A Venetian Reckoning

by Donna Leon

  "You're receiving our attention now.’

  She pursed her lips in involuntary vexation. 'I had hoped to avoid it’

  'Yet you knew you had left the glasses there?’

  'I knew I lost them that day; but I hoped it was somewhere else.’

  ‘Were you having an affair with him?'

  He watched her weigh this, and then she nodded.

  'How long had it gone on?'

  Three years.’

  ‘Did you have any intention of changing things?' ‘I’m afraid I don't understand your question.’

  'Did you have hopes of marrying him?' 'No. The situation suited me as it was.' 'And what was that situation?' 'We saw one another every few weeks.’ 'And did what?’

  She looked up at him sharply. 'Again, I don't understand your question.'

  'What did you do when you saw him?' 'What is it lovers usually do, Dottor Brunetti?' 'They make love.'

  'Very good, dottore. Yes, they make love, which is what we did.' Brunetti sensed that she was angry, but it didn't seem to him that her anger was directed at, or caused by, his questions. 'Where?' he asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon.'

  'Where did you make love?'

  Her lips tightened and her answer squeezed from between them. 'In bed.'

  'Where?'

  Silence.

  'Where was the bed? Here in Venice or in Padua?'

  ‘In both places.'

  ‘In an apartment or a hotel?'

  Before she could answer, the phone on her desk gave a discreet buzz, and she answered it. She listened for a moment said, 'I'll give you a call this afternoon,' and hung up. The break in the rhythm of the questions had been minimal, but it had been enough to allow her to regain her composure.

  ‘I'm sorry, Commissario, would you repeat your last question?’ she asked.

  He repeated it, knowing that the interruption provided by the phone call had given her enough time to think about the answer she'd given. But he wanted to hear her change it, ‘I asked you where you made love.'

  'Here in my apartment:

  'And in Padua?'

  She feigned confusion. 'What?'

  'In Puma, where did you meet?’

  She gave him a small smile. 'I'm afraid I misunderstood your question. We usually met here.’

  'And how frequently were you able to see one another?'

  Her manner warmed, as it always did just before people began to fie. 'Actually, there really wasn't very much of an affair left, but we Eked one another and were still good friends. So we saw one another for dinner every so often, either here or in Padua.'

  'Do you remember the last time you were together here in Venice?'

  She turned aside and considered how to answer his question. 'Why, no, I don't. I think it must have been some time during the summer.'

  'Are you married, signora?' he asked

  'I'm divorced,’ she answered.

  'Do you five alone?'

  She nodded

  'How did you learn of Signor Favero's death?'

  'I read it in the paper, the morning after it happened.'

  'And didn't call us?'

  'No.'

  'Even though you'd seen him the night before?'

  'Especially because of that. As I explained a moment ago, I have no reason to put my trust in the authorities.’

  In his worst moments, Brunetti suspected that no one did, but that was perhaps an opinion best not revealed to Signora Ceroni.

  "Where do you come from originally, signora?'

  'Yugoslavia. From Mostar.'

  'And how long ago did you come to Italy?’

  'Nine years.’

  'Why did you come?’

  ‘I came originally as a tourist, but then I found work and decided to stay.' 'In Venice?’ 'Yes.’

  'What sort of work did you do?’ he asked, though he knew that this information would be available somewhere in the records of the Ufficio Stranieri.

  'At first, I worked in a bar, but then I got a job in a travel agency. I knew several languages, and so it was easy for me to find work.’

  'And now this?' he asked, waving his hand to encompass the small office in which they sat is it yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  'How long have you owned it?’

  'Three years. It took me more than four yean to save enough money to give a deposit to the old owners. But now it's mine. That's another reason I didn't want any trouble.'

  'Even if you have nothing to hide?'

  'If I might be frank, Commissario, it has never been my experience that agencies of the state pay much attention to whether people have things to hide or not, Quite the contrary, in fact. And because I know nothing about the details of Signor Favero's death, I made the judgement that there was no information I could provide to the police, and so I did not call you.’

  'What did you talk about at dinner that night?'

  She paused and looked aside, thinking back to the evening. 'What friends talk about. His business. Mine. His children.'

  'His wife?'

  Again, she brought her lips together in evident disapproval. 'No, we did not discuss his wife. Neither of us thought that in good taste.'

  'What else did you talk about?'

  'Nothing that I can remember. He talked about buying a new car and didn't know what kind to get, but I couldn't help him there.'

  'Because you don't drive?'

  'No, there's no need for it here, is there?’ she asked with a smile. 'And I know nothing about cars. Like most women.'

  Brunetti wondered why she made this obvious appeal to his male sense of superiority; it seemed out of character in a woman who so easily established her own equality with a man.

  'The waiter in the restaurant where you had dinner said that he showed you some papers during dinner.'

  'Ah, yes. That's when I took out the glasses. I need them for reading.'

  'What were the papers?'

  She paused, either in memory or invention, it was the prospectus for a company he wanted me to invest in. Because the agency is making a profit, he wanted me to start to use the money I made - "put it to work" - those were his words. But I wasn't interested.’

  'Do you remember what sort of company it was?’

  'No, I'm afraid I don't. I don't pay much attention to that sort of thing.' Brunetti doubted this, is it important?' she asked.

  'We found quite a number of files in the trunk of his car,' Brunetti lied, 'and we'd like to get some idea of whether any of them have special importance.'

  He watched as she started to ask about the papers and then changed her mind.

  'Can you remember anything particular about that evening? Did he seem troubled or upset about anything?' It occurred to Brunetti that almost anyone would find it strange that it had taken him so long to get around to this question.

  'He was more quiet than usual, but that could have been because he was working so much. He said a number of times that he was very busy.'

  'Did he mention anything in particular?'

  'No.'

  'And after dinner, where did you go?' 'He drove me to the railway station, and I came back to Venice.' 'Which train?'

  She thought for a moment before answering, it got in about eleven, I think.’

  'The one Trevisan took,’ Brunetti said and saw the name register.

  "The man who was killed last week?’ she asked after a short pause.

  'Yes. Did you know him?’ Brunetti asked.

  'He was a client here. We handled his travel arrangements, for himself and for the people who worked for him.'

  'Strange, isn't it?' Brunetti asked. 'Isn't what strange?'

  "That two men you know should the in the same week.'

  Her voice was cool, uninterested. 'No, I don't find it particularly strange, commissario. Certainly, you don't mean to suggest there's some sort of connection between the two.'

  Instead of answering her question, he got to his feet. Thank you for your time, Signora C
eroni,' he said, reaching across the desk to shake her hand.

  She stood and came around the desk, moving gracefully. 'It is I who should thank you for having taken the trouble to return my glasses to me.'

  'It was our duty,' he said,

  'None the less, I thank you for taking the trouble.' She went with him to the door, opened it, and allowed him to pass in front of her to the outer office. The young woman still sat at the desk, and a long sheet of tickets hung suspended from the printer. Signora Ceroni walked with him to the front door of the agency. He opened it, turned and shook hands again, and men headed back up towards home. Signora Ceroni stood in front of the beach until he turned the corner and disappeared.

  24

  When he arrived at the Questura, Brunetti stopped first in Signorina Elettra's office and dictated the letter to Giorgio — he couldn't help thinking of him that way now - in which he apologized for what he called clerical inaccuracies on the part of the Questura. The letter would suffice, he hoped, for Giorgio s fiancee and her family while at the same time remaining sufficiently vague so as not to commit him to having actually done anything.

  'He’ll be very glad to get this,' Signorina Elettra said, looking down at the page of shorthand notes on her desk.

  'And the record of his arrest?’ Brunetti asked.

  She glanced up at him, eyes two limpid pools. 'Arrest?’ She took a sheaf of computer print-out from beside her pad and passed it across to Brunetti. 'Your letter ought to pay him back for this.'

  'The numbers in Favero's book?' he asked.

  The very same,' she said, unable to disguise her pride.

  He smiled, her pleasure immediately contagious. 'Have you looked at it?’ he asked.

  'Just briefly. He's got names, addresses, and I think he's managed to get the dates and times of all calls going through to all of those numbers from any phones in Venice or Padua.'

  'How does he do it?' Brunetti asked, voice reverent with the awe he felt at Giorgio s ability to pry information from SIP; the files of the secret services were easier to penetrate.

  'He went to school in the United States for a year, to study computers, and while he was there, he joined a group of something called “hackers". He keeps in touch with them, and they trade information about how to do things like this.'

  'Does he do this at work, using the SIP lines?' Brunetti asked, his awe and gratitude so strong as to erase the fact that what Giorgio did was probably illegal.

  'Of course.’ .

  'Bless him,' Brunetti said with all the fervour of a person whose phone bill for any given period never corresponded to the use given the phone.

  "They're all over the world, these "hackers",' Signorina Elettra added, 'and I don't think there's much that can be hidden from them. He told me he contacted people in Hungary and Cuba to do this. And someplace else. Do they have phones in Laos?'

  He was no longer listening but was reading down through the long columns of times and dates, of places and names. Patta's name, however, broke through: '... wants to see you'.

  'Later,' he said and left her office, going back to his own, reading all the way. Inside, he closed the door and went over to stand in the light coming through the window. He stood there, poised like a Roman senator of the time of the Caesars, hands spread wide, slowly studying a long report from the far-flung cities of the Empire. This one did not deal with troop disposition or the shipment of spices and oil. Instead, it told only when two relatively inconspicuous Italians might have called and spoken to people in Bangkok, the Dominican Republic, Belgrade, Manila, and a handful of other cities, but it was no less interesting for that. Pencilled in the margin of the sheets were the locations of the public call boxes from which some of the calls were made. Though some of the calls were made from the offices of both Trevisan and Favero, many more were made from a public phone on the same street as Favero s office in Padua and still more from another one located in a small calle that ran behind Trevisan's office.

  At the bottom, Brunetti read the names under which the phones were listed. Three, including the one in Belgrade, belonged to travel agencies, and the Manila number belonged to a company named Euro-Employ. At the name, all of the events since Trevisan's death turned into shards of coloured glass in an immense kaleidoscope seen only by Brunetti. And this single name was the final turn of the cylinder that jogged the separate pieces and forced them into a pattern. It was not yet complete, not yet fully in focus, but it was there, and Brunetti understood.

  He pulled his address book from his desk drawer, rifling through the pages for the phone number of Roberto Linchianko, a lieutenant-colonel in the Philippine military police, a man who had attended a two-week police seminar in Lyons three years ago and with whom Brunetti had formed a friendship that had lasted since then, though their only communication had been by phone and tax.

  His buzzer rang. He ignored it and picked up the phone, got an outside line, and dialled Linchianko's home phone number, though he had no idea at all what time it was in Manila. Six hours ahead, as it turned out, which meant he caught Linchianko just as he was about to go to bed. Yes, he knew Euro-Employ. His disgust came down the wire, leaping across the oceans. Euro-Employ was only one of the agencies engaged in the trade of young women, and it was hardly the worst. All of the papers the women signed before they went off to 'work’ in Europe were entirely legal. The fact that the papers were signed by the 'X' of an illiterate or by a woman that didn't speak the language of the contract in no way compromised their legality, though none of the women who managed to return to the Philippines thought or sought to bring a legal claim against the agency. In any case, so far as Linchianko knew, very few returned. As to how many were sent, he estimated that there were between fifty and a hundred a week, just from Euro-Employ, and named the agency that booked their tickets, a name already familiar to Brunetti from its presence on the list. Before he hung up, Linchianko promised to fax Brunetti the official police file on both Euro-Employ and the travel agency as well as the personnel files he had kept for years on all of the employment agencies working in Manila.

  Brunetd had no personal contacts in any of the other cities on the list from SIP, but what he learned from Linchianko was more than enough to tell him what he would find there.

  In all of his reading of Roman and Greek history, one of the things that had always puzzled Brunetti was the ease with which the ancients had accepted slavery. The rules of war were different then, he knew, as had been the economic basis of the society, and so slaves were both available and necessary. Perhaps it was a possibility that it might happen to you. should your country lose a war, that made the idea acceptable - no more than a spin of the wheel of fate could make you a slave or master. But no one had spoken against it, not Plato and not Socrates, or, if anyone had, what they said and wrote had not survived.

  And today, to the best of his knowledge, no one spoke against it, either, but today the silence was based on the belief that slavery had ceased to exist. He had listened to Paola voice her radical politics for decades, had grown almost deaf to her hurling about terms like 'wage slave' and 'economic chains', but now those cliches rose up to haunt him, for what Linchianko had described to him could be given no other name but slavery.

  The full flood of his interior rhetoric was cut off by the repeated buzz of the intercom on his desk. 'Yes, sir,' he said as he picked it up. 'I'd like to talk to you,' said a disgrunded Patta.

  ‘I’ll be right down.'

  Signorina Elettra was no longer at her desk when Brunetti went downstairs, so he went into Patta's office with no idea of what to expect, not that the possibilities were ever more than a few: after all, how many manifestations could displeasure take?

  Today, he was to learn that he was not the target of Patta's dissatisfaction, only the means by which it was to be conveyed to the lower orders, its that sergeant of yours,' Patta began after telling Brunetti to take a seat.

  ‘Vianello?'

  ‘Yes.'

  ‘W
hat do you think he's done?' Brunetti asked, not conscious until after he had spoken of the scepticism implicit in his question.

  Patta did not overlook it. ‘I think he's been abusive to one of the patrolmen.’

  ‘Riverre?' Brunetti asked.

  'Then you've heard about it and done nothing?' Patta asked.

  ‘No, I've heard nothing. But if there's anyone who deserves abuse, it's Riverre.’

  Patta threw up his hands in a visible manifestation of his irritation, ‘I've had a complaint from one of the officers.'

  'Lieutenant Scarpa?' Brunetti asked, unable to disguise his dislike for the Sicilian who had come up to Venice with his patron, the Vice-Questore, and who served as much as spy as assistant.

  'It's not important who made the complaint. What is important is that it was made.'

  'Was it an official complaint?' Brunetti asked

  'That's irrelevant,' Patta said with swift anger. With Patta, anything he didn't want to hear was irrelevant, regardless of its truth. ‘I don't want any trouble with the unions. They won't put up with this sort of thing.'

  Brunetti, disgusted with this latest example of Patta's cowardice, came close to asking him if there were any threat before which he would not bow down, but he cautioned himself, yet once again, against the rage of fools and, instead, said, 'I'll speak to them.'

  'Them?'

  'Lieutenant Scarpa, Sergeant Vianello, and Officer Riverre.'

  Patta came close, he could tell, to objecting to this, but then, no doubt realizing that the problem, even if not solved, was at least out of his hands, said instead, 'And this Trevisan thing?'

  ‘We're working on it, sir.'

  'Any progress?'

  'Very little.' At least none he wanted to discuss with Patta.

  'Well, take care of this problem with Vianello. Let me know what happens.' Patta turned his attention back to the papers in front of him, his equivalent of a polite dismissal.

  Signorina Elettra was no longer at her desk, so Brunetti went down to Vianello's office, where he found the sergeant reading that day's Gazzettino.