The Golden Egg

by Donna Leon

  He could easily go downstairs when Borsetta came in and tell him that the question he had wanted to discuss with him had been resolved, thank him for his civic-

  mindedness, and send him on his way. And he could then decide to forget about those forty and more years of monthly payments to the account of Ana Cavanella and what they might mean. Or he could threaten Beni Borsetta and wring him dry.

  ‘Commissario?’ someone asked from the door of his office, and he turned to see Avvocato Cresti, today without his briefcase though most decidedly with his paunch and his air of self-satisfaction.

  ‘Ah, Avvocato,’ Brunetti said with an easy smile. ‘How exemplary a model of civic duty you present. Do come in and have a seat.’

  Made nervous by this effulgent goodwill, Cresti crossed the room towards Brunetti, who stood and leaned across his desk to shake hands. He waved towards a chair and Cresti sat. The chair had armrests, and Cresti fitted easily within them, leading Brunetti to realize that the man was larger front to back than side to side. He smiled and took a closer look at the lawyer: his shoulders were actually quite narrow, narrower than his own. A portrait bust or a painting would show a perfectly normal man in late middle age, with a thinning patch of greyish hair, none too clean and perhaps too long, brushed back from a long, thin face.

  He must buy his clothing ready-made – always an error on the part of a man with a paunch as vast as Cresti’s, Brunetti thought, for his jacket gaped open at least three hands’ breadths and left his paunch free to pull at the buttons of his shirt.

  Brunetti gave Cresti his most benign smile but said nothing. Silence apparently made the lawyer nervous: he wrapped his fingers around the armrests of the chair, released them, then grabbed them again. Brunetti, smile nailed to his face, studied the other man. His face was quite thin and looked out of place above that girth: had Cresti’s neck been a metre long, he would have looked very much like an ostrich, his head disproportionately small in relation to his body.

  The silence proved too much for the lawyer, and he launched himself. ‘I’m very glad to be of service to you, Commissario, for whatever’s necessary. Lawyers, as I’m sure you know – you studied law, I believe – have a heightened respect for the law. In fact, I’m sure that this bond between us will aid us in establishing a mutually helpful and productive relationship.’

  He paused to breathe and Brunetti forgot his smile and asked, ‘What have you been telling Signora Cavanella?’

  ‘Who?’ Cresti asked, as stupid a mistake as he could have made, and Brunetti knew he would have no trouble wringing him dry.

  Brunetti ignored his question. Cresti must have realized he had made a tactical error, for he asked, ‘Ah, do you mean Ana Cavanella?’ He smiled. It was an automatic smile, utterly humourless, that he could flick on and off, and did, without response to any sort of stimulus.

  Brunetti permitted himself a small nod. This conversation was private and could never be introduced as evidence, so he did not have to speak for the tape recorder and could use gestures if he chose.

  ‘Yes. She’s an old friend of mine,’ Cresti said with another automatic smile.

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Before I answer that,’ Cresti said, with one of his flashsmiles, ‘could you tell me what it is you want to know about her?’

  ‘I want to know when she last saw you.’

  Just like Signora Cavanella, though with a great deal more certainty that he could calculate the response to various answers, Cresti prepared an answer. ‘I’m not sure. It’s been some time.’

  ‘You were seen in the hospital, Avvocato, coming from her room. Only a few hours ago.’ He watched Cresti move some pieces around on the board of his mind and volunteered, ‘Perhaps you were so troubled by seeing her there that all memory of your visit has been driven from your mind?’

  Cresti nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it exactly. I saw her this morning.’

  ‘And were shocked, I assume.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you remember what you talked about, I’m sure. After all, you were there as her lawyer.’

  Cresti moved uncomfortably in his chair, as if the arms had begun to contract. ‘Not exactly as her lawyer, you understand, Commissario. More as a friend who might be able to give her some legal advice.’ As if startled by that last word, Cresti jumped a little in his chair and said, too quickly, ‘Legal information, that is.’

  Brunetti nodded, and the lawyer went on. ‘I was there as a friend, please understand: only that. It never occurred to either of us that I would work for her in a professional sense.’ Brunetti was suddenly aware that Cresti was speaking for the tape recorder he assumed was running. ‘Only out of my affection for the woman, please understand.’ He flashed a smile that was meant to show his integrity and goodwill.

  ‘You’re also a neighbour, aren’t you, Avvocato?’ Brunetti asked, having noticed the San Polo address when Signorina Elettra printed out the information he had asked her for.

  ‘Am I?’ Cresti asked. ‘How very coincidental.’

  Now, why should he lie about that? Brunetti asked himself. He remembered the unified silence of her neighbours and began to wonder what information they were all so eager to protect.

  ‘Shall I look in Calli, Campielli e Canali and remind you of just how close you live to her, or do you perhaps recall having seen her?’ Brunetti’s voice echoed his diminishing patience.

  ‘Yes, I do remember seeing her, now that you mention it,’ the lawyer said. ‘But only occasionally, the way one does.’ Brunetti saw that Cresti was holding the arms of the chair as tightly as if he were trying to keep himself from being spilled from his seat in the middle of a storm at sea.

  ‘So you knew her history?’

  ‘Well, everyone in the neighbourhood does,’ Cresti said, aiming to sound casual, and failing.

  ‘And if I might inquire into your professional dealings with Signora Cavanella,’ Brunetti began. ‘That is, your work for her as her lawyer . . .’

  ‘But I’m not her lawyer,’ Cresti said with another strained smile. ‘I’m just trying to help the poor woman. She lost her son, you know.’ Cresti’s voice was rich with an actor’s pathos.

  ‘I know. Did she come to you about that?’

  ‘Well,’ Cresti began nervously, ‘yes and no.’ Seeing that Brunetti was not satisfied with this, he continued, ‘That is, she came to me before he died.’

  ‘Asking you to work as her lawyer?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘No.’ Cresti’s lie was adamant. ‘She came to me as a neighbour and asked if I could give her some information, being as I was a lawyer.’

  ‘But not then working as one,’ Brunetti supplied ruthlessly, to let Cresti understand how much he knew.

  ‘Right, exactly right. I’d never tell a person I could act for them, not until my suspension is over and I’m taken back into the union of lawyers.’ Avvocato Cresti, exemplar of justice.

  ‘What did she want to know?’

  ‘About bastards.’

  ‘What, specifically, about bastards?’

  ‘She’d read something in the papers, and she asked me about a new law.’

  ‘Which law?’

  ‘The one from last year, that says bastards are entitled to an equal share of their father’s estate.’

  27

  ‘Ah,’ Brunetti said, fighting to hide his astonishment. Uncertain that he could keep his voice level, he pursed his lips and frowned, as if making note of a detail that might be interesting, or might not be.

  ‘Do you remember when this conversation took place?’

  He watched as Cresti worked out the time, assuming a bland look of infinite patience while he waited for the lawyer to answer.

  ‘It must have been in July some time. I remember because I’d gone out to try to find a birthday gift for my mother, and I met Signora Cavanella on the street.’

  Brunetti had smiled amiably at Cresti’s mention of his mother, as thou
gh he’d done something special and virtuous by having one. ‘That’s when she asked you?’

  Cresti nodded a few more times than necessary. ‘Yes, she suggested we have a coffee, and she told me she’d read something in the paper a few days before about this law, and she wanted to know what it meant.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Brunetti asked, now in full possession of his voice and with the conversation where he wanted it to be.

  ‘I told her it was quite simple: if the child could prove his parentage, then he or she had full rights to an equal portion of the estate. Along with the legitimate children.’ Cresti flashed a smile at Brunetti.

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘For once, Commissario,’ Cresti said, ‘it is a law that is quite concise and easy to understand.’

  ‘Did she understand your explanation?’

  ‘I think it would be difficult’ – flash, flash – ‘for anyone not to understand.’

  ‘Did she ask you anything else?’

  Cresti made the mistake of fidgeting in his chair so that he could remove his eyes from Brunetti’s and look down as he did so.

  ‘Did she ask you anything else, Signor Cresti?’ Brunetti asked again, hoping that his failure to refer to him by his professional title would remind Cresti of what might happen if Brunetti were to alert the union of lawyers to Cresti’s visit to the hospital.

  ‘Oh, a few things,’ he said, as if allergic to telling a policeman anything important.

  ‘Did she ask you anything else?’

  Trapped, Cresti said, ‘She asked if it would pass to the heirs of the child.’ Then, after another nervous smile, ‘You know, if the heir – the bastard, that is – had a child, would that child inherit?’

  Calm, calm, calm. Brunetti asked, as if intrigued by the chance to speculate, ‘That’s an interesting question. Would it, as it were, skip a generation and pass to the next?’

  ‘That’s it exactly, phrased perfectly, Commissario: if the bastard had a child – would it pass to that child?’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell her anything. I hadn’t studied the law, so I didn’t know the answer.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  Cresti smoothed his hair back and left his hand at the base of his skull, as if to encourage his brain to come up with an answer. ‘I couldn’t answer, could I, since I wasn’t sure?’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  Cresti took his hand away and locked his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘I told her that it probably would pass to the child’s heirs.’

  Stupidity and greed, Brunetti told himself, stupidity and greed, and a willing helper in a lawyer who took advantage of the first to nudge his non-client towards the second.

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said. Then, because he couldn’t stop himself, even though he knew there was no sense in doing so, he asked, ‘What did you think when her son died?’

  Cresti flashed another smile, but this one was meant to show his surprise at Brunetti’s question. ‘I thought how unfortunate she was.’ His voice deepened into the solemnity so often used to give voice to grief and the tragedies to which the world exposes us, poor, frail humans that we are. ‘The poor woman, to lose her only child like that.’

  ‘And she his only relative,’ Brunetti could not stop himself from answering. He got to his feet. ‘Thank you for coming in, Signor Cresti. I’ll call you if we need any further information.’

  Cresti’s face went blank with genuine surprise. He was being let go. He had said what he had said, and this man was letting him leave. He started to push himself to his feet, but one of the pockets of his jacket hooked itself on the arm of the chair. His upward motion pulled the chair from the floor, then the pocket ripped free. Cresti lost his footing for a moment, flailed his arms in the air, and regained his balance.

  Brunetti stood behind his desk, unwilling to help, nodded when Cresti said goodbye, and watched the lawyer leave the room.

  He picked up his phone and dialled Signorina Elettra’s number. When she answered, he said, ‘Could you have a look at Signora Cavanella’s bank statements again and tell me the date when those payments arrive?’

  Responding to the tone of his voice, she said only ‘One moment.’ He looked at his watch and saw that today was the fifth.

  She was back. ‘It usually arrives on the first of the month, Commissario.’

  ‘Has it come this month?’

  A few seconds’ delay, and then she said, ‘No, it hasn’t.’

  He thanked her and replaced the phone.

  All that remained was to talk to Lucrezia Lembo again, but this time he wanted to do it himself: no rosary, no Madonna, no religious excess of any sort. He wanted numbers and dates and facts, and she would be able to give them to him.

  He walked. It was late afternoon, the day was drawing down, and it looked as if it was coming on to rain. As he passed the campi and buildings between the Questura and the Accademia Bridge, which was the only place where he could cross the Grand Canal and backtrack to her home, Brunetti constructed a narrative based on random facts and even more random possibilities. When he checked the report from the crew that took Signora Cavanella to the hospital, he had seen, but not then noted, that she had been found on the steps of a house only a few minutes from the Lembo palazzo. The payment into her account had not arrived this month. Ana Cavanella had ceased working for the Lembo family four decades ago and had received a monthly payment since that time. She lived in a house owned by a member of the Lembo family in which her child had the right to remain for the duration of his lifetime. The King of Copper had left his wife of thirty-four years for a younger woman, by whom he had a child, another girl, only to have the woman leave him soon after the death of that child.

  Lucrezia was the only one left: her parents were dead, her half-sister had drowned, and her other sister had moved to a foreign country. Signora Ghezzi had said all she was going to say, Ana Cavanella was not to be trusted to tell the truth, and poor silent Davide couldn’t tell it, even if he had known what truth was.

  Brunetti heard the rain before he saw it, heard it in the squelching of his feet on the pavement. He heard it, he saw it, and when he put his hands to his head, he felt it. Sure enough, at the bottom of the Accademia Bridge he found three Tamil umbrella sellers – he often wondered if they were freeze-dried and popped back to life at the first drop of rain, their hands laden with five-Euro umbrellas. He committed a crime by buying an umbrella from one of them, gave the man ten Euros and told him to keep the change, then turned down towards the Salute. In Campo San Vio he turned right, and then into the calle.

  He rang the bell, keeping his finger on it until he heard it bleating away inside. He removed it. Silence. He pushed it again, shifted his feet to make himself more comfortable while leaning against it. The noise went on for a very long time. At last he heard a sound from the courtyard, released his finger, and the noise turned into the sound of footsteps approaching the door.

  A woman’s voice said something from inside, and Brunetti ignored it. The door was pulled open by Lucrezia Lembo, who seemed not at all surprised to see him there. ‘You’ve come for me, then?’ she asked, sounding far more lucid than she had the last time he spoke to her.

  ‘I’ve come to talk to you, Signora,’ he declared; a statement, not a request.

  Without protest, she turned away, leaving the door open, and he stepped into the courtyard. She led him back towards the entrance, then upstairs, but this time to the kitchen, a room with windows on the canal; like the other room, this one was spotlessly clean. Brunetti stopped just inside the door.

  She could have been a different person. Her hair was clean, and she was dressed in a very conservative skirt, sweater, and light woollen jacket. Her low pumps were the sort, and of the same high quality, Paola wore when she went to teach. She was no longer fat, only robust.

  She went to the counter in front of the row of windows that looked across the canal to the s
huttered windows of the building opposite. She turned and leaned back against

  the counter. ‘Sit if you please, Signore.’

  Brunetti approached the table, hearing the noise his shoes made on the marble floor. She took his umbrella and placed it in the sink behind her. Because it would give her the advantage, Brunetti pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it.

  ‘Have you come to arrest me?’ she asked.

  ‘For what, Signora?’

  It looked as though she had had a good night’s sleep. He reminded himself that she might just as easily have found the right combination of alcohol or drugs, but it did not seem that way to him.

  ‘To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason to arrest you, Signora.’ He saw her eyes widen, and then her face relaxed even more. ‘Nor is it my desire, Signora.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘To talk about your father.’

  ‘Father?’ She lowered her head and shook it, and when she raised it again, she was smiling at him, as if at his innocence in saying such a thing.

  ‘Ludovico Lembo, once Fadalti, also known as the King of Copper,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘What do you want to know about him, Signore?’

  ‘Is he the father of Ana Cavanalla’s son?’

  ‘Davide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, he is. Or was.’

  ‘Have you been paying for Davide’s upkeep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is the house in San Polo where he lived yours?’

  ‘Yes, it is. It was left to me by the same man.’

  ‘Ludovico Lembo?’

  ‘Once called Fadalti. Yes.’

  ‘And Davide had the usufrutto of that house?’

  ‘Until his death. Yes.’

  All of these things, Brunetti knew, save for the first, were matters of public record. ‘Was Ana Cavanella blackmailing you, Signora?’

  ‘What?’ she asked with honest surprise.

  ‘Was she blackmailing you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The name of Davide’s father?’

  ‘Why should she do that?’ Lucrezia asked.