a closer look at.the cloud, but all he saw was still a cloud.

He put the manila envelope on the table, opened it and took out the wrapped drawing, careful to pull it out straight and not bend the cardboard. He laid it on the table and said. Take a look.'

The painter slipped the tissue-covered drawing out from inside the cardboard, pulled back the paper, saw what it protected, and an involuntary, 'Mamma mia' escaped his lips. He looked at Brunetti, but the beauty of the drawing drew his eyes back to it again. Still staring at it, moving his eyes to every corner, following every line of the dead Christ's body, he asked, 'Where did you get this?'

‘I can't say’

'Is it stolen?'

‘I don't think so,' Brunetti answered, then, after thinking for a while, he said more authoritatively, 'No, if s not.' 'What do you want me to do with it?' Lele asked. 'Sell it.'

'You're sure it's not stolen?' the painter asked. 'Lele, if s not stolen, but I need you to sell it’ ‘I won't,' the painter said but before Brunetti could protest or question him, he added, ‘I’ll buy it’

Lele picked it up and walked nearer to the light that filtered in through the door and windows. He held the drawing up closer to his eyes, then moved it away, then came back and set it down on the table. He brushed lightly across the bottom left hand corner of the drawing with the last finger of his right hand. The paper's right. It’s Venetian, sixteenth century.' He picked it up again and studied it for what seemed like minutes to Brunetti. Finally he set it down again and said, 'At a guess, I'd say it’s worth about two hundred million. But I have to check the prices on the last few auctions, and I know Pietro sold one about three years ago, so I can ask him what he got for it.'

'Palma?' Brunetti asked, naming a famous art dealer in the city.

'Yes. He'll lie, the bastard. He always does, but I can figure out what he really got from what he tells me. But it’s going to be somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred.' Very casually, too casually, Lele asked, 'Is it yours?'

'No, but I've been given it to sell.' This was, in a certain sense, true; no one had asked him to sell it, but it was certainly his to sell. Immediately he began to worry about the money, how to see that Salima got it, where to put it until she could find a way to use it. 'Can it be cash?' he asked.

‘It’ s always cash in things like this, Guido. It leaves no footprints in the snow.'

Brunetti couldn't remember how many times he'd heard the painter say just this, and it was only now that he appreciated how true it was, and how very convenient. But then he wondered what he'd do with this much money. To put it in the bank could cause trouble: the Finanza would be interested in finding out how a senior police official suddenly came by so much cash. They had no safe in the house, and he could hardly imagine himself putting it in his sock drawer.

How do you want me to pay you, and when?' the painter asked.

'I'll let you know. Ifs not for me, but this person doesn't have any way to keep it’ Brunetti quickly ran through various possibilities, and at the end said, 'Why don't you keep it until I have some idea of how to get it to her.'

Lele obviously had no interest in who the owner might be, not now that he considered himself the real owner of the drawing. 'Do you want some now?' he asked, and Brunetti realized the painter was eager to have some formal acknowledgement that he had bought the drawing.

Ifs yours, Lele,' Brunetti said. ‘I’ll talk to you next week about what to do about the money’

'Fine, fine,' Lele muttered, eyes drawn down again by the dead Christ.

While he had the painter there, Brunetti decided to take advantage of his knowledge. He took out the other envelope and removed the various bills of sale. Choosing one at random, he handed it to Lele and asked, 'Tell me about this.'

Lele took it, read it quickly, then went back and read through the declaration of sale and, even more slowly, the list of paintings and drawings it named. 'Caspita’ he said, placing it flat on the table and taking more. He read two or three, laying each one flat on the table in front of him after he'd read it. When he placed the fourth one down, he said, 'So that's where they went.'

'You recognize things?'

'Some of them, yes. At least I think I do from the descriptions. Things like Tznik carnation tile" are too general, and I don't know much about Turkish ceramics, anyway, but something described as, "Guardi View of the Arsenale" I do recognize, especially when I see that it came from the Orvieto family’

Pointing down at the opened sheets of paper, Lele asked, 'Are these the things in the old woman's apartment?'

‘Yes’ Brunetti wasn't completely sure, but there seemed no other explanation.

'I hope it's guarded’ Lele said, causing Brunetti immediately to recall the thickness of the door that guarded Signora Jacobs's apartment and then Salima and the keys he had not thought of asking her to return to him.

'I ordered an inventory,' Brunetti said.

'And lead us not into temptation.'

'I know, I know, but now that we have these,' Brunetti said, holding up the bills of sale, 'we know what's in there.' 'Or was’ Lele added drily.

Though it was, he realized, a poor defence of the police, Brunetti explained, 'The two who were sent to do it, Riverre and Alvise, are idiots. They wouldn't know the difference between a Manet and the cover of Genie! After a pause he added, Though they'd probably prefer the second.'

The aesthetic sensibilities of law enforcement professionals not being of vital interest to the painter, he asked, 'What will happen to it all?'

Brunetti shrugged, a gesture that conveyed his uncertainty and his unwillingness to speculate with someone not involved with the investigation, even a friend as close as Lele. 'For the time being it will stay there, in her apartment.'

'Until what?' Lele asked.

The best Brunetti could think of to answer was, Until whatever happens.'

At lunch that day, an unusually silent Brunetti listened as family talk swirled around him: Raffi said he needed a telefonino, which prompted Chiara to say that she needed one as well. When Paola demanded what either of them needed it for, both said it was to keep in touch with their friends or to use in case they were in danger.

When she heard this, Paola cupped her hands at the corners of her mouth, creating a megaphone, and called across the table to her daughter, 'Earth to Chiara. Earth to Chiara. Can you hear me? Come in, Chiara. Can you read me?'

‘Whaf s that mean, Mamma?' Chiara demanded, making no attempt to disguise her annoyance.

It's to remind you that you live in Venice, which is probably the safest place in the world to live’ As Chiara started to object, Paola ran right over her: 'Which means that it is unlikely that you are going to be in danger here, aside from acqua alta, that is, and a telefonino isn't going to be much help against that.' And again, as Chiara opened her mouth, Paola concluded, 'Which means no.'

Raffi attempted to render himself as invisible as it was possible to be while eating a second piece of pear cake buried in whipped cream. He kept his eyes on his plate and moved slowly, like a gazelle attempting to drink from a pool it knew to be infested with crocodiles.

Paola did not strike, but she did float to the surface and peer at him with reptilian eyes. 'If you want to buy yourself one, Raffi, go ahead. But you pay for it.' He nodded.

Silence fell. Brunetti had been somewhere else during all of this or at least he had not been paying much attention to the scuffle, though Paola's disapproval of what she considered their children's profligacy had caught his attention. With no preparation, he asked out loud, addressing them all equally, 'Aren't you ashamed that you pay all of your attention to acquiring as much money as you can, without giving any thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?'

Surprised, Paola asked, 'Where'd all that come from?'

'Plato’ Brunetti said and began to eat his cake.

The rest of the meal passed in silence, Chiara and Raffi exchanging inquisitive looks and shrugs, Paola trying to figure out the reason for Brunetti's remark or, more accurately, to understand which particular circumstances or actions had led him to recall the quotation, which she thought she recognized from the Apology.

After lunch he disappeared into the bedroom, where he took off his shoes and lay down on the bed, staring out the window at the clouds which, he realized, were not to be blamed for looking so happy. After a time, Paola came in and sat beside him on the edge of the bed.

'You talked about retiring a while ago. Is this a relapse?'

He turned his head towards her and reached out with his left hand to take hers. 'No. I suppose it was nothing more than a sudden attack of moral tiredness.'

‘Understandable, given your job,' she agreed.

'Maybe it's because we have so much, or I'm becoming allergic to wealth, but I just can't understand how people can do some of the things they do in order to get money.'

'Like kill, do you mean?'

'No, not only that. Even lesser things, like lie and steal and spend their lives doing things they don't like doing. Or, if you'll let me say this, how some women can stay married to horrible men simply because they have money.'

She sensed the deadly earnestness in his voice and so resisted the impulse to joke and ask if he were talking about her. Instead, she asked, ‘Do you like what you do?'

He pulled her hand closer and idly began to turn her wedding band around and around on her finger. ‘I think I must. I know I complain about it a lot, but, in the end, it does do some good.'

'Is that why you do it?'

'No, not entirely. I think part of it is that I'm nosy by nature, and I always want to know how the story will end or how or why it got started. I want to know why people do things.'

It will never make any sense to me, that you don't like Henry James,' she said seriously.

24

It wasn't until a week later that anything other than the routine shuffling of papers occurred in the investigation of the deaths of the two women, and then it came via that most Venetian of methods: the exchange of information resulting from friendship and a sense of mutual obligation. A functionary of the Office of the Registry of Public Documents, recalling that Signorina Elettra, who was the sister of his wife's doctor, had once displayed an interest in Claudia Leonardo and Hedwig Jacobs, called her one morning to tell her that the will of the second woman had been registered in their office two days previously.

Signorina Elettra asked him if it would be possible for him to fax her a copy of the will, and at his response, that it would be 'highly irregular but equally possible', she laughed and thanked him, thus providing him with the unspoken assurance that a certain latitude might be extended to him were he ever to come to the attention of the police. She broke the connection and immediately called Brunetti, suggesting he come down to her office.

He had no idea why she wanted to speak to him, and when he entered her office he heard the noise of the fax machine. Saying nothing, she stood and walked over to the fax, and as a sheet of paper stuck its tongue out, she made a deep bow and waved one hand toward the emerging paper, inviting Brunetti to look. Curious, he bent over it, starting to read even as the machine was giving birth.

I, Hedwig Jacobs, Austrian citizen but resident in Venice, Santa Croce 3456, declare that I have no living relatives who can make a claim on my estate’

He read the first sentence, glanced across to Signorina Elettra, who watched him, her self-satisfaction evident only in a small grin. The paper jolted forward and he bent over it again.

‘I desire, therefore, that all of my possessions, in the event of my death, be given to Claudia Leonardo, also resident in this city, granddaughter of Luca Guzzardi. If for any reason this bequest does not pass to her, I will that it pass irrevocably to her heirs. I further declare that six Tiepolo drawings in my possession, so marked on the back of the frames, be given to the Director of the Biblioteca della Patria in memory of Luca Guzzardi and to be used as he decides in pursuit of the goals of the Biblioteca’

It was signed and dated about ten days before Claudia Leonardo's death. Seeing only whiteness under her signature, he looked back at Signorina Elettra, but then the machine pushed out another few centimetres of paper, and as he watched there emerged the name and signature of the notary with whom the will had' been registered. 'Massimo Sanpaolo.' The signatures of the two witnesses were illegible.

Brunetti took the paper from the machine and handed it to Signorina Elettra. She read it through and, like him, looked up in surprise at the name of the notary. 'Oh, my’ she said in English, then switched to Italian and added, 'What a coincidence.'

'Of all things,' said Brunetti. The Filipetto family seems to be turning up everywhere.'

Even before he could suggest it, she volunteered, moving back to her desk, 'Shall we have a look?'

No family could have been easier to trace through the archives of the various offices and institutions of the city. Gianpaolo, whom Brunetti had come to think of as his Filipetto, was the only son of a notary, and had himself produced only one son, who had died of cancer. One of his daughters had married into the Sanpaolo family, another famous family of notaries, and it was their son, Massimo, who had taken over the Filipetto studio upon the death of his uncle. Massimo was married, already the father of two sons, whom Brunetti had no doubt were already, at six and seven, being schooled in the arcana of notary lore, raised to become transmitters of the family wealth and position. The younger daughter had married a foreigner, but not until she was well into her forties, so there were no children.

The studio of Notaio Sanpaolo was on a small calle near the Teatro Goldoni. Brunetti preferred to show up unannounced, which he did about twenty minutes later. He gave his name to one of the two secretaries in the outer office but was told that the Notary had just begun un rogito, the transfer of title of a house. Brunetti knew that there was likely to be a pause very shortly as buyer and seller exchanged the money paid for the house. The Notary would excuse himself, saying he was going to check on some technicality, and in his absence the buyers would hand over to the sellers the real price of the house, always about twice the declared, and therefore taxed, price. As payment was in cash and as hundreds of millions of lire had usually to be counted, a notary could always depend on a long break before going back to witness the signing of the papers. More importantly, because he was the officer of the state who served as legal witness to this proceeding, his absence from his office during the counting allowed him honestly to say that he had seen no exchange of cash.

As Brunetti had anticipated, Sanpaolo came out of his office about ten minutes later, recognized Brunetti, pretended that he did not, and went over to talk to one of the secretaries. She pointed him back towards Brunetti, saying that this gentleman wanted to speak to him.

Sanpaolo was a tall man with a broad frame, heavily bearded and in need of a haircut. He had probably been very handsome in his youth, but good living had thickened his features and his body and so he looked more like an athlete run to fat than he did a notary. Brunetti thought that the younger man would probably be a bad liar: men with children often were, though Brunetti didn't know why this was so. Perhaps giving hostages to fortune made men nervous.

‘Yes?' he asked as he came toward Brunetti, his hands at his sides, making no attempt at civility.

'I've come about the will of Signora Hedwig Jacobs’ Brunetti said, keeping his voice level and not bothering to identify himself.

'What about it?' Sanpaolo asked, not asking Brunetti to repeat the name.

'I'd like to know how it came into your possession.'

'My possession?' Sanpaolo demanded with singular lack of grace.

'How it is that you came to prepare it for her and submit it for probate’ Brunetti clarified.

'Signora Jacobs was a client of mine, and I prepared the will for her and witnessed her signature and the signatures of the two witnesses.'

'And who are they?'

'What right do you have to ask these questions?' Sanpaolo's nervousness was turning into anger and he began to bluster. This was more than enough to push Brunetti to new heights of calm dispassion.

'I'm investigating a murder, and Signora Jacobs's will is of importance in that investigation.'

How can that be?'

‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that, sir, but I assure you that I have every right to inquire about her will.'

We'll see about that,' Sanpaolo said and wheeled away, heading back to the counter. He said something to one of the women and went through a door that stood to the left of the one to his office. The woman opened a large black address book, checked a number, and then dialled the phone. She listened for a moment, said a few words, pushed a button on the phone, then set it back in the receiver. At no time in any of this did either secretary glance in Brunetti's direction. Very casually, looking as bored and impatient as he could, Brunetti glanced at his watch and made a note of the time: it would make it that much easier when he asked Signorina Elettra to check Sanpaolo's outgoing phone calls.

A few minutes later the door to Sanpaolo's office opened slowly and a man stuck his head out, saying that the Notary could come back into his office now. The secretary who had made the call said the Notary had just received a call from South America and would be with him in a minute. The man went back into the office and closed the door.

Minutes passed, then a few more. The man in the office opened the door again and asked what was going on; the secretary asked if she could bring them something to drink. Saying nothing to her offer, the man went back into the office and closed the door, this time loudly.

Finally, after more than ten minutes, Sanpaolo came out of the second office, looking less tall than when he went inside. The secretary said something, but he waved at her with the back of his hand, as at a bothersome insect.

He approached Brunetti. ‘I went to her home on the day the will was signed. I took the will and my two secretaries with me, and they witnessed her signature.' He spoke loud enough for the women to hear him, and both of them, looking first at Sanpaolo and then at Brunetti, nodded.

'And how was it that you were asked to go to her home?' Brunetti asked.

'She called and asked me’ Sanpaolo said, his face flushing as he answered.

'Had you worked for Signora Jacobs before?' Brunetti asked, and at that moment the door to Sanpaolo's office opened again, and this time a different man put his head out.

'Well?' he demanded of Sanpaolo.

Two minutes, Carlo’ Sanpaolo said with a broad smile that didn't reach his eyes. This time the door slammed.

Sanpaolo turned back to Brunetti, who calmly repeated the question, quite as if there had been no interruption, 'Had you worked for Signora Jacobs before?'

The answer was a long time in coming. Brunetti watched the Notary consider the possibility of falsifying notes or entries in an appointment book, then abandon the idea. 'No.'

Then how was it that she selected you of all of the notaries in the city, Dottor Sanpaolo?'

‘I don't know.'

'Could it have been that someone recommended you?' 'Perhaps.'

‘Your grandfather?'

Sanpaolo's eyes closed. 'Perhaps.'

'Perhaps or yes, Dottore?' Brunetti demanded.

‘Yes.'

Brunetti fought down the contempt he felt for Sanpaolo for so easily having given in. Nothing, he realized, could be more perverse than to wish for better opponents. This was not a game, some sort of male competition for territory, but an attempt to find out who had driven that knife into Claudia Leonardo's chest and left her to bleed to death.

‘You said you took the will with you.'

Sanpaolo nodded.

'Whose words are used in it?'

‘I don't understand what you mean’ he said and Brunetti believed him, suspected the man was so terrified of the consequence of his original evasions that he could no longer accurately process what he heard.

'Who gave you the words to use in the will?'

Again, he watched Sanpaolo chase through the maze of consequences, should he lie. The Notary slid a sideways glance at the two women, both of them now conspicuously busy at their computers, and Brunetti watched him weigh how much he could trust them to cover him should he lie and what they'd have to do in order to do so. And Brunetti watched him abandon the idea.

'My grandfather.'

'How?'

‘He called me the day before and told me when she'd be expecting me, and then he dictated it to Cinzia on the phone, and she prepared a copy. Thaf s what I took when I went to see her’

‘Did you know anything about this before your grandfather called you?' 'No.'

'Did she sign it of her free will?' Brunetti asked.

Sanpaolo was indignant that his original behaviour could have suggested to Brunetti that he would violate the rules of his profession. 'Of course’ he insisted. He turned and indicated the two women, both of them still busy with heads bowed over their computers. ‘You can ask them.'

Brunetti did, surprising them both and surprising Sanpaolo, perhaps because his word had never been so obviously called into question. 'Is that true, ladies?' Brunetti called across the room.

They looked up from their keyboards, one of them pretending to be shocked.

‘Yes, sir’

‘Yes, sir.'

Brunetti turned his attention back to Sanpaolo. 'Did your grandfather give you any explanation of this?'

Sanpaolo shook his head. 'No, he just called and dictated the will and told me to take it to her the next day, have it witnessed, and enter it in my register.'

'No explanation at all?'

Again Sanpaolo shook his head.

'Didn't you ask for one?'

This time Sanpaolo couldn't disguise his surprise. 'No one questions my grandfather,' he said, as though this were catechism class and he called upon to recite one of the Commandments. The childlike simplicity of his next words turned any remaining contempt Brunetti might have had for him into pity. 'We're not allowed to question Nonno.'

Brunetti left him then and started back to the Questura, leaving it to his feet to navigate for him as he mused on Filipetto's guile and legendary rapacity. He would hardly risk having his grandson name himself as heir in a will he prepared, but why the Biblioteca della Patria? As he approached San Marco, he found his thoughts flailing about for the point where the lines converged. Too many of the lines crossed: Claudia and Signora Jacobs; Filipetto and Signora Jacobs; the politics that Claudia loathed and her grandfather loved. And then there was the line that was hacked off with a knife.

Standing in front of the guards at the offices of the Justice of Peace, Brunetti pulled out his telefonino and dialled Signorina Elettra's direct number. When she answered, he said, 'I'm interested in anything you can find about Filipetto, professional or personal, and about La Biblioteca della Patria.'

'Officially?'

'Yes, but also what people say.' 'When will you be here, sir?' Twenty minutes at the most.'

‘I’ll make some calls now, sir’ she said and broke the connection.

He didn't hasten his steps but strolled along the bacino, taking the opportunity offered by a day cast in silver to look across to San Giorgio, then turned completely around and looked at the cupolas of the churches that lined the water on the other side of the canal. The Madonna had once saved the city from plague, and now there was a church. The Americans had saved the country from the Germans, and now there was McDonald's.

When he got to the Questura, Brunetti went directly to her office. 'Any luck?' he asked when he went in.

'Yes. I called around a little.' He was curious to discover what this might mean.

'And?'

'A couple of years ago, his younger daughter married a foreigner who was working here in the city’ she said, holding up a page from her notepad. 'She has a considerable fortune from her mother, and she used it to create a job for him, a very well-paid job. He's much younger than she and is said not to allow his marriage vows to interfere with his personal life. In fact, someone told me that they were asked to leave a restaurant a few months ago.'

Though he wasn't particularly interested in any of this, Brunetti still asked, 'Why?'

'The person who told me about it said that the Filipetto woman didn't like the way her husband was looking at a girl at the next table. Apparently she became quite abusive.'

'To her husband?' Brunetti asked, surprised that Eleonora Filipetto would be capable of any emotion at all.

'No, to the girl.'

'What happened?'

The owners had to ask them to leave.' 'But what about Filipetto, and the Biblioteca?' he asked, suddenly irritated at her very Venetian interest in gossip.

He heard her sigh. ‘It might be more useful if you pursued the last subject, sir,' she said. What subject?' 'Her husband.'

Suddenly angry with games, he snapped, 'I don't care about gossip. I want to know about Filipetto.'

She made no attempt to disguise how much his response offended her. Instead of answering, she handed him the sheet of paper. ‘You might be interested in this, sir,' she said with painful courtesy and turned to her computer.

He stepped forward, took the paper, but before he looked at it he said, 'I'm sorry, Elettra. I shouldn't speak to you like that.'

Her smile mingled relief and childlike eagerness. 'Look at her name,' she said, pointing to the paper.

He did. 'Gesu Bambino,' he exclaimed, though that was not the name written on the paper. 'She married Maxwell Ford.' He said it aloud and listened to the racket in his mind as various pieces began to slide, then fall, then thunder into place.

What was he doing when they got married?' 'He was a stringer for one of the English papers. The Biblioteca was set up soon after they married.' With the father's approval?'

'Dottor Filipetto is not known to be an approving sort of man, and this removed from his home the woman who had taken care of him since his wife died twenty-five years ago.'

'But she's still there.'

'Only two afternoons a week, when the usual woman is out.'

Why doesn't he get someone else to come in on those days?'

‘I’ve no idea, sir, but the Filipettos have never been known for spending money easily. And this way, he can keep an eye on her and see she doesn't slip entirely out from his control.'

‘What does she do the rest of the time?' 'She works in the Biblioteca’

It suddenly occurred to Brunetti and he asked, 'How do you know all this?'

‘I asked around,' she said evasively,

‘Who?'

'My Aunt Ippolita, for one. The woman who works for Filipetto goes in to iron for her two afternoons every week.'

'And who else?' Brunetti asked, familiar with her delaying tactics.

‘Your father-in-law,' she said neutrally.

Brunetti stared at her. ‘You asked him?'

'Well, I know he's a patient of my sister's, and I know he knows I work here, and my father once told me that they had been together in the Resistance. So I took the liberty of calling him and explaining what you'd asked me to do.' She paused to allow him time, perhaps to snap at her again, but when he made no comment she went on, 'He seemed very happy to tell me what he knew. I don't think he has any great affection for the Filipettos.'

'What sort of things did he tell you?'

'She was engaged about twenty years ago, the daughter, but the man changed his mind or left Venice. The Count wasn't sure, but he thought the father had something to do with it, perhaps paid him to leave or to leave her alone.'

'I thought you said they don't like to spend money.'

'This was probably a special case because it interfered with his power and his convenience. If she'd married he would have had to hire a servant, and some of them have been known to talk back to their employers, you know, and insist on being paid.'

'But why would she finally disobey him?' he asked, thinking of Sanpaolo's abject submissiveness.

‘L-ove, Commissario. Love.' She said this in a tone that suggested she might be speaking not only about Eleonora Filipetto.

Brunetti chose not to inquire further about this and said, ^‘He told me his wife is the other director of the Library’

'Which is where Claudia worked,' she said, leaving both the sentence and the thought open to speculation.

Those phone calls,' he said. 'Let me look at them again.'

She busied herself over her computer and less than a minute later the list of all of Claudia's calls was there. Responding to Brunetti's unspoken request, she pressed a few keys and the information about all of the calls other than those between Claudia Leonardo and La Biblioteca della Patria disappeared. Together they read it, the early short calls, then the longer and longer ones, and then the thunderbolt of that final call, twenty-two seconds long.

'You think she's capable of it?' Signorina Elettra asked.

‘I think I'll go and ask her husband if she is,' Brunetti said.

25

Signorina Elettra printed out a copy of the phone details, and when he had them he went downstairs and asked Vianello to come with him. On the way to the Biblioteca, Brunetti explained about Eleonora Filipetto's marriage and about the timing and duration of the phone calls, and then the conclusions he had drawn from them.

There could be some other explanation, I suppose,' Vianello asked.

'Of course,' Brunetti conceded, not believing it, either.

'And you say Filipetto's daughter is one of the directors of this Biblioteca?' Vianello asked.

That's what her husband said, yes. Why?'

Vianello slowed his pace and glanced aside at Brunetti, waiting to see if he'd drawn the same conclusions. When Brunetti failed to speak, Vianello asked, 'Don't you see?'

'No. What?'

'A name like that - "Biblioteca della Patria" - means they'll get money from both sides. No matter who these old men fought for in the war, they'll give their contributions to the Biblioteca, sure that it represents their ideals’ The inspector went silent and Brunetti could sense him following his idea to its various conclusions. Finally Vianello said, 'And they're probably listed as a charity, so no one will ask questions about where the money goes’ He made a spitting sound.

‘You can't be sure of that,' Brunetti said.

'Of course I can. She's a Filipetto.'

Lapsing into silence after that, Vianello matched his steps to Brunetti's as they walked along the narrow canals of Castello, back toward San Pietro di Castello and the Biblioteca. When they got there, Brunetti saw what he had not noticed the last time, a plaque to the side of the door that gave the opening hours. He rang the bell and a few seconds later the portone snapped open and they went in.

The door at the top of the stairs was not locked and they let themselves into the library. There was no sign of Ford, and the door to his office was closed. An old man, bent and looking faintly musty, sat at one of the long tables, a book open in the pool of light from the lamp. Another old man stood by the display cabinet, looking at the notebooks it held. Even at a distance of some metres Brunetti caught the characteristic odour of old men: dry, sour clothing and skin that had gone too long without washing. It was impossible to tell from which one of them the smell came, perhaps from both.

Neither man looked at them when they came in. Brunetti walked over to the man standing in front of the display case. The man looked up then. Careful to speak in Veneziano, Brunetti said, with no introduction, It's good to see that someone has respect for the old things,' and waved a hand above them at what looked like a regimental flag.

The old man smiled and nodded but said nothing.

'My father went to Africa and Russia,' Brunetti offered.

'Did he come back?' the old man asked. His dialect was purest Castello, and what he said would probably have been incomprehensible to a non-Venetian.

'Good. My brother didn't. Betrayed by the Allies. All of us. They tricked the King into surrendering. If he hadn't, if we'd fought on, we would have won.' Then looking round, he added, 'At least they know that here.'

'Absolutely,' Brunetti agreed, thinking of Vianello's convictions about how the Biblioteca was being used. 'And we'd be living in a better place if we had.' He put all the force of conviction into his voice.

'We'd have discipline,' the old man said.

'And order,' came the antiphon from the man at the table, he too speaking in dialect.

'That stupid girl didn't understand these things’ Brunetti said, voice rich with contempt. 'Always saying bad things about the past and the Duce and how we should take in these immigrants who come flooding in from everywhere to steal our jobs. First thing you know, there won't be anywhere for us any more.' He didn't bother to strive for coherence: cliche and prejudice would suffice.

The man standing next to him snorted in approval.

‘I don't know why he let her work here’ Brunetti said, nodding in the direction of Ford's office door. 'She was the 'wrong ...' he started to say, but the one at the table cut him off.

'You know what he's like’ the old man said, leering across at the two of them. 'All he had to do was see her tits and he lost his head. Couldn't keep his eyes off her, just like the last one. He certainly spent enough time looking at her tits until his wife chased her out.'

'God knows what they got up to in his office’ the one at the display case said, voice tight with secret hopes.

'It's a good thing his wife found out about this one, too’ Brunetti said, relief palpable in his voice, the sanctity of the family saved from the temptation offered by immoral young women.

'Did she?' the one at the table asked, curious.

'Of course. You should have seen the way she looked at her, with her tight jeans and her ass all over the place,' the other one explained.

'I know what I would have done with that ass,' the one at the table said, putting his hands under the table and moving them up and down in what Brunetti thought was meant to be a comic gesture but which seemed to him obscene. He thought of Claudia's ghost and hoped she'd forgive him, and these sad old fools, for spitting on her grave.

'Is he here, the Director?' Brunetti asked, as if he'd been called from this fascinating conversation to the reason he had come.

Both nodded. The one at the table pulled his hands back into sight and used them to prop up his head. Seeing that he'd somehow lost the attention of his audience, he bent his attention back to the pages of his book.

Brunetti made a quick gesture, signalling Vianello to remain in the reading room, and went over to the door to Ford's office. He knocked, and a voice from inside called out, 'Avanti'

He opened the door and went in.

'Ah, Commissario’ Ford said, getting to his feet. 'How pleasant to see you again.' He came closer and held out his hand. Brunetti took it and smiled. 'Are you any closer to finding the person responsible for Claudia's death?' Ford asked as he shook Brunetti's hand.

'I think I have a good idea of who's responsible for her death, but that's not the same as knowing as who it was that killed her,' Brunetti said with an Olympian calm that startled even himself.

Ford took his hand from Brunetti's and said, 'What do you mean by that?'

'Exactly what I said, Signore: the reason for her death is not far to seek, nor, I suspect, is the person who killed her. It's just that I haven't managed to satisfy myself how one led to the other; not just yet, that is.'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about,' Ford said, backing away from Brunetti and standing at the side of his desk, as though its wooden solidity would bolster his words.

'Perhaps your wife will. Is she here, Signore?'

'What do you want to speak to my wife about?'

The same thing, Signor Ford: Claudia Leonardo's death.'

That's ridiculous. How can my wife know anything about that?'

'How, indeed?' Brunetti asked, then added, 'Your wife is the other director of the Biblioteca, isn't she?' ‘Yes, of course.'

‘You didn't mention that the last time I was here,' Brunetti said.

'Of course I did. I told you she was co-director.'

'But you didn't tell me who your wife is, Signor Ford.'

'She's my wife. What more do you need to know about her than that?' Ford insisted. For a moment, Brunetti entertained the thought of what Paola's response would be if she were to hear him say the same thing about her. He did hot give voice to this speculation and instead asked again, 'Is she here?'

"That's none of your business.'

'Anything that has to do with Claudia Leonardo's death is my business.'

'You can't talk to her,' Ford said, almost shouting.

Brunetti stepped back from him, saying nothing, turned and started for the door.

'Where are you going?'

'Back to the Questura to get an order from a magistrate that your wife be brought there for questioning.'

'You can't do that,' Ford said, voice even louder.

Brunetti wheeled around and took one step towards him, his anger so palpable that the other man moved back. 'What I can and cannot do is determined by the law, Signor Ford, not by what you might or might not want. And I will talk to your wife’ He turned away from the Englishman, making it clear that he had nothing else to say. He thought Ford would call him back and give in, but he did not, and so Brunetti went out into the reading room, where Vianello had propped himself against one of the tables, a book open in his hands. Neither acknowledged the other, and Vianello looked immediately back at the book.

Brunetti was halfway through the door to the stairway when Ford came out of his office. 'Wait’ he called after Brunetti's retreating back. Brunetti stopped, half turned, but made no move to come back to the reading room.

'Commissario’ Ford said, his voice calm but his face still suffused with the memory of anger. 'Perhaps we can talk about this.' Ford glanced at the two old men, but they looked quickly back at whatever it was they'd been reading when Ford came in. Vianello ignored them all.

The Englishman extended a conciliatory hand. 'Commissario. Come into my office and we can talk.'

Brunetti was very careful to demonstrate his reluctance and moved with willed slowness. As he passed Vianello, he shot his finger out and pointed at the two men, and Vianello nodded. Brunetti followed the Englishman back into his office, waited while he closed the door, then went back to the chair he had sat in last time. This time Ford retreated behind his desk.

It was not difficult for Brunetti to remain silent: long experience had shown him how effective a technique it was in forcing others to talk.

Finally Ford said, ‘I think I can explain’ In the face of Brunetti's continuing silence, Ford went on. 'The girl was a terrible flirt’ He watched to see how Brunetti responded to this and when he seemed interested, Ford went on, 'Of course, I had no idea of this when she first came here and asked to use the library. She seemed like a serious enough girl. And she stayed that way until she had the job, and then she started’

'Started what?^’ Brunetti asked in a tone that suggested he was both intrigued and willing to believe.

"Oh, finding excuses to come in here to ask me about certain documents or to help her find a book she said someone had asked about’ He gave Brunetti a small smile that was probably meant to be boyish and embarrassed but which Brunetti thought merely looked sly. ‘I suppose, at first I found it flattering. You know, that she'd want my help or my advice. It wasn't long before I realized how simple many of the questions were and how, well, how disproportionate her thanks were’ He stopped there, as if puzzled how to progress, a gentleman trapped in the dilemma of telling the truth at the cost of a young woman's reputation.

As Brunetti watched, he seemed to overcome the obstacle of false chivalry and opt to tell the truth. 'She really became quite shameless. Finally, I had no choice but to let her go.'

'Meaning?'

‘I had to ask her to leave the Biblioteca.' ‘You mean fire her?'

Ford smiled. 'Not exactly. She didn't work here officially. I mean, not as a regular employee. She was a volunteer, and because she was working that way, it was easier to ask her to leave.' He bowed his head but continued to speak. 'It was still very difficult to ask her to leave, very embarrassing.' When Brunetti seemed puzzled by this, Ford went on, 'I didn't want to hurt her feelings.'

Brunetti had no doubt that Claudia's departure from the Biblioteca had been embarrassing, but he wasn't certain that the explanation he had just given accurately described its cause. He took his bottom lip between his thumb and first two fingers and fell into what he did his best to make look like a contemplative pose. 'Did your wife know about this?'

Ford hesitated a moment before he answered; to Brunetti the fact of the hesitation, not its length, mattered.

‘I never said anything to her, if that's what you mean,' Ford said, not without suggesting that it was indiscreet of Brunetti to ask. Rather than point out that he had not answered the question, Brunetti simply waited and at last the Englishman said, 'I'm afraid she may have noticed. Eleonora is very observant.' With a man like this, Brunetti reflected, she'd have every reason to be.

'Did you ever discuss the girl with your wife?' Brunetti asked.

'No, of course not,' he protested, the injured gentleman. 'Early on, I may have said something about her, that she was a good worker, but as I took no real interest in the girl I probably did nothing more than that.'

'Did Claudia work for your wife or when your wife was here in the Biblioteca?'

'Ah,' Ford said with an easy smile, 'I'm afraid I haven't explained. My wife's directorship is purely adrninistrative. That is, she deals with the bureaucracy and the red tape from the city and regional offices who take an interest in our work.' He tried a small smile. 'Because she's Italian, and more specifically because she's Venetian, she knows how to manoeuvre her way around. I'm afraid I, as a foreigner, would be quite helpless.'

Brunetti smiled in return, thinking that, if there were any adjective that might be attributed to Mr Ford, 'helpless' most decidedly was not it.

Then what do you do, Signore?'

‘I attend to the daily running of the Biblioteca,' Ford said.

‘I see’ Brunetti answered, finally accepting Vianello's conclusions about the real purpose of the Library.

Ford remained silent, a ghost of a smile on his lips. When it was evident that he had nothing further to say, Brunetti got to his feet, saying, ‘I’m afraid I still have to speak to your wife’

'She'll be very upset by that.'

‘Why?'

The answer was some time in coming. 'She was very fond of Claudia and I think it would upset her to talk about her death.'

Brunetti didn't ask how she could have been so fond of a girl with whom her husband had suggested she had had almost no contact. 'I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that, Signore. I have to speak to her.'

He watched Ford weigh the possible cost of opposing this demand. The man said he was not familiar with Italian bureaucracy, but anyone who had lived here for even a few years would know that, sooner or later, she would have to speak to the police. Brunetti waited patiently and allowed Ford more than enough time to decide. Finally he looked up at Brunetti and said, 'All right. But I'd like to speak to her first.'

'I'm afraid that’s impossible’ Brunetti said quite equitably. 'Only to assure her there's nothing to be afraid of’ Ford added.

'I'll be very careful to do that’ Brunetti said, the firmness of his tone at odds with the pleasantness of what he said.

'All right’ Ford said, getting up and going towards the door to his office.

Again, Brunetti passed through the reading room. Both of the old men were gone and Vianello was now seated at one of the tables, the book open in front of him, seemingly so absorbed in it that he didn't look up when the two men came out of Ford's office. He did, however, tap the point of his pen on a sheet of paper which lay next to the book, a sheet that appeared to contain two names and addresses.

On the landing Ford waited for Brunetti, then led the way up the stairs. At the top he opened the single door without needing to unlock it. They could be in the middle of the countryside, with attentive neighbours careful to protect one another, not in the middle of a city besieged by thieves and burglars.

Inside, the simplicity of the rooms below was banished. On the floor of the entrance hall lay a Sarouk so thick and yet so richly coloured that Brunetti felt uncomfortably daring to walk on it while wearing shoes. Ford led him into a large sitting room that looked out to the campo on the other side of the canal. A celadon bowl in that extraterrestrial green that Brunetti had never liked sat on a low table in front of a beige satin-covered sofa.

Paintings, many of them portraits, hung from three walls; the fourth was lined with bookshelves. The centre of the room was covered with an enormous Nain, its pale arabesques in perfect harmony with the sofa.

‘I’ll just go and get her’ Ford said, starting for the back of the apartment.

Brunetti held up a monitory hand. ‘I think it would be better if you called her, Signor Ford.'

Managing to look both confused and offended. Ford asked, 'Why?'

'Because I'd like to talk to her and without your saying anything to her first.'

‘I don't see how that could possibly make a difference,' Ford said, this time not confused but certainly offended.

‘I do,' Brunetti said shortly, standing in place just to the left of the door of the room and only a short step from being able to block it with his body. 'Please call her.'

Ford made a business of standing just inside the door and calling towards the back of the apartment, 'Eleonora.' There was no response, and he called again, 'Eleonora.'

Brunetti heard a voice say something from the back, but it was impossible to distinguish what it said.

'Could you come here a moment, Eleonora’ Ford called.

Brunetti thought the man might add something, but he did not. A minute passed, another, and then both of them could hear a door closing at the back of the apartment. While he waited, Brunetti studied one of the portraits, an unhappy-looking woman in a wide starched ruff, her hair pulled severely back in a tight bun, looking out at the world in sharp disapproval of all she saw. He wondered who could have been so blind, or so cruel, to have such a portrait hanging in the house where Eleonora Filipetto lived.

Though he tried to stop himself, he found himself thinking the same thing when Eleonora Filipetto came into the room. Like the woman in the portrait, her hair was streaked with grey, but unlike hers, it hung limp and close to her head. Both women had the same tight, colourless Hps that could so easily be pulled together in dissatisfaction, as the living woman's were as she entered.

She recognized Brunetti, saw her husband, and chose to speak to Brunetti, ‘Yes? What is it?' Her voice aimed at briskness but succeeded in seeming only nervous.

‘I’ve come to ask you some questions about Claudia Leonardo, Signora’ he said.

She waited, looking at him, not asking why.

The last time we met, Signora, when I was asking about Claudia, you didn't tell me you knew her.'

'You didn't ask me’ she said, voice as flat as her bosom.

In such circumstances, you might have said more than that you recognized the name’ he suggested.

‘You didn't ask me’ she repeated as though he had not just commented on that same answer.

'What did you think of Claudia?' Brunetti asked. He noticed that Ford made no attempt to catch her attention. In fact, he gradually moved over to the front of the room and stood by the window. When Brunetti glanced in his direction he saw that Ford was standing with his back to them, looking across at the facade of the church.

She looked across the room at her husband, as if she hoped to find the answer written on his back. ‘I didn't think of her’ she finally said.

'And why is that, Signora?' Brunetti inquired politely.

'She was a young girl who worked in the Biblioteca. I saw her once or twice. Why should I think of her?' Though the words were defiant, her tone had become more hesitant and uncertain, and she asked it as a real question, not a sarcastic one.

Brunetti decided he was tired of games. 'Because she was a young woman, Signora, and because your husband has a history of finding young women attractive.'

'What are you talking about?' she demanded too quickly, glancing quickly at her husband.

'It seems simple enough to me, Signora. I'm talking about what everyone seems to know: your husband's tendency to betray you with younger women, more attractive women.'

Her face contorted, but not in pain or in any of the emotions he might have expected as a result of the remarks he had made sound as offhand and insulting as he could. If she looked anything, she looked startled, even shocked.

'What do you mean, that people know? How can they know about it?'

Keeping his voice entirely conversational, he said, 'In the reading room, when I was waiting, even the old men talked about it, about the way he was always grabbing at tits.' He looked pointedly at her chest and slipped from the precisely articulated Italian he had been speaking into the most heavily accented and vulgar Veneziano, ‘I can see why he told me he likes to get his' hands on a real pair of tits.'

She gasped so loud that Ford, who had understood nothing of what Brunetti had said in dialect, turned from the window. He saw his wife, hands clutched to her breast, staring open-mouthed at a calm and self-possessed Brunetti, who was leaning forward and saying politely, in precise Italian, 'Excuse me, Signora. Is something wrong?'

She stood, mouth still open, drawing immense gulps of air into her lungs. 'He said that? He said that to you?' she gasped.

Ford moved quickly away from the window. He had no idea what was happening as he came towards his wife, his arms raised as if to embrace her protectively.

'Get away from me,' she said, voice tight, struggling to speak. ‘You said that to him?' she hissed. 'You said that after what I did for you? First you betray me with that little whore and then you say that about me?' Her voice rose with every question, her face growing darker and more congested.

'Eleonora, be quiet,' Ford said as he drew even nearer. She raised a hand to push him away, and he put out one of his own to grab her arm. But she moved suddenly to the side, and his open hand came down, not on her wrist or her arm but on her breast.

She froze, and instinct or longing drove her forward, leaning into his hand, but then she pulled sharply back and raised a clenched fist. 'Don't touch me. Don't touch me there, the way you touched that little whore.' Her voice went up an octave. 'You won't touch her again, will you? Not with a knife in her chest where your hand was, will you?' Ford stood, frozen with horror. 'Will you?' she screamed, 'Will you?' Suddenly she pulled her fist back and brought it crashing down once, twice, three times, into his chest as the two men stood there paralysed in the face of her rage. After the third blow, she moved away from him. As suddenly as it had started, her rage evaporated and she started to cry, great tearing sobs. 1 did all of that for you, and you can still say that to him.'

'Shut up!' Ford shouted at her. 'Shut up, you fool.'

Tears streaming from her eyes, she looked up at him and asked, voice choking with sobs, 'Why do you always have to have pretty things? Both of you, Daddy and you, all you've ever wanted is pretty things. Neither of you ever wanted ...' Sobbing overcame her and choked off her last word, but Brunetti had no doubt that it was going to be 'me'.

Though Ford tried to stop Brunetti with loud bluster, insisting that he had no right to arrest his wife, the woman offered no resistance and said that she would go along with him. Ford in their wake, hurling threats and the names of important people at their backs, Brunetti led her to the front door. Behind it they found Vianello, lounging up against the wall, his jacket unbuttoned and, to Brunetti's experienced eye, his pistol evident in its holster.

Brunetti was in some uncertainty as to what to say to Vianello, as he wasn't at all sure that what he had just heard Signora Ford say could be construed as a confession of murder. There had been no witness, save for Ford, and he could be counted upon to deny hearing what she had said or insist she'd said something else entirely. It depended, then, on his getting her to repeat her confession in Vianello's hearing or, even better, on getting her to the Questura, where she could record it or speak it while being videotaped. He knew that a future case based on his word alone would be laughed at by any prosecuting magistrate with experience in the courtroom; indeed, it would be laughed at by anyone with experience of the law.

‘I’ve called for a boat, sir’ Vianello said quite calmly when he saw them. It should be here soon’

Brunetti nodded, as though this were the most normal thing in the word for Vianello to have done.

'Where?' he asked.

'At the end of the calle,' Vianello said.

'You can't do this’ Ford again insisted, putting himself at the top of the steps and blocking Brunetti's path. 'My father-in-law knows the Praetore. You'll be fired for this.'

Brunetti didn't have to say a word. Vianello went over to Ford, said, 'Permesso,' and moved him bodily to one side, freeing the stairway for his wife and Brunetti to start down. Brunetti didn't look behind him, but he could hear the Englishman arguing, then shouting, then making grunting noises that must have resulted from a futile attempt to shift Vianello from the top of the steps so that he could follow his wife.

The sun gleamed down, even though it was November and meant to be much colder. As they emerged from the building, Brunetti heard the motor of a boat from their right, and he led the silent woman down towards it. A police launch swept up to the steps at the end of the calle and stopped; at their approach, a uniformed officer set a wide piece of planking between the gunwales and the embankment, then helped the woman and Brunetti on board.

Brunetti led her down to the cabin, uncertain whether to speak to her or wait for her to begin to speak on her own. His curiosity made silence more difficult, but he opted for that and, sitting across from one another, they rode silently back to the Questura.

Inside, he took her to one of the small rooms used for questioning and advised her that everything they said would be recorded. He led her to a chair on one side of the table, sat opposite her, gave their names and the date and asked if she would like to have a lawyer with her as she talked. She waved a hand at him in dismissal, but he repeated the question until she said, 'No. No lawyer.'

She sat silent, looking down at the surface of the table in which people had, over the course of the years, carved initials and words and pictures. Her face was splotched with red, her eyes still swollen from crying. She traced some initials with the forefinger of her right hand then finally looked up at Brunetti.

Is it true that Claudia Leonardo worked at the library where you are one of the directors?' He thought it best to avoid any reference to her husband until the interview had taken on its own momentum.

She nodded.

'I'm sorry, Signora,' he said with a softening of his face that was not quite a smile, *but you must say something. Because of the recording.'

She looked around, searching for the microphones, but as they were set into two wall sockets that looked like light switches, she failed to identify them.

'Did Claudia Leonardo work at the Biblioteca della Patria?' he asked again.

‘Yes.'

How long after she began to work there did you meet her?'

'Not very long.'

'Could you tell me how you first met her? The circumstances, I mean.'

She folded the fingers of her right hand into the palm and, using the nail of her thumb, began to dig idly at one of the letters on the table, freeing it of the greasy material that had accumulated over the years. As Brunetti watched, her nail pried free a tiny sliver of what looked like black wax. She brushed it to the floor. She looked at him. 1 had to go down to the library to look for a book, and when I came in she asked me how she could help me. She didn't know who I was.'

'What was your first impression of her, Signora?'

She shrugged the question away, but before Brunetti could remind her of the microphones, she said, 1 didn't have much of an impres...' Then, perhaps recalling where they were and why she was here, she sat up straighter in her chair, looked over at Brunetti and said, voice a bit firmer, 'She seemed like a nice girl.' She emphasized 'seemed'. 'She was very polite, and when I told her who I was she was very respectful.'

'Do you think that was an accurate assessment of the girl's character?' Brunetti asked.

She paused not an instant over this question and said, 'It can't be, not after what she did to my husband.'

'But what did you think at the beginning, when you first met her?' he asked.

It was evident to Brunetti that she had to overcome her reluctance to answer this question, but when she did she said, ‘I was wrong. I saw the truth, but it took time.'

Abandoning the attempt to get her to describe her first impression of the girl, Brunetti asked, 'What did you come to believe?'

‘I saw that she was, that she was, that she was...' Stuck on that phrase, her voice died away. She looked down at the initial on the table, dug a bit more material out of it, and finally said, That she was interested in my husband.'

'Interested in an improper way?' Brunetti suggested.

'Yes.'

'Was this something that had happened before, that women became interested in your husband?' He thought it might be better to phrase it this way, placing the guilt on the women, at least for the moment, until she was more adjusted to accepting the so-obvious truth.

She nodded, then quickly said, voice too loud and nervous, 'Yes.'

‘Did this happen often?' 'I don't know.'

'Had it happened before with the employees of the Biblioteca?'

‘Yes. The last one.' 'What happened?'

‘I found out. About them. He told me what happened, that she was... well, that she was immoral. I sent her away, back to Geneva, where she came from.'

'And did you find out about Claudia, as well?'

‘Yes.'

'Could you tell me how that happened?'

‘I heard him talking on the phone to her.'

'Did you hear what he was saying?' When she nodded, he asked, 'Did you listen to the conversation or only to his part of it?'

'Only his part. He was in his office, but the door wasn't closed. So I could hear him talking.'

'What did he say?' * That if she wanted to continued to work in the Biblioteca, nothing else would happen.' He watched her going back in time and listening to her husband's part of that conversation. 'He told her that if she would just forget about it and not tell anyone, he promised not to do anything else.'

'And you took that to mean that it was Claudia Leonardo who was bothering your husband?' Brunetti asked, not voicing his scepticism but curious that she could have interpreted his words this way.

'Of course.'

'Do you still think that now?'

Her voice suddenly grew fierce, the linked initials on the table below her forgotten. 'It had to be that way,' she said with tight conviction. 'She was his lover.'

'Who told you that she was his lover?' As he waited for her answer he studied this woman, the restrained frenzy in her hands, recalling the way she had hungrily leaned her breast into the accidental touch of her husband's hand, and an entirely new possibility came to him. 'Did your husband confess that they were lovers, Signora?' he asked in a softer voice.

First came the tears, which surprised him by coming without any emotion registering on her face. 'Yes,' she said, turning her attention back to the table.

Hunting dogs, Brunetti knew, were divided into two general classes: sight hounds and scent hounds. Like one of the second, he was off, racing through the thick, wet grass of an autumn day, leaping over obstacles that had been placed in his path, catching traces of his prey that had previously been obscured by heavier scents. His mind circling, leaping, lurching after its prey, he found himself back again at the starting point, and he asked, 'Whose idea was it to talk to the old woman, Signora, and offer her the chance to clear Guzzardi's name? Was it your husband's?'

She should have been surprised. She should have looked up at him, startled, and asked him what he was talking about. Had she done that, he would not have believed her, but he would have realized how far he still had to go before he hunted her to ground.

Instead, she surprised him by asking, 'How did you know about that?'

'It doesn't matter. But I know. Which of them had the idea?'

'Maxwell,' she said. 'One of the people who wrote a letter of recommendation for Claudia was Signora Jacobs. She'd been a patron of the Biblioteca for some time, always asking about Guzzardi and whether we had ever received any papers that would prove he didn't take those drawings.' She paused and Brunetti resisted the urge to prompt her. 'My father knew him and he said there never would be any proof because he did take them. They'd be worth a fortune now, my father said, but no one knew where they were.'

'No one knew that Signora Jacobs had them?'

'No, of course not. No one ever went to her house, and everyone knew how poor she was.' She paused, then corrected this, 'Or thought she was.'

'How did he find out?' he asked, still careful not to refer directly to her husband.

'Claudia. One day, talking about Signora Jacobs, she said something about the things that were in her house and what a pity it was that no one got to see them except her and the old woman. I think she was the only one who went there.' And the cleaning woman, Brunetti wanted to tell her. And the Somali cleaning woman so honest she was trusted with the keys while the rest of the city was kept away, untrusted and ignorant.

'How do you know about this, Signora?'

‘I heard them talking, my father and Maxwell. They were both so used to ignoring me,' she began, and Brunetti marvelled that she could seem so casually accepting of this, 'that they talked about everything in front of me’

Was the idea of clearing Guzzardi's name a way to get the drawings from her?' Brunetti asked.

‘I think so. Maxwell told Claudia that someone had come to the Biblioteca with papers that showed that Guzzardi was innocent.' He watched as she tried to recall what had been said in front of her.

'Did he suggest that Signora Jacobs give the drawings in exchange?'

'No, all he did was tell Claudia that there was proof that he was innocent and suggest she ask Signora Jacobs what she wanted to do.'

'And?'

‘I don't know what happened. I think Claudia talked to her about it, and I think my father had someone go and talk to the old woman.' She sounded vague and uninterested in this, but then she glanced at him sharply and said. Then I heard him talking to Claudia on the phone’

'And is that when he told you that they were lovers?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes. But he told me that it was over, that he'd ended it. In fact, he slammed the phone down on her that time, told her to be very careful what she told people about him. And he sounded so upset that I made a noise.' She stopped again.

Brunetti waited.

'He came out of his office and saw me, and he asked me what I'd heard. I told him, I told him that I couldn't stand it any more, him and those girls, that I was afraid of what I'd do if he didn't stop.' She nodded her head, no doubt hearing the words again, replaying the jealous scene between her and her husband.

After some time, she went on, That’s when he told me about the way she had tempted him and how he hadn't wanted to do anything. But she'd thrown herself at him. Touched him.' She pronounced the words, 'tempted' and 'thrown' with disgust, but when she said 'touched' she spoke with shock that approached horror. 'And he told me then that he was afraid of what would happen if she came back, that he was a man, and he was weak. That it was me he loved but he didn't know what would happen if this wicked girl tempted him again.'

Seeing how agitated she was becoming, Brunetti decided it would be best to lead her away from these memories for a moment. 'Let me go back to one thing, Signora, to the conversation you heard when you came in. Your husband was telling her that, if she came back to the Biblioteca and didn't tell anyone, he wouldn't do anything else? Is that correct?'

She nodded.

‘I’m sorry to have to remind you, Signora, but you have to speak.' ‘Yes.'

That's what he said?'

'Yes’

'Is it possible that he might have been talking about something else? Have you thought about this?' he asked.

Her look was utterly candid, and she said, 'But that's what he told me he meant. That he would allow her to come back, and if she behaved he wouldn't do anything.'

'Why would he want her to come back?'

She smiled here, having been quicker than he to ask this question and understand the reason. 'He said he didn't want there to be any talk, that he didn't want me to be hurt by what people might say.' She smiled at this proof of her husband's consideration and, ineluctably, love.

‘I see’ Brunetti said. 'But then, when he told you how frightened he was of his weakness, that she could tempt him again, how did you react?'

‘I was proud of him, that he would be so honest with me and that I was worth so much to him. That he would confess to me.'

'Of course’ Brunetti muttered, understanding just what her husband's confession really had meant to achieve and how successful he had been. 'And did he ask you anything?' Brunetti asked. When she seemed reluctant to answer, he changed the words a bit, 'Did he ask for your help?'

That brought a smile. 'Yes. He wanted me to go and talk to her and try to make her agree to stay away from him.'

"Yes, I can see that that would be wise,' Brunetti said, seeing only too well her husband's wisdom in making the request. 'And did you go?'

'Not for a few more nights. I told him I trusted him to be strong. But then, a few days later, he came and told me that she had started again, had ... had touched him again, and he didn't know how long he would be strong.' Again, her voice broke in horror at the girl's behaviour.

'And did he ask you again to go and talk to her?'

'No’ she said. 'He didn't have to. I knew it was what I had to do, to go and tell her to leave him alone and not tempt him.' 'And?'

'And I went that night,' she said, folding her hands in front of her on the table, interlacing her fingers. 'And?' Brunetti asked.

‘You know what happened,' she said with dismissive contempt for this charade.

‘I’m afraid I do, Signora, but you have to say it.'

‘I killed her’ she said, voice tight. 'She let me in and I started to talk to her. I have my pride, so I didn't say that Maxwell had asked me. I told her she'd have to stay away from him.'

'And what happened?'

'She told me that I was wrong, that she had no interest in him, that I had it all backwards and it was Maxwell who was bothering her.' She smiled confidently here. 'But he'd warned me that she'd lie and tell me that, so I was ready for it.'

Then?'

'Then she said things about him, terrible things that I couldn't listen to.' 'What things?'

That she knew that the idea of those papers about Guzzardi was just a way for Maxwell and my father to get money, that she'd told Maxwell she was going to tell Signora Jacobs about it.' She stopped, and Brunetti heard a distinct hardening in her voice as she said, 'And she made up lies about other girls and what people in the Biblioteca said about him.'

'And then?'

'And then she said the idea of sex with him made her sick.' Her tone struck out, even to the edge of doom, and he knew, without her having to tell him, that it was this that had driven her over the edge to violence.

‘The weapon, Signora?'

She was eating an apple. The knife was on the table’ Just like in Tosca, Brunetti thought. He shivered. 'She didn't scream?' he asked.

'No. I think she was too surprised. She had turned away for something, I don't know what, and when she turned around, I did it.'

‘I see,' Brunetti said. He decided not to ask for details: it was more important that the typist outside be given the tape as soon as possible so that a written statement could be prepared for her to sign. But his curiosity got the better of him, and he asked, 'And Signora Jacobs?'

'What about her?' she asked, honestly puzzled.

Instantly Brunetti abandoned the question he was about to ask as well as his suspicion that Signora Jacobs had been murdered.

'I'm afraid it was too much for her’ the woman said and then surprised Brunetti by adding, 'I'm sorry that she died.'

'Are you sorry you killed the girl, Signora?'

She shook her head a number of times in calm, determined denial. 'No, not at all. I'm glad I did it.'

Obviously she had forgotten, or forgiven, her husband's supposed betrayal, just that afternoon, a false betrayal that had catapulted her into her own true self-betrayal.

Suddenly Brunetti's spirit was overcome with the weight of human folly and misery, and he stood, gave the time, said the interview was terminated, and left the room to go and have her confession typed out.

27

Brunetti succeeded in having Signora Ford sign her confession. He stood in the room with the secretary who transcribed it and then took it back to the interview room and to the waiting woman, who signed and dated it. No sooner had she done so than her husband arrived with a lawyer who protested that he had not been present while his client was being questioned. Ford had obviously thought to pull out all of the stops with the professional classes and had brought along a doctor as well; he demanded to see his patient and, after giving her a cursory glance, said that it was necessary that she be hospitalized immediately. The two of them struck Brunetti as looking like a pair of salt and pepper shakers: both tall men and very thin, the doctor had white hair and pale skin, while the lawyer, Filippo Boscaro, had dark hair and a thick black moustache.

Brunetti asked the reason for the hospitalization, and the doctor, who stood in the interview room with a protective hand on Signora Ford's shoulder, said that his patient was obviously suffering from shock and was hardly in a position to answer any questions.

At this, Signora Ford glanced up at him, then at her husband, who knelt beside her, his hands wrapped protectively around hers. 'Don't worry, Eleonora,' he said, I'll take care of you.'

The woman leaned towards him, whispered something Brunetti could not hear. Ford kissed her softly on the cheek and she looked up at Brunetti, her face aglow with vindicated love. Brunetti said nothing, waiting to see what Ford would suggest.

The Library Director got awkwardly to his feet, unable to use his hands, which were still as much the captives as the captors of his wife's. When he was standing, he helped her to her feet and then put a supporting arm around her. Turning to the doctor he said, 'Giulio, will you take her?'

Before the doctor could answer, Brunetti interrupted, 'I'm afraid she can't leave unless a police woman goes along with her.' The doctor, the librarian and the lawyer competed in displaying their umbrage at this, but Brunetti opened the door to the corridor and told the officer standing there to see that a woman officer be sent up immediately.

The lawyer, whom Brunetti recognized but about whom he knew little more than he was a criminal lawyer, said, ‘I hope you realize, Commissario, that anything my client might have said during the time she was here is hardly to be admitted as evidence’

'Evidence of what?' Brunetti asked.

‘I beg your pardon?' the lawyer said.

'Evidence of what?' Brunetti repeated.

At a loss, all the lawyer could think of to say was, 'Of anything.'

'Could it be used as evidence that she had been here, do you think, avocato?' Brunetti asked politely. 'Or perhaps as evidence that she knew what her name was?' Brunetti knew that nothing could come of baiting the lawyer, but still he could not stop himself from offending him.

‘I don't know what you're talking about, Commissario,' Boscaro said, 'but I do think you are deliberately trying to provoke me.'

Brunetti, who was forced to agree with him, turned to the doctor. 'Could you tell me your name, Dottore?' he asked.

'Giulio Rampazzo,' the white-haired man said.

'And you are Signora Ford's regular doctor?'

'I'm a psychiatrist,' Dr Rampazzo said.

'I see,' Brunetti answered. 'And has Signora Ford been a patient of yours for some time?'

Her husband lost his patience here. Tightening his arm around his wife he led her towards the door. ‘I don't see the sense of any of this. I'm taking my wife out of here.'

Brunetti knew better than to oppose him, especially when the man had both a doctor and a lawyer in tow. He was glad, however, to see a uniformed woman officer appear just outside the door. 'Officer, you're to accompany this woman.'

She saluted and said, 'Yes, sir,' without bothering to ask where she was to go with the woman or what she was meant to do in her company.

'Which hospital are you taking her to, Dottore?' Brunetti asked. Rampazzo hunted for an answer, trying not to look at Ford for a clue. Seeing this, Brunetti said, 'I'll have a launch take you to the Ospedale Civile, then.' Nodding to the officer who was still there, he sent him off to call for the launch.

As he walked in front of them down the steps towards the entrance of the Questura, Brunetti thought of the best way to handle this. With a doctor there, insisting that the woman was in shock, Ford would get her out of the Questura; Brunetti knew it was useless to oppose that. But the more normal and peaceful her departure was made to seem, the more weight would be given to the validity of her confession, during which she had certainly remained perfectly calm and coherent.

In front of the building, the police launch was waiting, motor throbbing idly. Brunetti stopped at the door and did not follow them from the building. The same uniformed policeman helped the two women and then the three men on board, then stepped on deck after them. When the launch moved off, Brunetti went back inside to make the phone calls he hoped would ensure that Signora Ford did not escape the bureaucratic labyrinth into which her confession had placed her.

Intermittently during the next months the attention of Venice was focused on that labyrinth and the slothlike progress - if that is not too wildly energetic a word - through it of the cases of Claudia Leonardo's murder and Hedwig Jacobs's possessions. Both had burst upon the public attention like comets, lighting up the front pages of local and national newspapers. All talk of other crimes or complexities was driven to the bottom of the front page by the sensational confession to murder by the daughter of one of the best known notaries in the city and the discovery of a patrimony in paintings and other art pieces in the modest home of a poor old woman.

Speculation ran rife about the first case: jealousy, passion, adultery; as to the second, the purported emotions were more muted: loyalty, love, devotion. Both stories soon shifted with their principals: Signora Ford was returned to her home, and her story moved to the inner pages; Signora Jacobs's story was buried, as she had been buried in the Protestant cemetery, but not before Brunetti had come to regret his error in believing her to have been murdered. Claudia's death had killed her, not Claudia's killer.

The case, sometimes called the Leonardo case and sometimes the Ford case, chugged on. The confession was called into question, accused of being yet another example of the stormtrooper mentality of the authorities, but finally after six months of legal wrangling, was admitted as valid. But by then Doctor Rampazzo and his colleagues had argued that this was a woman driven beyond herself by jealousy. Not only beyond herself, but beyond all possibility of responsibility. Boscaro proved to be a man worthy of his reputation, and no doubt of his fee, by presenting this argument to a board of judges, who declared that Signora Ford was indeed in a position of diminished responsibility when she went to speak to Claudia Leonardo. What had happened then... As Signor Ford had told his wife: human flesh was weak and people did things they did not want to do.

Brunetti, caught up in another case, this time of even more corruption at the Casino, followed Claudia's murder in the papers and by means of his friends in the magistracy, knowing himself helpless to effect any change in the way things would play themselves out.

The objects in the Jacobs case were inventoried again, this time by representatives of the Ministry of the Treasury and the Sovrintendenza delle Belle Arti. Claudia's mother was declared Claudia's legal heir, and that in turn made her heir to Frau Jacobs's possessions. Her continued absence, however, led to the opening of a waiting period of seven years, at the end of which she would be declared legally dead and possession would pass to the state. The paintings and ceramics, and the famous drawings that had, or had not, once belonged to the Swiss Consul and which now did or did not belong to Claudia's mother, all were taken to Rome. There, they were placed in storage and the seven years of the waiting period began to count themselves out.

One night, as they sat in the living room, Paola looked up from her book and said, surprising him, 'Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce.'

'What?' Brunetti asked.

She met his glance, her eyes slightly magnified by the lenses of her reading glasses. 'Nothing, really’ she said. ‘It’s something in a book’

Six months after that, Gianpaolo Filipetto died quietly in his sleep and, having been a parishoner of the church of San Giovanni in Bragora, he was buried there with all the pomp and ceremony due to his advanced years and his stature in the city.

Brunetti arrived late and missed the Requiem Mass, but he was on time to mingle with the people who emerged from the church and stood, respectful and silent, waiting for the coffin and the mourners to appear. Six men carried the dark mahogany coffin, its lid buried under an enormous blanket of red and white roses. The first to emerge from the dimness of the church was the pastor, a man bent under the weight of years almost as heavy as those of Filipetto. Behind him came Filipetto's daughter, released from house arrest to attend the funeral, her right arm held tightly by her husband. Ford had gained weight in the last few months and all but glowed with health and well-being, but she had grown even more angular and stick-like.

Ford kept his eyes on his wife's face as they walked; she kept hers on the ground. The crowd parted in advance of the pallbearers as they made their slow way out into the campo. A man walked quickly into the campo from the direction of the bacino, where the boat that would take the coffin to the cemetery was moored. The man saw the coffin, approached the pastor and had a word with him, and the old priest turned and pointed to Ford. The man signalled to Ford, who left his wife with a soft word and went to talk to him.

Brunetti took this opportunity to approach the woman.

'Signora’ he said as he came up to her.

She looked up, recognized him instantly, but said nothing. Brunetti saw that she had aged more years than months had passed; her cheeks were gaunt hollows on either side of a

withered mouth. It was as though she had become a stranger to sleep.

She looked down and spoke so softly he had to bend to hear what she said, Tell me what you have to tell me before he comes back.' She spoke hurriedly, glancing to the left, where her husband stood talking to the other man.

'Have you read all of the papers in your case, Signora?' he asked.

She nodded.

'Have you read the autopsy report?'

Her eyes widened at this, and then she closed them for an instant. He took that as a yes, but he wanted to hear her say it.

'Have you read it?' 'Yes,' she said.

'Then you know she was a virgin.'

Her mouth opened, and he saw then that she had lost her two bottom front teeth and not bothered to replace them. ‘He told me . . .' she began to say but then stopped, looking anxiously off towards her husband.

'I'm sure he did, Signora’ Brunetti said, and turned away, leaving her to the men in her life