Friends In High Places
Page 24
Her eyes shot wide in astonishment. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to give him to the Guardia di Finanza. They’ll be delighted to get records of his bank accounts, the apartments he owns, the accounts where his wife . . .’ he said that word with special relish, ‘has money invested. And once they begin to ask around and offer immunity to anyone who has given him a bribe, they will let loose an avalanche, and he will be buried under it.’
‘He’ll lose his job,’ she said.
‘He’ll lose everything,’ Brunetti corrected her and forced himself to give a joyless little smile.
Stunned at the sight of his malice, she sat with mouth agape.
‘Do you want more?’ he asked, driven beyond himself by the realization that, no matter what happened to dal Carlo, he could never do anything to her or to her brother. The Volpatos would remain like vultures in Campo San Luca, and all chance of finding Marco’s killer was lost by the printed lies that had removed Patta’s son from danger.
Knowing she had no responsibility for the last but still wild with the desire that she be made to pay, he continued, ‘The newspapers will put it all together: Rossi’s death, a suspect with bite marks made by the murdered girl ruled out because he’s been declared mentally incompetent by the court, and the possible involvement of dal Carlo’s secretary, an older woman, una zitella,’ he said, surprising himself with the force of the contempt he put into the word ‘spinster’. ‘Una zitella nobile’ – he all but spat that last word – ‘who was pathetically besotted with her boss – a younger, married, man,’ he thundered down on the shaming adjectives – ‘and who just happens to have a brother who has been declared mentally incompetent by the courts and who hence might be the person suspected of killing Rossi.’ He paused and watched as she shrank away from him in real horror. ‘And they will assume that dal Carlo was neck-deep in these murders, and he will never be free of that suspicion. And you,’ he said, pointing across the desk at her, ‘you will have done that to him. It will be your last gift to Ingeniere dal Carlo.’
‘You can’t do that,’ she said, voice rising up beyond her control.
‘I’m not going to do a thing, Signorina,’ he said, appalled at the pleasure he took in saying all of this. ‘The papers will say it, or suggest it, but no matter where the words come from, you can be sure that the people who read it will put it all together and believe it. And the part they will like best is the spectacle of the ageing zitella nobile with her pathetic obsession with a younger man.’ He leaned across the desk and all but shouted at her: ‘And they will ask for more.’
She shook her head, mouth agape: if he had slapped her, she would have borne it better. ‘But you can’t. I’m a Dolfin.’
Brunetti was so stunned that all he could do was laugh. He put his head back against the top of his chair and allowed himself the sudden release of mad laughter. ‘I know, I know,’ he said, voice difficult to control as new waves of wild mirth swept through him. ‘You’re a Dolfin, and the Dolfins never do anything for money.’
She stood, her face so red and tormented it sobered him instantly. Clutching her purse in fingers that creaked with the strain, she said, ‘I did it for love.’
‘Then God help you,’ Brunetti said and reached for the phone.
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Copyright © Donna Leon and Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich, 2000
Donna Leon has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by William Heinemann First published in paperback in 2001 by Arrow Books
This edition published in 2009 by
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ISBN 9780099536581