Friends In High Places

by Donna Leon

  It was high time to visit the Ufficio.

  When he arrived at the Questura the next morning, a bit after eight thirty, the guard at the door told him a young woman had come in earlier, asking to speak to him. No, she hadn’t explained what it was she wanted and, when the guard told her Commissario Brunetti had not arrived yet, had said she’d go and have a coffee and come back. Brunetti told the young man to bring her up when she did.

  In his office, he read the first section of the Gazzettino and was thinking about going out to get a coffee when the guard appeared at his door and said that the young woman had returned. He stepped aside and a woman who seemed little more than a girl slipped into the room. Brunetti thanked the guard and told him he could return to duty. The officer saluted and closed the door as he left. Brunetti gestured to the young woman, who still stood by the door as if fearful of the consequences of coming any farther into the room.

  ‘Please, Signorina, make yourself comfortable.’

  Leaving it to her to decide what to do, he walked slowly around his desk and took his normal place.

  Slowly she crossed the room and sat on the edge of the chair, her hands in her lap. Brunetti gave her a quick glance then bent to move a paper from one side of his desk to the other to give her some time to relax into a more comfortable position.

  When he looked back at her, he smiled in what he thought might be a welcoming way. She had dark brown hair cut as short as a boy’s and wore jeans and a light blue sweater. Her eyes, he noticed, were as dark as her hair, surrounded by lashes so thick that at first he thought they were false until he noticed that she wore no make-up at all and dismissed the idea. She was a pretty girl in the way most young girls are pretty: delicate bones, short straight nose, smooth skin, and a small mouth. Had he seen her in a bar having a coffee, he wouldn’t have looked twice at her, but seeing her here, the thought came to him of how lucky he was to live in a country where pretty girls were so thick upon the ground and far more beautiful ones a normal enough event.

  She cleared her throat once, twice, and then said, ‘I’m Marco’s friend.’ Her voice was extraordinarily beautiful, low and musical and rich with sensuality, the sound one would expect from a woman who had lived a long life filled with pleasure.

  Brunetti waited for her to explain, but when she said nothing further, Brunetti asked, ‘And why have you come to speak to me, Signorina?’

  ‘Because I want to help you find the people who killed him.’

  Brunetti kept his face expressionless while he processed the information that this must be the girl who had called Marco from Venice. ‘Are you the other rabbit, then?’ he asked kindly.

  His question startled her. She pulled her closed hands up toward her chest and automatically pursed her lips into a narrow circle, making herself look, indeed, very like a rabbit.

  ‘How do you know about that?’ she asked.

  ‘I saw his drawings,’ Brunetti explained, then added, ‘and I was struck both by his talent and by the obvious affection he had for the rabbits.’

  She bowed her head and at first he thought she had begun to cry. But she did not; instead, she raised her head again and looked at him. ‘I had a pet rabbit when I was a little girl. When I told Marco about that, he told me how much he hated the way his father used to shoot and poison them on their farm.’ She stopped here, then added, ‘They’re pests when they’re outside. That’s what his father said.’

  Brunetti said, ‘I see.’

  Silence fell but he waited. Then she said, as if no mention had been made of the rabbits, ‘I know who they are.’ Her hands tortured one another in her lap, but her voice remained calm, almost seductive. It occurred to him that she had no idea of its power or its beauty.

  Brunetti nodded to encourage her, and she continued, ‘Well, that is, I know the name of one of them, the one who sold it to Marco. I don’t know the name of the people he gets it from, but I think he’d tell you if you frightened him enough.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’re not in the business of frightening people,’ Brunetti said, smiling, wishing it were true.

  ‘I mean frightening him so that he’d come and tell you what he knows. He’d do that if he thought you knew who he is and were going to get him.’

  ‘If you give me his name, Signorina, we can bring him in and question him.’

  ‘But wouldn’t it be better if he came in by himself and told you what he knows, told you voluntarily?’

  ‘Yes, it certainly would . . .’

  She interrupted him. ‘I don’t have any proof, you know. It’s not like I can testify that I saw him sell it to Marco or Marco told me that he did.’ She moved around uneasily in her chair, then put her folded hands back in her lap. ‘But I know he’d come in if he didn’t have any other choice, and then it wouldn’t be so bad for him, would it?’

  This intense concern could be directed only at family, Brunetti realized. ‘I’m afraid you haven’t told me your name, Signorina.’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you my name,’ she answered, some of the sweetness gone from her voice.

  Brunetti opened his hands, spreading his fingers wide in symbol of the liberty he extended, ‘That’s entirely your right, Signorina. In that case, the only thing I suggest to you is that you tell this person that he should come in.’

  ‘He won’t listen to me. He never has,’ she said, adamant.

  Brunetti considered his options. He studied his wedding band, saw that it was thinner than it was when he had studied it last, worn away by the years. He looked up and across at her. ‘Does he read the newspaper?’

  Surprised, her answer was instant, ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Gazzettino?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you see that he reads it tomorrow?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Good. I hope it will be enough to make him talk to us. Will you encourage him to come?’

  She looked down after he said this, and again he thought she was going to begin to cry. Instead, she said, ‘I’ve been trying to do that since Marco died.’ Her voice broke, and her hands balled themselves into tight fists again. She shook her head. ‘He’s afraid.’ Again, a long pause. ‘I can’t do anything to make him. My par . . .’ she broke off before finishing the word, confirming what he already knew. She shifted her weight forward, and he saw that, message delivered, she was ready to escape.

  Brunetti got slowly to his feet and came around the desk. She stood and turned toward the door.

  Brunetti opened it for her. He thanked her for having come to talk to him. As she started down the stairs, he closed the door, ran back to the phone, and dialled the number of the guard desk at the front door. He recognized the voice of the young man who had brought her up.

  ‘Masi, say nothing. When that girl comes down, take her into your office and see that she stays there at least a few minutes. Tell her you have to record in your ledger what time she left, make up some sort of story, but keep her there. Then let her leave.’

  Giving him no chance to answer, Brunetti replaced the phone and walked to the large wooden closet that stood against the wall by the door. He yanked the door open, letting it slam back against the wall. Inside, he saw an old tweed jacket he had left there more than a year ago and ripped it from the hanger. Clutching it in one hand, he moved to the door of his office, opened it, looked down the stairs and took them two at a time down to the officers’ room on the floor below.

  Panting at the effort, he ran into the room and gave a sigh of silent thanks when he saw Pucetti at his desk. ‘Pucetti,’ he said, ‘get up and take off your jacket.’

  Instantly, the young officer was on his feet and his jacket flung on the desk in front of him. Brunetti handed him the woollen jacket, saying, ‘There’s a girl downstairs near the entrance. Masi’s holding her for a few minutes in his office. When she leaves, I want you to follow her. Follow her all day if you have to, but I want to know where she goes, and I want to know who she is.’

  Pucetti was
already moving toward the door. The jacket hung loosely on him, so he flipped over the cuffs then pushed them up his forearms; he ripped off his tie and tossed it in the general direction of his desk. When he left the office, asking Brunetti for no explanation, he looked like a casually dressed young man who had chosen to wear a white shirt and dark blue trousers that day but had offset the military cut of the trousers by wearing an overlarge Harris tweed jacket with the sleeves pushed up in quite a dashing manner.

  Brunetti went back to his office, dialled the news office of Il Gazzettino and identified himself. The story he gave them explained how the police investigating the drug-related death of a young student had discovered the identity of the young man believed to have been responsible for selling the drugs that had caused his death. An arrest was imminent, and it was hoped that this would lead to the arrest of even more people involved in the drug traffic in the Veneto area. When he put the phone down, he hoped only that this would be enough to force the young girl’s relative, whoever he was, to find the courage to come into the Questura so that something positive could come of the stupid waste of Marco Landi’s life.

  He and Vianello presented themselves at the Ufficio Catasto at eleven. Brunetti gave his name and rank to the secretary on the first floor, and she told him that Ingeniere dal Carlo’s office was on the third floor and she’d be glad to call ahead and tell him that Commissario Brunetti was on the way up. Brunetti, a uniformed Vianello silent in his wake, walked up to the third floor, amazed at the number of people, almost all of them men, who flowed up and down the stairs in two opposing streams. On each landing, they milled outside the doors of offices, rolls of blueprints and heavy folders of papers held to their chests.

  Ingeniere dal Carlo’s was the last office on the left. The door was open, so they went in. A small woman who looked old enough to be Vianello’s mother sat at a desk facing them, next to the immense screen of a computer. She glanced at them over the thick lenses of her half-frame reading glasses. Her hair, heavily streaked with grey, was pulled back in a tight bun that forced Brunetti to think of Signora Landi, and her narrow shoulders were hunched forward as if with the beginning of osteoporosis. She wore no make-up, as if she’d long ago abandoned the idea of its possible utility.

  ‘Commissario Brunetti?’ she asked, remaining in her seat.

  ‘Yes. I’d like to speak to Ingeniere dal Carlo.’

  ‘May I ask what this is in aid of?’ she asked, speaking precise Italian and using a phrase he hadn’t heard in decades.

  ‘I’d like to ask some questions about a former employee.’

  ‘Former?’

  ‘Yes. Franco Rossi,’ he said.

  ‘Ah yes,’ she said, raising a hand to her forehead and shielding her eyes. She lowered her hand and removed her glasses, then looked up. ‘The poor young man. He’d worked here for years. It was terrible. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’ There was a crucifix on the wall above her desk, and she turned her eyes to it, her lips moving in a prayer for the dead young man.

  ‘Did you know Signor Rossi?’ Brunetti asked, then continued, as if he hadn’t quite caught her name, ‘Signora . . .?’

  ‘Dolfin, Signorina,’ she answered briefly and paused, almost as if waiting to see how he responded to the name. She continued, ‘His office was just across the hall. He was always a polite young man, always very respectful to Dottor dal Carlo.’ From the sound of it, Signorina Dolfin could think of no higher praise.

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, tired of listening to the sort of empty compliments which death demanded be paid. ‘Would it be possible for me to speak to the Ingeniere?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘You must excuse me for talking so much. It’s just that one doesn’t know what to do in the face of a tragic death like that.’

  Brunetti nodded, the most efficient way he’d ever found to acknowledge cliché.

  She led them the few steps that separated her desk from the door to the inner office. She raised her hand and tapped twice, paused a moment, and then added a third small tap, as though she had, over the years, devised a code which would tell the man inside just what sort of visitor to expect. When the man’s voice from inside called out ‘Avanti’, Brunetti saw an unmistakable gleam in her eyes, noticed the way the corners of her mouth tilted up.

  She opened the door, stepped inside and to one side to allow both men to enter, then said, ‘This is Commissario Brunetti, Dottore.’ Brunetti had glanced in as they entered and seen a large, dark-haired man behind the desk, but he kept his eyes on Signorina Dolfin as she spoke, intrigued by the change in her manner, even in the tone of her voice, far warmer and richer than when she had spoken to him.

  ‘Thank you, Signorina,’ dal Carlo said, barely glancing at her. ‘That will be all.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said and, very slowly, turned away from dal Carlo and left the office, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Dal Carlo got to his feet, smiling. He was in his late fifties, but had the taut skin and erect carriage of a younger man. His smile revealed teeth capped in the Italian manner: one size larger than necessary. ‘How pleased I am to meet you, Commissario,’ he said, extending his hand to Brunetti and, when he returned the gesture, giving it a firm, manly shake. Dal Carlo nodded to Vianello and led them to some chairs at one side of the room. ‘How may I help you?’

  Taking his seat, Brunetti said, ‘I’d like to know something about Franco Rossi.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ dal Carlo said, shaking his head a few times. ‘Terrible thing, tragic. He was a wonderful young man, an excellent worker. He would have had a very successful career.’ He sighed and repeated, ‘Tragic, tragic.’

  ‘How long had he worked here, Ingeniere?’ Brunetti asked. Vianello took a small notebook from his pocket, opened it, and started to take notes.

  ‘Let me see,’ dal Carlo began. ‘About five years, I’d say.’ Smiling, he said, ‘I can ask Signorina Dolfin. She’d be able to give you a more precise answer.’

  ‘No, that’s fine, Dottore,’ Brunetti said with a casual wave of his hand and went on: ‘What, exactly, were Signor Rossi’s duties?’

  Dal Carlo put his hand to his chin, a thinking gesture, and looked down at the floor. After a suitable time, he said, ‘He had to examine plans to see that they conformed to restorations that were performed.’

  ‘And how did he do that, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘He looked at the blueprints here in the office and then inspected the actual place where the work had been done to see that it had been done properly.’

  ‘Properly?’ Brunetti asked, his voice filled with layman’s confusion.

  ‘That it was the same as shown on the plans.’

  ‘And if it wasn’t?’

  ‘Then Signor Rossi would report the discrepancies, and our office would initiate proceedings.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Dal Carlo looked across at Brunetti and appeared to weigh not only the question but the reason Brunetti was asking it.

  ‘Usually a fine and an order that the work performed be redone to conform to the specifications on the blueprints,’ dal Carlo answered.

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, nodding to Vianello to make a special point of that last answer. ‘That could be a very expensive inspection.’

  Dal Carlo looked puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Commissario.’

  ‘I mean that it could cost a great deal, first to do the work and then to do it again. To make no mention of the fines.’

  ‘Of course,’ dal Carlo said. ‘The code is quite precise about that.’

  ‘Doubly expensive, then,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. But few people are so rash as to attempt such a thing.’

  Brunetti allowed himself a start of surprise here and looked over at dal Carlo with the small smile one conspirator gives another. ‘If you say so, Ingeniere,’ he said. Quickly, he changed topic and the tone of his voice and asked, ‘Had
Signor Rossi ever received any threats?’

  Again, dal Carlo seemed confused. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand that, either, Commissario.’

  ‘Let me be clear with you, then, Dottore. Signor Rossi had the authority to cost people a great deal of money. If he reported that illegal work had been done on a building, the owners would be liable both for fines and for the cost of further work to correct the original restorations.’ He smiled here and added, ‘We both know what building costs are in this city, so I doubt that anyone would be pleased if Signor Rossi’s inspection discovered discrepancies.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ dal Carlo agreed. ‘But I doubt very much that anyone would dare to threaten a city official who was doing no more than his duty.’

  Suddenly Brunetti asked, ‘Would Signor Rossi have taken a bribe?’ He was careful to watch dal Carlo’s face as he asked his question and saw that he was taken aback, one might even say shocked.

  Instead of answering, however, dal Carlo gave the question considerable attention. ‘I’d never thought of that before,’ he said, and Brunetti had no doubt he was telling the truth. Dal Carlo did everything but close his eyes and put his head back to give proof of further concentration. Finally he said, lying, ‘I don’t like to speak ill of him, not now, but that might be possible. Well,’ with an awkward hesitation, ‘might have been possible.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Brunetti asked, though he was fairly certain it was nothing more than a rather obvious attempt to use Rossi as a means to cover the tracks of his own probable dishonesty.

  For the first time, dal Carlo looked steadily into Brunetti’s eyes. Had he needed it, Brunetti could have found no surer proof that he was lying. ‘You must understand it was nothing specific I can name or describe. His behaviour had changed in the last few months. He’d become furtive, nervous. It is only now, that you ask this question, that the possibility occurs to me.’