Anonymous Venetian

by Donna Leon

  ‘It will be an unmarked car, Signora, and the driver won’t be in uniform.’

  She made no acknowledgement to this, and the fact that she didn’t object probably meant that she would accept the ride to Piazzale Roma.

  Brunetti opened the door and accompanied her to the stairs at the end of the corridor. He noticed that her right hand had a death grip on her purse, and the left was jammed into the pocket of her jacket.

  Downstairs, Brunetti went out on to the steps of the Questura with her, out into the heat that he had forgotten. A dark blue sedan waited at the foot of the steps, motor running. Brunetti bent down and opened the door for her, held her arm as she stepped into the car. Once seated, she turned away from him and looked out of the window on the other side, though all she saw was traffic and the bleak fa ç ade of office buildings. Brunetti closed the door softly and told the driver to take Signora Mascari back to Piazzale Roma.

  When the car disappeared into the flow of traffic, Brunetti went back to Gallo’s office. As he went in, he asked the sergeant, ‘Well, what did you think?’

  ‘I don’t believe in people who have no enemies.’

  ‘Especially middle-aged bank managers,’ Brunetti added.

  ‘And so?’ Gallo asked.

  ‘I’ll go back to Venice and see if there’s anything I can find out there, from my people. Now that we’ve got a name, we at least have a place to begin to look.’

  ‘For what?’ Gallo asked.

  Brunetti’s answer was immediate. ‘First, we’ve got to do what we should have been doing from the beginning, find out where the clothing and the shoes he was wearing came from.’

  Gallo took this as a reproach and answered just as quickly, ‘Nothing on the dress yet, but we’ve got the name of the manufacturer of the shoes and should have a list by this afternoon of the stores that sold them.’

  Brunetti had not intended his remark as a criticism of the Mestre branch, but he let it stand. It could do no harm to spur Gallo and his men into finding out where Mascari’s clothing had come from, for surely those shoes and that dress were not the sort of thing a middle-aged banker wore to the office.

  * * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  If Brunetti thought he was going to find people working on a Saturday morning in August, the staff of the Questura thought otherwise: there were guards at the door, even a cleaning woman on the stairs, but the offices were empty, and he knew there was no hope of getting anything done until Monday morning. For a moment, he thought of getting on a train to Bolzano, but he knew it would be after dinner before he got there, just as he knew he would spend all the next day eager to be back in the city.

  He let himself into his office and opened the windows, though he was aware there was no good to be done by that. The room became more humid, perhaps even minimally hotter. No new papers lay on his desk, no report from Signorina Elettra.

  He reached down into his bottom drawer and pulled out the telephone book. He flipped it open and turned to the L’s, but there was no listing for Lega della Moralità, though that didn’t surprise him. Under the S’s, he found Santomauro, Giancarlo, aw. and an address in S. Marco. The late Leonardo Mascari, he learned by using the same system, lived in Castello. This surprised him: Castello was the least prestigious sestiere of the city, a zone primarily inhabited by solid working-class families, an area where children could still grow up speaking nothing but dialect and remain entirely ignorant of Italian until they began elementary school. Perhaps it was the Mascari family home. Or perhaps he had made a lucky deal on an apartment or house. Apartments in Venice were so hard to find, and those found so outrageously priced, either to buy or to rent, that even Castello was becoming fashionable. Spending enough money on restoration could perhaps provide respectability, if not for the entire quartiere, then at least for the individual address.

  He checked the listings in the yellow pages for banks, and found that the Bank of Verona was listed in Campo San Bartolomeo, the narrow campo at the foot of the Rialto where many banks had their offices; this surprised him, for he could not remember ever having seen it. More out of curiosity than anything else, he dialled the number. The phone was picked up on the third ring, and a man’s voice said, ‘Si?’ as though he were expecting a call.

  ‘Is this the Bank of Verona?’ Brunetti asked.

  There was a moment’s pause, and then the man said, ‘I’m sorry, you’ve reached a wrong number.’

  ‘Sorry to trouble you,’ Brunetti said.

  The other man replaced the phone without saying anything else.

  The vagaries of SIP, the national telephone service, were such that having reached a wrong number would strike no one as in any way strange, but Brunetti was certain he had dialled the number correctly. He dialled the number again, but this time it rang unanswered twelve times before Brunetti replaced the receiver. He looked at the listing again and made a note of the address. Then he checked the phone book for Morelli’s pharmacy. The addresses were only a few numbers apart. He tossed the phone book back into the drawer and kicked it shut. He closed the windows, went downstairs, and left the Questura.

  Ten minutes later, he walked out from the sottoportico of Calle della Bissa and into Campo San Bartolomeo. His eyes went up to the bronze statue of Goldoni, perhaps not his favourite playwright, but certainly the one who could make him laugh the hardest, especially when the plays were presented in their original Veneziano dialect, as they always were here, in the city that swarmed to his plays and loved him enough to put up this statue. Goldoni was in full stride, which made this campo the perfect place for him to be, for here, everyone rushed, always on their way somewhere: across the Rialto Bridge to go to the vegetable market; from Rialto to either the San Marco or the Cannaregio district. If people lived anywhere near the heart of the city, its geography would pull them through San Bartolomeo at least once a day.

  When Brunetti got there, foot traffic was at its height as people rushed to the market before it closed, or they hurried home from work, the week finally over. Casually, he walked along the east side of the campo, looking at the numbers painted above the doors. As he had expected, the number was painted above an entrance-way two doors to the right of the pharmacy. He stood for a moment in front of the panel of bells beside the door and studied the names. The Bank of Verona was listed, as were three other names with bells beside them, probably private apartments.

  Brunetti rang the first bell above the bank. There was no answer. The same happened with the second. He was about to ring the top bell when he heard a woman’s voice behind him, asking in purest Veneziano, ‘May I help you? Are you looking for someone who lives here?’

  He turned away from the bells and found himself looking down at a small old woman with an enormous shopping trolley leaning against her leg. Remembering the name on the first bell, he said, answering in the same dialect, ‘Yes, I’m here to see the Montinis. It’s time for them to renew their insurance policy, and I thought I’d stop by and see if they wanted to make any changes on the coverage.’

  ‘They’re not here,’ she said, looking into an enormous handbag, hunting for her keys. ‘Gone to the mountains. Same with the Gasparis, except they’re at Jesolo.’ Abandoning her hope of touching or seeing the keys, she took the bag and shook it, bent on locating them by sound. It worked, and she pulled out a bunch of keys as large as her hand.

  ‘That’s what all this is,’ she said, holding the keys up to Brunetti. ‘They’ve left me their keys, and I go in and water the plants, see the place doesn’t fall down.’ She looked up from the keys and at Brunetti’s face. Her eyes were a faded pale-blue, set in a round face covered with a tracery of fine lines. ‘Do you have children, Signore?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he responded immediately.

  ‘Names and ages?’

  ‘Raffaele’s sixteen, and Chiara’s thirteen, Signora.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, as though he had passed some sort of test. ‘You’re a strong young man. Do you think you c
ould carry that cart up to the third floor for me? If you don’t, then I’ll have to make at least three trips to get it all up there. My son and his family are coming to lunch tomorrow, so I’ve had to get a lot of things.’

  ‘I’d be very glad to help you, Signora,’ he said, bending down to pick up the cart, which must have weighed fifteen kilos. ‘Is it a big family?’

  ‘My son and his wife and their children. Two of them are bringing the great-grandchildren, so there’ll be, let’s see, there’ll be ten of us.’

  She opened the door and held it open while Brunetti slipped past her with the cart. She pushed on the timed light and started up the steps ahead of him. ‘You wouldn’t believe what they charged me for peaches. Middle of August, and they’re still charging three thousand lire a kilo. But I got them anyway; Marco likes to cut his up in red wine before lunch and then have it as dessert. And fish. I wanted to get arombo, but it cost too much. Everyone likes a good boiled bosega, so that’s what I got, but he still wanted ten thousand lire a kilo. Three fish and it cost me almost forty thousand lire.’ She stopped at the first landing, just outside the door to the Bank of Verona, and looked down at Brunetti. ‘When I was a girl, we gave bosega to the cat, and here I am, paying ten thousand lire a kilo for it.’

  She turned and started up the next flight. ‘You’re carrying it by the handles, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Signora.’

  ‘Good, because I have a kilo of figs right on the top, and I wouldn’t want them to be crushed.’

  ‘No, they’re all right, Signora.’

  ‘I went to Casa del Parmigiana and got some prosciutto to go with the figs. I’ve known Giuliano since he was a boy. He’s got the best prosciutto in Venice, don’t you think?’

  ‘My wife always goes there, Signora.’

  ‘Costs l’ira di dio, but it’s worth it, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, Signora.’

  They were at the top. She still carried the keys, so she didn’t have to hunt for them again. She opened the single lock on the door and pushed it open, letting Brunetti into a large apartment with four tall windows, closed and shuttered now, that opened on to the campo.

  She led the way through the living-room, a room familiar from Brunetti’s youth: fat armchairs and a sofa with horsehair stuffing that scratched at whoever sat down; massive dark brown credenzas, their tops covered with silver candy bowls and silver-framed photos; the floor of poured Venetian pavement that glistened, even in the dim light. He could have been in his grandparents’ house.

  The kitchen was the same. The sink was stone, and an immense cylindrical water-heater sat in one corner. The kitchen table had a marble surface, and he could see her both rolling out pasta and ironing on the surface.

  ‘Just put it there, by the door,’ she said. ‘Would you like a glass of something?’

  ‘Water would be nice, Signora.’

  As he knew she would, she reached down a small silver salver from the top of the cabinet, placed a small round lace doily on it, then set a Murano wineglass on top of it. From the refrigerator, she took a bottle of mineral water and filled the glass.

  ‘Grazie infinite,’ he said before he drank the water. He set it carefully down on the centre of the doily and refused her offer of more. ‘Would you like me to help you unpack it all, Signora?’

  ‘No, I know where everything is and where it all goes. You’ve been very kind, young man. What’s your name?’

  ‘Brunetti, Guido.’

  ‘And you sell insurance?’

  ‘Yes, Signora.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much,’ she said, placing his glass in the sink and reaching into the trolley.

  Remembering what his real job was, he asked, ‘Signora, do you always let people into the apartment with you like this? Without knowing who they are?’

  ‘No, I’m not a fool. I don’t let just anyone in,’ she replied. ‘I always see if they have children. And, of course, they have to be Veneziano.’

  Of course. When he thought about it, her system was probably better than a lie detector or a security check. ‘Thank you for the water, Signora. I’ll let myself out.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, bent over her trolley, hunting for the figs.

  He went down the first two flights of stairs and stood on the landing above the door of the Bank of Verona. He heard nothing at all, though occasionally a voice or a shout would float up from the campo. In the dim light that filtered in through the small windows of the staircase, he looked at his watch. A little after one. He stood for another ten minutes and still heard nothing except odd, disjointed sounds from the campo.

  He walked slowly down the stairs and stood outside the door to the bank. Feeling not a little ridiculous, he bent his head and put his eye against the horizontal keyhole of the metalporta blindata. From behind it, he could make out the faintest trace of light, as if someone had forgotten to turn off a light when they closed the shutters on Friday afternoon. Or as if someone were working inside on this Saturday afternoon.

  He went back up the steps and leaned against the wall. After about ten minutes, he took his handkerchief from his pocket and spread it on the second step above him, hiked up his trousers, and sat down. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists. After what seemed a long time, he got up, moved the handkerchief closer to the wall, and sat down again, now leaning against the wall. No air circulated, he had eaten nothing all day, and the heat battered at him. He glanced down at his watch and saw that it was after two. He determined that he would stay there until three and not a minute later.

  At 3.40, still there but now determined to leave at four, he heard a sharp sound from below. He stood and backed up on to the second step. Below him, a door opened, but he remained where he was. The door closed, a key turned in the lock, and footsteps sounded on the stairs. Brunetti stuck his head out and looked down after the retreating figure. In the dim light, he made out only a tall man in a dark suit, carrying a briefcase. Short dark hair, a starched white collar just visible at the back of his neck. The man turned and started down the next flight of stairs, but the dim light of the stairwell revealed little about him. Brunetti moved silently down behind him. At the door to the bank, Brunetti glanced in through the keyhole, but it was now dark inside.

  From below, he heard the sound of the front door being opened and closed, and at the sound Brunetti ran down the remaining steps. He paused at the door, opened it quickly, and stepped out into the campo. For a moment, the bright sun blinded him, and he covered his eyes with his hand. When he took it away, he swept his eyes across thecampo, but all he saw were pastel sports clothes and white shirts. He walked to the right and looked down Calle della Bissa, but there was no dark-suited man there. He ran across the campo and looked down the narrow calle that led to the first bridge, but he didn’t see the man. There were at least five other calli that led off the campo, and Brunetti realized the man would be long gone before he could check them all. He decided to try the Rialto embarcadero: perhaps he had taken a boat. Dodging past people and pushing others out of his way, he ran to the water’s edge and then up towards the embarcadero. When he got there, a boat was just leaving, heading towards him in the direction of San Marcuola and the train station.

  He pushed his way through a gaggle of Japanese tourists until he got to the edge of the canal. The boat sailed past him, and he ran his eyes over the passengers standing on deck and those sitting inside. The boat was crowded, and most of the people on it wore casual clothing. Finally Brunetti saw, on the other side of the deck, a man in a dark suit and white shirt. He was just lighting a cigarette and turned aside to flip the match into the canal. The back of his head looked the same, but Brunetti knew he couldn’t be certain about this. When the man turned back, Brunetti stared at his profile, trying to memorize it. And then the boat slipped under the Rialto Bridge, and the man was gone.

  * * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  Brunetti did what any sensible
man will do when he has known defeat: he went home and called his wife. When he was put through to Paola’s room, Chiara answered the phone.

  ‘Oh, ciao, Papà; you should have been on the train. We got stuck outside Vicenza and had to sit there for almost two hours. No one knew what happened, but then the conductor told us that a woman had thrown herself under a train between Vicenza and Verona, so we had to wait and wait. I guess they had to clean it up, eh? When we finally got going, I stayed right at the window all the way to Verona, but I didn’t see anything. You think they got it cleaned up so fast?’

  ‘I suppose so, cara. Is your mother there?’

  ‘Yes, she is, Papà. But maybe I was looking out the wrong side of the train and all the mess was on the other side. Do you think that might be it?’

  ‘Perhaps, Chiara. Could I talk to Mamma?’

  ‘Oh, sure, Papà. She’s right here. Why do you think someone would do that, throw themselves under a train?’