A Venetian Reckoning

by Donna Leon

  He nodded. 'I'm afraid so, Chiara.’

  'Why?' Chiara asked, voice as filled with confusion as horror.

  His mind flew up and away from the room. He tried to think noble thoughts, tried to think of something to say that would assure his child, convince her that, however wicked what she had seen, the world was a place where things like that were random, and humanity remained good by instinct and impulse.

  'Why, Papa? Why would they do that?'

  ‘I don't know, Chiara.’ 'But they really killed her?’ she asked. 'Don't talk about it,' Paola interrupted her and bent to kiss the side of her head, pulling her closer. ' Undeterred, Chiara repeated, 'Did they, Papa?' 'Yes, Chiara.' 'She really died?'

  Paola looked up at him, trying to silence him with her eyes, but he answered, 'Yes, Chiara, she really died.'

  Chiara pulled the battered dog on to her lap and stared down at it

  'Who gave you the tape, Chiara?' he asked.

  She pulled at one of the dog's long ears, but not roughly, remembering that this was the one that was ripped. 'Francesca,’ she finally answered. 'She gave it to me before class this morning.’

  'Did she say anything about it?'

  She picked up the dog and held it, standing upright, on her lap. Finally she answered, 'She said she'd heard I was asking questions about her because of what happened to her father. She thought I was doing it for you because you're a cop. And then she told me to look at the tape if I wanted to see why someone might want to kill her father.' She tilted the dog from side to side and made it walk towards her.

  'Did she say anything else, Chiara?'

  'No, Papa, just that'

  'Do you know where she got the tape?’

  'No. That's all she said, that it would show why someone would want to kill her father. But what does Francesca's father have to do with that?'

  ‘I don't know.’

  Paola stood, so abruptly that Chiara let go of the beagle and it fell to the floor. Paola bent and snatched it up with one hand and stood holding it for a moment, clutching the tattered thing in a death grip. Then, very slowly, she bent down and returned it to Chiara's lap, ran her hand across the top of her daughters head, and left the room.

  ‘Who were they, Papi?’

  'I think they were Serbs, but I'm not sure. Someone who knows the language will have to listen to them, and then we'll know.’

  'What will you do about it, Papa? Will you arrest them and send them to prison?’

  ‘I don't know, darling. It won't be easy to find them.'

  'But they should go to prison, shouldn't they?'

  'Yes.'

  'What do you think Francesca meant about her father?' A possibility occurred to Chiara and she asked, 'That wasn't him holding the camera, was it?'

  'No, I'm sure it wasn't,'

  "Then what did she mean?'

  'I don't know. That's what I have to find out’ He watched her try to tie the dog's ears together. 'Chiara?'

  'Yes, Papa?' She looked up at him, certain that he would say something that would make it all right that would fix it and make it be as though it hadn't happened.

  'I think you better not talk to Francesca any more.' 'And not ask any more questions?' 'No, not that either.'

  She absorbed this, then asked hesitantly, 'You're not mad at me, are you?'

  Brunetti stooped down beside the bed. 'No, I'm not mad at you at all.' He wasn't sure if he could control his voice and so paused a moment, then said, pointing to the dog, 'Be careful you don't pull Bark's ear oft?

  'He's a silly dog, isn't he?' Chiara asked. 'Whoever heard of a dog with bald spots?'

  Brunetti rubbed a finger across the dog's nose. 'Most dogs don't get chewed, Chiara.'

  She smiled at that and swung her legs out from under the covers, ‘I think I better do my homework now,' she said, standing up.

  'All right. I'll go talk to your mother.'

  'Papa?' she said as he went towards the door.

  'Hum?' he asked.

  'Mamma's not mad at me, either, is she?'

  'Chiara,' he answered, voice not entirely steady, 'you are our greatest joy.' Before she could say anything, he deepened his voice and added, 'Now do your homework.' Brunetti waited to see her smile before he left the room.

  In the kitchen, Paola stood at the sink, whirling something around in the vegetable centrifuge. When he came in, she looked up and said, "The whole world could fall down, and still we'd have to have dinner, I suppose.' He was relieved to see her smile when she said it. 'Chiara all right?'

  Brunetti shrugged. 'She's doing her homework. I don't know how she is. What do you think? You know her better than I do.'

  She took her hand off me knob that spun the centrifuge and looked at hint. The whirring sound filled the room, and when it slowed to a stop, she asked, 'Do you really believe that?'

  'Believe what?'

  That I know her better than you do?' 'You're her mother,' Brunetti said, as if that would explain it

  'Oh, Guido, you're such a goose at times. If you were a coin, Chiara would be the other side.’

  Hearing Paola say that made him feel, strangely enough, very tired. He pulled one of the chairs out and sat down at the table. 'Who knows? She's young. Maybe she'll forget'

  'will you?' Paola asked, coming to sit opposite him.

  Brunetti shook his head, I’ll forget the details of the film, but I’ll never forget that I saw it, never forget what it means.'

  That's what I don't understand,' Paola said. 'Why would anyone want to see such a thing? It's obscene.' She paused a moment and then added, voice filled with surprise at finding herself using such a term, it's evil. That's what's so horrible about it: I feel as though I'd looked through a window and seen human evil looking back at me.' After a moment she asked, 'Guido, how could those men do that? How could they do that and continue to think of themselves as human?'

  Brunetti never had answers to what he thought of as Big Questions. Instead of trying, he posed his own, 'What about the cameraman, and what abort the people who will pay to watch it?'

  'Pay?' Paola asked. 'Pay?’

  Brunetti nodded, ‘I think that's what this is, a video made to be sold. The Americans call them "snuff films". People really get killed. I've read about them. Interpol had a report a few months ago. They found some in America, in Los Angeles, I think. In a film studio, they were being reproduced and then sold.'

  'Where do they come from?' Paola asked, her astonishment now replaced by horror.

  'You saw the men, in uniforms. I think it was Serbo-Croat they spoke.'

  'Jesus help us all,' Paola whispered. 'And that poor woman.' She covered her mouth with one hand. 'Guido, Guido.'

  He got to his feet, ‘I have to go talk to her mother again,' he said.

  'Did she know?'

  Brunetti had no idea; he knew only that he was tired, tired to the point of pain, with Signora Trevisan and her barely concealed contempt and her protestations of ignorance. He suspected that, if Francesca had given the tape to Chiara, then the girl was far clearer than her mother on separating fact from fiction. When he thought that the girl must have known what was on the tape, he was filled with a horror of the unclean at the thought of having to question her, but all he had to do was summon up the memory of the look in the woman's eyes when she opened them and saw the camera lens staring down at her, and he knew that he would hound the girl and her mother to the fiery pit itself to find out what they knew.

  26

  Signora Trevisan backed away from Brunetti the instant she opened the door, as if responding to some refulgent ferocity that expanded out and filled the air around him. He stepped into the apartment and slammed the door closed behind him, almost glad to see her flinch away from the sharp sound it made.

  'No more, Signora,’ Brunetti said. 'No more evasions and no more lies about what you knew and didn't know.'

  ‘I don't know what you're talking about,' she said, pumping up her voice with an anger so patently fals
e that it could not cover the fear that lurked there. 'I've spoken to you once already, and...'

  'And lied and lied and done nothing but lie to me,' Brunetti said, letting his anger rise. 'No more lies, or I'll have you and your lover down at the Questura and the Guardia di Finanza going over every bank transaction you've made for the last ten years.' He took a step towards her, and she backed away from him, putting one hand out in front of her to push back his rage.

  'I still don't know...' she began, but Brunetti cut her off with a hand thrust up so savagely that it succeeded in scaring even himself.

  'Don't even think about lying to me, signora. My daughter's seen the tape, the one from Bosnia.' He raised his voice above whatever protest it was she started to make. 'My daughter's fourteen, and she's seen that tape.' Relendessly, as she backed away from him, he followed her down the hall. 'You will tell me everything you know about this, no lies, none, or you will regret it every one of your living days.'

  She looked at him, eyes as terrified, he realized, as the woman in the tape's had been, but even that resemblance left him cold.

  Not the jaws, nothing more sinister than a door, opened behind her, and her daughter's head popped out. 'What is it, Mamma?' Francesca asked and men looked at Brunetti. She recognized him instantly but said nothing.

  'Go back in your room, Francesca,' her mother said, amazing Brunetti by the coolness of her voice. 'Commissario Brunetti has to ask a few more questions.'

  'About Papi and Zio Ubaldo?' she asked, making no attempt to disguise her interest.

  'I said I'd talk to him, Francesca.'

  'I'm sure you will,' the girl said and went back into her room, closing her door quietly.

  In the same calm voice, Signora Trevisan said, 'All right,' and turned towards the room in which their previous interviews had taken place.

  Inside, she sat, but Brunetti remained standing, moving uneasily from foot to foot while she spoke or taking short steps back and forth, too torn by emotion to remain still.

  'What do you want to know?' she asked as soon as she was seated.

  "The films.'

  "They're made in Bosnia. Sarajevo, I think.' 'I know that.'

  "Then what do you want to know?' she asked, feigning ignorance, but doing it badly.

  'Signora,' he said, standing still for a moment, 'I am warning you that I will destroy you if you don't tell me what I want to know.' He watched the tone register. "The tapes. Tell me.'

  She adjusted her voice and managed to sound, now, like a hostess who has been much put upon by a particularly fractious guest, "They're made there, and then some are sent to France, where they're reproduced. Others go to the United States, and the same thing happens there. Then they're sold.'

  ‘Where?'

  'In shops. Or through the mails. There are lists.' 'Who has these lists?' 'The distributors.’ 'And who are they?'

  'I don't know their names. The master films get sent to postboxes in Marseilles and Los Angeles.'

  'Who makes the originals?'

  'Someone in Sarajevo. I think he works for the Serbian army, but I'm not sure.’

  'Did your husband know who he is?' He saw her begin to answer and added, 'I want the truth, signora.’

  'Yes, he knew.'

  'Whose idea was it to make these films?'

  ‘I don't know. I think Carlo might have seen one. He liked things like that. And then I think the idea came to him to distribute them. He was already distributing other things through the mail and in shops in Germany.'

  "What things?'

  'Magazines.'

  'What sort of magazines?' 'Pornographic'

  'Signora, pornographic magazines are available on every news-stand in this city. What sort of pornography?'

  Her voice was so low that he had to lean forward to hear it 'Children.' She said nothing else, only the one word.

  Brunetti said nothing, waiting for her to continue. 'Carlo said that there was nothing illegal about it' It took Brunetti a moment to realize that she was serious.

  'How did your daughter come by this film?'

  'Carlo kept the master tapes in his study. He liked to watch the new ones before he had them sent off? Her voice grew sharp with disapproval as she said, ‘I suppose she got in there and took one. It never would have happened if Carlo were still here.'

  Brunetti did not presume to interfere with a widow's grief and so asked, instead, 'How many tapes have there been?'

  'Oh, I don't know. A dozen or so, perhaps twenty.' 'All the same?'

  ‘I don't know. I have no idea what you mean by "the same".'

  'Tapes in which women are raped and murdered'

  She gave him a look rich with disgust at his daring to speak of such ug’y things, ‘I think so’

  'You think so or you know so?'

  ‘I suppose I know so.'

  'Who else was involved in this?'

  Her answer was immediate, ‘I wasn't involved.'

  'Aside from your husband and your brother, who else was involved?'

  'I think that man in Padua.'

  'Favero?'

  'Yes.'

  'Who else?'

  'With the tapes, no one else that I know of? 'And with the other thing, with the prostitutes, who else?'

  ‘I think there was a woman. I don't know who she was, but I know Carlo used her to help transfer new girls.' Brunetti heard how naturally she answered his questions about 'the girls', so casually admitting to full knowledge of her husband's traffic in prostitutes.

  'From where?’

  'All over. I don't know.'

  ‘Who was she?'

  ‘I don't know. They said very little about her,'

  'What did they say?’

  'Nothing, nothing.'

  'What did they say about her?’

  ‘I don't remember. Ubaldo said something once, I think, but I really don't remember.' 'What did he say?'

  'He called her "The Slav", but I don't know what he meant'

  ‘To Brunetti, it seemed clear what he had meant. 'Was she a Slav?'

  She lowered her voice and looked away from him before she answered, ‘I think so.'

  'Who is she? Where does she live?'

  He watched her weigh this question before she answered, watched her try to predict how much trouble an honest answer would cost her. He wheeled away from her and took two steps, then as suddenly wheeled again and came to stand in front of her. 'Where is she?'

  ‘I think she lives here.'

  ‘In Venice?'

  'Yes.'

  'What else do you know?' 'She has a job.'

  'Signora, most people have jobs. What is hers?'

  'She arranges, that is, she arranged Ubaldo's and Carlo's flights’

  'Signora Ceroni?' Brunetti asked, surprising Signora Trevisan by his question.

  ‘I think so.'

  'What else did she do for them?'

  ‘I don't know,' she said, but before he could move any closer to her, she said, ‘I really don't know. I heard them talk to her on the phone a few times.'

  'About plane tickets?' he asked, making no attempt to disguise his sarcasm.

  'No, about other things. Girls. Money.' 'Do you know her?’ 'No, I've never met her.'

  'Did you ever hear her name used when they talked about the tapes?'

  'They never talked about the tapes. Not really. They just said things, and I understood what they meant'

  He didn't bother to contradict her, certain as he was that this was going to become the truth around which her future would be constructed — to suspect is not to know, and if you don't know, men you aren't responsible, not in any real way, for what happens. His certainty grew so strong that Brunetti's soul sickened with it, and he knew he could no longer stay in the same room with this woman. With no explanation, he turned and left her, dosing the door behind him. He could not bear the thought of speaking to the girl, and so he left the apartment, left them bom there to begin constructing a convenient future.

  The dar
kness and cold into which Brunetti emerged served to quiet him. He looked down at his watch and saw that it was after nine. He should be both hungry and thirsty, he knew, but his rage had driven both from him.

  He couldn't remember the home address that they had got for Signora Ceroid beyond that it was in San Vio and that, when he had seen it he had wondered how close it would be to the Church of La Salute. He checked it in a phone book in a bar and took the No. 1 boat across the Grand Canal to the Salute stop. He round the house not only near the church, but looking out at it from the other side of the small canal that ran along the side of the church. Her name was on the bell. He rang it and, after a minute or so, heard a woman's voice asking who it was. He gave his name and, with no further questions, she buzzed him in.

  He paid no attention to the hallway, to the stairs, or to what sort of greeting she gave him at the door. She led him into a large living room, one wall of which was covered with books. Soft lighting glowed down from lights that must have been concealed behind the beams that ran across the ceiling. None of this interested him. Nor her loveliness nor the soft elegance of her clothing.

  'You didn't tell me you knew Carlo Trevisan,' he said when they were seated facing one another.

  ‘I told you he was a client of mine.’ As he forced himself to calm down, he began to take notice of her, of the beige dress, the carefully combed hair, the silver buckles on her shoes.

  'Signora,' Brunetti said with a weary shake of his head, 'I'm not talking about his being a client of yours. I'm talking about your being in business with him or working for him.'

  She tilted her chin up and, mouth slightly ajar, stared off to one side of the room, as if he'd asked her to make a difficult decision. After what seemed a long time, she spoke, ‘I told you, the last time we spoke, that I do not want to become involved with the authorities.'

  'And I told you that you already are.'

  'So it seems,’ she said without humour. 'What did you do for Signor Trevisan?' if you know that I worked for him, then you probably have no need to ask me that.'