by Donna Leon
Brunetti sat and tried to think of a way to get back into Signora Jacobs’s apartment. He pictured her slumped in her chair, drawing the smoke into her lungs with desperate breaths. He summoned the scene up from memory, examining it as though it were part of the puzzle, ‘What’s Wrong with this Picture?’ Ash-covered carpet, windows a long distance in time from their last cleaning, the Iznik tiles, what could only have been a celadon bowl on the table, the blue packet of Nazionali, the cheap lighter, one shoe with a hole worn through in front by her big toe, the drawing of a Degas dancer. What was wrong with this picture?
It was so obvious that he called himself an idiot for not having registered it sooner: the dissonance between wealth and poverty. Any one of those tiles, just one of those drawings, could have paid to have the entire place restructured, not just cleaned; and anyone in possession of one of those prints would certainly not have to content themselves with the cheapest cigarettes on the market. He searched his memory for other signs of poverty, tried to remember what she had been wearing, but no one pays much attention to old women. He had only the vaguest impression of something dark: grey, brown, black, a skirt or dress, at any rate something that had come down almost to her feet. He couldn’t even remember if her clothing had been clean or not, nor if she had worn jewellery. He hoped he would remember his own inability to remember details the next time he grew impatient with a witness to a crime who had difficulty in describing the perpetrator.
The phone startled him from this reverie.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You might like to come down here, sir,’ Signorina Elettra said.
‘Yes,’ he repeated, without bothering to ask if she’d had an answer from her friend in Geneva. Genève, that is.
When he reached her office, her smile was proof that she had. ‘It came from a gallery in Lausanne called Patmos,’ she said as he came in. ‘It was paid into an account in Geneva each month to be transferred here, to her account.’
‘Any instructions?’
‘No, only that it was to be sent to her account.’
‘Have you spoken to them?’ he asked.
‘Who, the bank or the gallery?’ she asked.
‘The gallery.’
‘No, sir. I thought you’d want to do that.’
‘I’d rather it be done in French,’ he said. ‘People always feel safer in their own language.’
‘Who shall I say I am, sir?’ she asked as she reached for the phone and punched 9 to get the outside line.
‘Tell them you’re calling for the Questore,’ Brunetti said.
This is exactly what she did, though it served no purpose. The Director of the gallery, to whom the call was eventually passed, refused to divulge any information about the payments until in possession of an order from a Swiss court to do so. From Signorina Elettra’s expression, Brunetti inferred that the Director had not been at all polite in conveying this information.
‘And now?’ Brunetti asked when she explained what she had been told and the manner in which it had been said.
Signorina Elettra closed her eyes and raised her eyebrows for an instant, as if to remark upon the triviality of the problem that now confronted her. ‘It’s rather like what the police are always telling people in movies: either they can do it the easy way or the hard way. Monsieur Lablanche has chosen the hard way.’
‘For himself or for us?’ Brunetti asked.
‘For us, at the beginning,’ she explained. ‘But, depending on what we find, perhaps for himself, as well.’
‘Should I ask what you’re going to do?’
‘Since some of it is illegal, sir, it might be better if you refrained from doing so.’
‘Indeed. Will it take long?’
‘No longer than it would take you to go down the fondamenta and have a coffee. In fact,’ she said, glancing at her watch, ‘I’ll just do this and join you in a few minutes.’
Like Adam, he fell. ‘Is it really that easy?’
Signorina Elettra appeared to be in a philosophical mood, for by way of answer she said, ‘I once asked a plumber who came to fix my water heater, and who did it in three minutes, how he dared to charge me eighty thousand lire for turning a little knob. He told me it had taken him twenty years to learn which knob to turn. And so I suppose it’s like that: it can take minutes, but I’ve spent years learning which knob to turn.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said and went down to the bar at the Ponte dei Greci for a coffee. He was subsequently joined there by Signorina Elettra, though she was longer than twenty minutes.
When she had a coffee in front of her, she said, ‘The gallery is run by two brothers, the grandsons of the founder. The Swiss police are very interested in some of their recent acquisitions, especially those from the Middle East, as three pieces in their catalogue were once in the possession of private owners in Kuwait. Or so the Kuwaitis claim; unfortunately, they don’t have photos or bills of sale, which means they probably got them illegally in the first place themselves.’ She sipped at the coffee, added a bit more sugar, sipped again and set the cup down.
‘The grandfather was in charge of the gallery during the war and seems to have received quite a number of paintings from Germany, France and Italy. All, of course, with impeccable pedigrees: bills of sale and Customs declarations. There was an investigation after the war, of course, but nothing came of it. The gallery is well known, successful and rumoured to be very discreet.’
When it seemed likely that she had nothing more to say about the gallery, Brunetti asked, ‘And the bank transfers?’
‘As you said, every month, ten million lire. It’s been going on since she was sixteen.’
That, Brunetti thought, would make more than half a billion lire, with still only three million in the bank. ‘How is it possible,’ Brunetti began, ‘for that much money to come into the country from a foreign source and for no investigation of it to be made?’
‘But you don’t know that, do you, sir?’ she asked. ‘Maybe she declared it and paid tax on it, incredible as that would be. Or perhaps the bank had a discreet arrangement and the money went unreported, or the report went unread.’
‘But isn’t it automatic that the Finanza learns when this much money is coming into the country?’
‘Only if the bank wants them to know, sir.’
‘That’s hard to believe,’ Brunetti protested.
‘Most of the things banks do are hard to believe.’
He recalled that, before coming to work at the Questura, Signorina Elettra had worked for Banca d’ltalia, and so must know whereof she spoke.
‘How could someone find out where the money went after it was deposited into her account here?’
‘If the bank explained it or if access to the account were possible.’
‘Which is easier?’
‘Did they volunteer the information when you spoke to them? Presumably, you told them that she was dead.’
Brunetti thought back to the careful formality of the Director. ‘No, he passed me to a teller, and she sent me a copy of the deposits and withdrawals to the account, though the large transfers weren’t explained.’
‘Then I think it might be wise for us to check their records ourselves,’ Signorina Elettra suggested.
There was no doubt in Brunetti’s mind about the illegality of this. The fact didn’t make him hesitate for an instant. ‘Could we go back now and have a look?’
‘Nothing easier, sir,’ she said and finished her coffee.
Back at Signorina Elettra’s office, they studied the new information she called up on her computer screen and discovered that Claudia Leonardo had, during the course of the last few years, transferred the bulk of her money to various places around the globe: Thailand, Brazil, Ecuador and Indonesia were but a few of the places the money had gone. There was no pattern to the transfers, and the sums varied from two million to twenty. The total, however, was well in excess of three hundred million lire. Other sums had gone in the form of assegni c
ircolari to various recipients. There was no pattern here, either, but there was a similarity of purpose, for all were charitable organizations of one sort or another: an orphanage in Kerala, Médecins sans Frontières, Greenpeace, an AIDS hospice in Nairobi.
‘Paola was right,’ Brunetti said aloud. ‘She gave it all away.’
‘That’s a strange thing for someone her age to do, isn’t it?’ Signorina Elettra asked. ‘If this is the right figure,’ she said, pointing to a total she had calculated at the bottom of the page, ‘it’s close to half a billion lire.’
He nodded.
‘None of it went on taxes, did it?’ she asked. ‘Not if these amounts went to charities.’
They considered the figures for a moment, neither of them truly understanding anything beyond the total sum and the places it had been sent.
‘Was there any mention of a notary or a lawyer?’ Brunetti suddenly asked.
‘In those, you mean?’ she asked, gesturing at the girl’s papers, still fanned out on the top of her desk.
‘Yes.’
‘No. But I haven’t checked all the numbers in her address book. Shall I?’
‘How? By calling them all?’ he said, picking up the book and opening it to the As.
Did he see her eyes close for the merest fraction of a second? He couldn’t be sure. While he was still trying to decide, she took the book from him and said, ‘No, sir. There’s a way Telecom can find the name and address of any number that’s listed. All they’ve got to do is punch in the phone number and the program gives them the name instantly.’
‘Is this something I could do by calling them?’ he asked.
‘It’s a public service in other countries, but here, the only ones who have access are Telecom, and I doubt they’d let you have access to the information without a court order.’ After a moment, she added, ‘But my friend Giorgio has given me a copy of the program.’
‘Good. Then would you check all the numbers and see if any are lawyers or notaries?’
‘And then?’
‘And then I want to talk to them.’
‘Would you like me to make appointments if I find them?’
‘No, I prefer to appear unannounced.’
‘Like a mugger?’ she asked.
‘ “Like a lion” might be a more flattering way to put it, Signorina, but perhaps your image is closer to the truth.’
* * * *
15
It wasn’t until after six that Signorina Elettra brought him the fruits of her labours with Giorgio’s pirated program. Placing a sheet of paper on his desk, she couldn’t prevent a smile from crossing her face. ‘Here it is, sir. Only the number was written in her book; no name. But it’s a notary.’
Brunetti glanced at the paper. ‘Really?’ he asked when he saw the name, one he remembered even from his childhood. ‘I thought Filipetto had died, years ago.’
‘No, sir, that was his son who died. Cancer of the pancreas. It must be about six or seven years ago. He’d taken over from his father, but he had time before he died to transfer the practice to his nephew, his sister’s son.’
‘The one who was in that boat accident a few years ago?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes. Massimo.’
‘Is the old man still in practice?’
‘He couldn’t still work if he transferred the practice to his son; besides, the address listed is different from Sanpaolo’s office.’
He got to his feet, folded the paper in four, and slipped it into the inner pocket of his jacket.’
‘Have you ever met him?’ Signorina Elettra asked.
‘Once, years ago, when he was still practising.’ Then he asked her, ‘Do you know him?’
‘My father dealt with him, years ago. It went very badly.’
‘For whom? Your father or Dottor Filipetto?’
‘I think it would be impossible to find anything that ever went badly for a Filipetto, either the son or the father,’ she said, then added mordantly, ‘aside from his pancreas, of course.’
‘What was it about?’
She considered this for a while, then explained, ‘My father had part ownership of a restaurant that had tables alongside a canal. Dottor Filipetto lived on the third floor, above the restaurant, and he claimed that the tables obstructed his view of the other side of the canal.’
‘From the third floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘Filipetto was an old friend of the judge who was assigned to the case. At first, my father and his partner didn’t worry because the claim was so absurd. But then he learned that both the judge and Filipetto were Masons, members of the same lodge, and once he knew that, he knew he had no choice but to settle the case out of court.’
‘What was the settlement?’
‘My father had to pay him a million lire a month in return for his promise not to file another complaint.’
‘When was this?’
‘About twenty years ago.’
‘That was a fortune then.’
‘My father sold his share in the restaurant soon after that. He never mentions it now, but I remember, at the time, how he spoke Filipetto’s name.’
For Brunetti this story recalled many he had heard, over the course of years, concerning Notaio Filipetto. ‘I think I’ll go along and see if he’s at home.’
On the way out he stopped in the officers’ room and found Vianello, who had been forced to remain at his desk there even after his promotion, Lieutenant Scarpa having refused to assign him a desk among the other ispettori.
‘I’m going over to Castello to talk to someone. Would you like to come along?’
‘About the girl?’ Vianello asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Gladly,’ he said, getting to his feet and grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘Who is it?’ Vianello asked as they emerged from the Questura.
‘Notaio Gianpaolo Filipetto.’
Vianello did not stop in his tracks, but he did falter for an instant. ‘Filipetto?’ he asked. ‘Is he still alive?’
‘It would seem so,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Claudia Leonardo had his phone number in her address book.’ They reached the riva and turned right, heading for the Piazza, and as they walked Brunetti also explained the pattern of money transfers and, listing the charities, their final destinations.
‘It hardly sounds like the sort of thing a Filipetto would be involved in,’ Vianello observed.
‘What, giving this much money to charity?’
‘Giving anything to charity, I’d say,’ Vianello answered.
‘We don’t know there’s any connection between him and her money,’ Brunetti said, though he didn’t for an instant believe this.
‘If ever there is a Filipetto and money, there is a connection,’ Vianello said, pronouncing it as a truth Venetians had come to learn through many generations.
‘You have any idea how old he could be?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No. Close to ninety, I’d say.’
‘Seems a strange age to be interested in money, doesn’t it?’
‘He’s a Filipetto,’ Vianello answered, effectively silencing any speculation Brunetti might have felt tempted to make.
The address was in Campo Bandiera e Moro, in a building just to the right of the church where Vivaldi had been baptized and from which, according to common belief, many of the paintings and statues had disappeared into private hands during the tenure of a previous pastor. They rang, then rang again until a woman’s voice answered the speaker phone, asking them who it was. When Brunetti said it was the police, coming to call on Notaio Filipetto, the door snapped open and the voice told them to come to the first floor.
She met them at the door, a woman composed of strange angularities: jaws, elbows, the tilt of her eyes all seemed made of straight lines that sometimes met at odd angles. No arcs, no curves: even her mouth was a straight line. ‘Yes?’ she asked, standing in the equally rectangular doorway.
‘
I’d like to speak to Notaio Filipetto,’ Brunetti said, extending his warrant card.
She didn’t bother to look at it. ‘What about?’ she asked.
‘Something that might concern the Notaio,’ Brunetti said.
‘What?’
‘This is a police matter, Signora,’ Brunetti said, ‘and so I’m afraid I can discuss it only with the Notaio.’
Either her emotions were easy to read, which Brunetti thought might not be the case, or she wanted them to see how greatly she disapproved of his intransigence. ‘He’s an old man. He can’t be disturbed by questions from the police.’
