by Donna Leon
Brunetti walked past the sergeant, signalling with his head that he was to follow and leading him down the corridor into his office. As he put his overcoat into the armadio, Brunetti asked, ‘What did she say?’
‘That they fought.’
Thinking of his own marriage, Brunetti answered, ‘Lots of people fight.’
‘He beat her.’
‘How does the woman know that?’ Brunetti asked with immediate curiosity.
‘She said the wife used to come down to her apartment and cry about it.’
‘Did she ever call the police?’
‘Who?’
‘The wife. Signora Iacovantuono.’
‘I don’t know. I just spoke to this woman,’ Vianello began, looking down at a slip of paper in his hand, ‘Signora Grassi, ten minutes ago. I was just hanging up when you came in. She said he’s pretty well known in the area, in the building.’
‘For what?’
‘Causing trouble with the neighbours. Yelling at their children.’
‘And the business with the wife?’ Brunetti asked, going to sit behind his desk. As he spoke, he pulled a small pile of papers and envelopes towards him, but did not begin to look at them.
‘I don’t know. Not yet. There’s been no time to talk to anyone.’
‘It’s not in our jurisdiction,’ Brunetti said.
‘I know. But Pucetti said they were bringing him in this morning to talk to the Vice-Questore about the bank robbery.’
‘Yes. I saw him.’ Brunetti looked down at the envelope on the top of the pile and stared at the stamp, so distracted by what Vianello had just told him that all he could perceive was a pale-green rectangle. Slowly, the pattern emerged: a Gaulish soldier, his expiring wife at his feet, the sword plunged deeply into his own body. ‘Roma Museo Nazionale Romano’ on one side, ‘Galatea Suicida’ on the other. And across the bottom, the number ‘750’.
‘Insurance?’ Brunetti finally asked.
‘I don’t know, sir. I just now took the call.’
Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and ask him,’ he said and left the office alone, heading for the stairs that would take him down to Vice-Questore Patta’s office.
The outer room was empty and small toasters flew softly across the screen of Signorina Elettra’s computer. Brunetti knocked on Patta’s door and was told to enter.
Inside, there was a familiar enough scene: Patta sat behind his desk, its surface empty and all the more intimidating for that. Iacovantuono sat nervously on the edge of the chair that faced Patta, his hands wrapped around the sides of the seat and his elbows locked straight, propping up his weight.
Patta looked up at Brunetti, face impassive. ‘Yes?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’
‘I’d like to ask Signor Iacovantuono something,’ Brunetti answered.
‘I think you’ll be wasting your time, Commissario,’ Patta said. Then, voice rising, he added, ‘Just as I’ve been wasting mine. Signor Iacovantuono seems to have forgotten what happened in the bank.’ Patta leaned forward - loomed might be a more accurate word - across his desk and brought his fist down on its surface, not hard, but with enough force to break the fist open and leave four fingers pointing at Iacovantuono.
When the cook didn’t respond at all, Patta glanced back at Brunetti. ‘What is it you want to ask him, Commissario? Whether he remembers seeing Stefano Gentile in the bank? Whether he remembers the first description he gave us? Or remembers identifying Gentile’s photo when he saw it?’ Patta reared back in his chair, his hand in the air in front of him, fingers still pointing at Iacovantuono. ‘No, I don’t think he remembers any of that. So I suggest you don’t waste your time asking him.’
‘That’s not what I wanted to ask him about, sir,’ Brunetti said, his soft tone in strange dissonance to Patta’s histrionic anger.
Iacovantuono turned to look at Brunetti.
‘Well, what is it?’ Patta demanded.
‘I wanted to know,’ Brunetti began, addressing Iacovantuono and ignoring Patta completely, ‘if your wife was insured.’
Iacovantuono’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. ‘Insured?’ he asked.
Brunetti nodded. ‘Life insurance.’
Iacovantuono looked back at Patta but, seeing no help there, he returned his attention to Brunetti. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ Brunetti turned to leave.
‘Is that all?’ Patta asked angrily from behind him.
‘Yes, sir,’ Brunetti said, turning to Patta but looking at Iacovantuono. The man was still perched on the edge of his chair, but now his hands were clasped in his lap. His head was lowered and he seemed to be examining his hands.
Brunetti turned back to the door and let himself out. The toasters continued in their endless migration to the right technological lemmings bent on their own destruction.
He went back up to his office and found Vianello waiting for him, standing at the window and looking out at the garden on the other side of the canal and to the fa ç ade of the church of San Lorenzo. The sergeant turned when he heard the door open. ‘And?’ he asked as Brunetti came in.
‘I asked about the insurance.’
‘And?’ Vianello repeated.
‘He didn’t know.’ Vianello made no comment, so Brunetti asked, ‘Does Nadia have an insurance policy?’
‘No.’ Then, after a moment’s pause, Vianello added, ‘At least I don’t think so.’ Both considered this, then Vianello enquired, ‘What will you do?’
‘The only thing I can do is tell the people in Treviso.’ It struck him then. ‘Why would she call us?’ he asked, suddenly turning to Vianello, one hand raised halfway to his mouth.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why would the neighbour call the police in Venice? The woman died in Treviso.’ Brunetti suddenly found himself blushing. Of course, of course. Iacovantuono’s reputation needed to be blackened only in Venice: if he decided to testify, that’s where he was going to do it. Were they watching him so closely that they knew when the police brought him in? Or, worse, did they know when the police were going to do it? ‘Gesù bambino,’ he whispered. ‘What did she say her name was?’
‘Grassi,’ Vianello answered.
Brunetti picked up the phone and asked to be connected to the police in Treviso. When he was put through, he identified himself and asked to talk to the person who was in charge of investigating the Iacovantuono case. It took a few minutes before the man he spoke to told him that it had been filed as an accidental death.
‘Do you have the name of the man who reported finding the body?’
The phone was put down for a while, then the officer was back. ‘Zanetti,’ he said. ‘Walter Zanetti.’
‘Who else lives in the building?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Only the two families, sir. The Iacovantuonos live on the top floor, the Zanettis below.’
‘Does anyone named Grassi live there?’
‘No. Only those two families. Why do you ask?’
‘It’s nothing, nothing. We had a mix-up here with our records, couldn’t find Zanetti’s name. That’s all we need. Thank you for your help.’
‘Glad to do it, sir,’ the policeman said and hung up.
Before Brunetti could explain, Vianello asked, ‘She doesn’t exist?’
‘If she does, she doesn’t live in that building.’
Vianello considered this for a while, then enquired, ‘What do we do about it, sir?’
‘Tell Treviso.’
‘You think it happened there?’
‘The leak?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew Vianello couldn’t mean anything else.
Vianello nodded.
‘There or here. It doesn’t matter where. It’s enough that it happened.’
‘It doesn’t mean they knew he was coming in here today.’
‘Then why call?’ Brunetti demanded.
‘Just to plant the idea. In case.’
Brunetti shook his head. ‘No. The timing’s too good.
For God’s sake, he was coming into the building when you got the call.’ Brunetti hesitated for a moment, then he said, ‘Who did they ask for?’
‘The operator said they wanted to talk to the person who had gone up to Treviso to talk to him. I think he tried you and when you weren’t there he put the call through to us. Pucetti gave it to me because I was the one who went to Treviso with you.’
‘How did she sound?’
Vianello cast his mind back to the conversation. ‘Worried, like she didn’t want to cause him trouble. She said that once or twice, that he had suffered enough, but she had to tell us what she knew.’
‘Very civic-minded.’
‘Yes.’
Brunetti went over to the window and looked down at the canal and at the police boats nestling up against the dock in front of the Questura. He remembered the look on Iacovantuono’s face when he’d asked him about the insurance and he felt his face grow red again. He’d reacted like a child with a new toy, running off at the first impulse, not pausing long enough to reflect or to check the information they did have available to them. He knew it was by now standard policy to suspect the spouse in any case of suspicious death, but he should have trusted his instinct about Iacovantuono, should have played his memory back across his halting voice, his palpitant fear for his children. He should have trusted that and not gone snapping wildly at the first accusation that came springing out of the quiet air.
There was no way he could apologize to the pizzaiolo because any explanation would only increase his own guilt and embarrassment. ‘Any chance of tracing the call?’ he asked.
‘There was noise in the background. Sounded like street noise. I’d guess it was made from a phone booth,’ Vianello said.
If they were smart enough to make the call - or well-informed enough, a cold voice added in Brunetti’s mind - then they would be careful enough to make it from a public phone. ‘Then that’s all, I suppose.’ He lowered himself into his chair, suddenly feeling very tired.
Without bothering to say anything, Vianello left the office and Brunetti addressed himself to the papers on his desk.
He began to read a fax from a colleague in Amsterdam, inquiring if there was any chance that Brunetti could speed up a request from the Dutch police for information about an Italian who had been arrested there for killing a prostitute. Because the man’s passport gave his permanent address as Venice, the Dutch authorities had contacted the police of that city to learn if he had any previous convictions. The original request had been sent more than a month ago and so far no answer had been received.
Brunetti’s hand was just reaching to call down to see if the man had a record when the phone rang... and it began. He had, in a sense, known it was going to happen, had even tried to prepare himself for it by thinking of a strategy with which to deal with the press. But even though he had done this, he was still completely surprised by it when it came.
At the beginning, the journalist, one he knew, one who worked for Il Gazzettino, said that he was calling to check on a report that Commissario Brunetti had resigned from the police. When Brunetti said that this came as a complete surprise to him, that he had never thought of resigning, the journalist, Piero Lembo, asked how he planned, then, to deal with his wife’s arrest and the conflicts it created between her situation and his position.
Brunetti answered that as he was in no way involved in the case, he saw no possibility of a conflict.
‘But certainly you’ve got friends at the Questura,’ Lembo said, though he managed at the same time to sound sceptical about the likelihood of that. ‘Friends in the magistratura. Wouldn’t that affect their judgement or the decisions they make?’
‘I think that’s unlikely,’ Brunetti lied. ‘Besides, there’s no reason to believe there will be a trial.’
‘Why not?’ Lembo demanded.
‘A trial usually attempts to determine guilt or innocence. That’s not in question here. I think there will be a judicial hearing and a fine.’
‘And then what?’
‘I’m not sure I understand your question, Signor Lembo,’ Brunetti said, looking out of the windows of his office, where a pigeon was just landing on the roof of the building across the canal.
‘What will happen when the fine is imposed?’
‘That’s a question I cannot answer.’
‘Why not?’
‘Any fine will be imposed on my wife, not on me.’ He wondered how many times he would have to make this same reply.
‘And what is your opinion of her crime?’
‘I have no opinion.’ At least not one he was going to give to the press.
‘I find that strange,’ Lembo said and added, as if the use of his title would loosen Brunetti’s tongue, ‘Commissario.’
‘As you will.’ Then, in a louder voice, Brunetti said, ‘If you have no further questions, Signor Lembo, I’ll wish you a good afternoon,’ and replaced the phone. He waited long enough for the line to be cut and picked it up, dialling the switchboard. ‘No more calls for me today,’ he said and hung up.
He called down to the clerk in the records office and gave the name of the man in Amsterdam, asking that they check to see if he had a file and, if so, to fax it to the Dutch police immediately. He expected to have to listen to a protest about the enormous load of work, but none came. Instead, he was told it would go out that afternoon, assuming, of course, that the man did prove to have a criminal record.
Brunetti spent the rest of the morning answering his mail and writing reports on two cases he was conducting at the moment, in neither of which he had achieved any great success.
A little past one, he got up from his desk and prepared to leave the office. He went downstairs and across the front hall. No guard stood at the door, but that wasn’t at all strange during the lunch-break, when the offices were closed and no visitors were allowed into the building. Brunetti pressed the electric switch that released the large glass door, then pushed it open. The cold had seeped into the vestibule and he pulled up his collar in response, tucking his chin into the protection of the heavy cloth of his overcoat. Head lowered, he stepped outside and into the firestorm.
The first indication was a sudden glare of light, then another and another. His lowered eyes saw feet approach, five or six pairs of them, until his path was blocked and he had to stop and look up to see what confronted him.
He was surrounded by a tight ring of five men holding microphones. Behind them, in a looser ring, danced three men with video cameras aimed at him, their red lights aglow.
‘Commissario. Is it true that you’ve had to arrest your wife?’
‘Will there be a trial? Has your wife hired a lawyer?’
‘What about divorce? Is that true?’
The microphones waved in front of him, but he stifled the impulse to brush them away with an angry hand. In the face of his obvious surprise, their voices mounted in a feeding frenzy and their questions drowned one another out. He heard only flashes of phrases: ‘Father-in-law’, ‘Mitri’, ‘free enterprise’, ‘obstruction of justice’.
He put his hands in the pocket of his coat, lowered his head again, and started to walk away. His chest came up against a human body, but he kept walking, twice treading heavily upon someone else’s feet. ‘Can’t just walk away’, ‘obligation’, ‘right to know...’
Another body placed itself in front of him, but he kept going, eyes on the ground, this time to avoid stepping on their feet. At the first corner he turned left and headed towards Santa Maria Formosa, walking steadily, giving no sign that he was fleeing. A hand grabbed his shoulder, but he shook it off, shook off as well the desire to rip the hand from his body and smash the reporter against the wall.
They followed him for a few minutes, but he neither slowed his pace nor acknowledged their presence. He turned suddenly right into a narrow calle. Strangers to Venice, some of the reporters must have been alarmed by how dark and cramped it was because none of them followed him. At the end, he turned
left and along the canal, finally free of them.
From a phone in Campo Santa Marina he called home and learned from Paola that a camera crew was stationed in front of their apartment and three reporters had unsuccessfully tried to prevent her entering long enough to be able to interview her.
‘I’ll have lunch somewhere, then,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, Guido,’ she said. ‘I didn’t...’ She stopped, but he had nothing to say into her silence.
