Anonymous Venetian

by Donna Leon

‘Do your other friends - colleagues - have similar arrangements?’

  ‘A few of us, but we’re the lucky ones.’

  Brunetti considered this fact and its possible consequences for a minute. ‘Where do you change, Signor Canale?’

  ‘Change?’

  ‘Into your ...’ Brunetti began and then paused, wondering what to call them. ‘Into your working clothes? If people think you work on the railways, that is.’

  ‘Oh, in a car, or behind the bushes. After a while, you get to be very fast at it; doesn’t take a minute.’

  ‘Did you tell all of this to Signor Mascari?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Well, some of it. He wanted to know about the rent. And he wanted to know the addresses of some of the others.’

  ‘Did you give them to him?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I told you, I thought he was police, so I told him.’

  ‘Did he ask you anything else?’

  ‘No, only about the addresses.’ Canale paused for a moment and then added, ‘Yes, he asked one more thing, but I think it was just sort of, you know, to show that he was interested in me. As a person, that is.’

  ‘What did he ask?’

  ‘He asked if my parents were alive.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him the truth. They’re both dead. They died years ago.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Sardinia. That’s where I’m from.’

  ‘Did he ask you anything else?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘What sort of reaction did he have to what you told him?’

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ Canale said.

  ‘Did he seem surprised by anything you said? Upset? Were these the answers he was expecting to get?’

  Canale thought for a moment and then answered, ‘At first, he seemed a little surprised, but then he kept asking me questions, as if he didn’t even have to think about them. As if he had a whole list of them ready.’

  ‘Did he say anything to you?’

  ‘No, he thanked me for the information I gave him. That was strange, you know, because I thought he was a cop, and usually cops aren’t very ...’ He paused, hunting for the proper expression. ‘They don’t treat us very well.’

  ‘When did you remember who he was?’

  ‘I told you: when I saw his picture in the paper. A banker. He was a banker. Do you think that’s why he was so interested in the rents?’

  ‘I suppose it could be, Signor Canale. It’s certainly a possibility we will check.’

  ‘Good. I hope you can find the man who did it. He didn’t deserve to die. He was a very nice man. He treated me well, decently. The way you did.’

  ‘Thank you, Signor Canale. I wish only that my colleagues would do the same.’

  ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’ Canale said with a winsome smile.

  ‘Signor Canale, could you give me a list of the same names and addresses you gave him? And, if you know it, when your friends moved into their apartments.’

  ‘Certainly,’ the young man said, and Brunetti passed a piece of paper and a pen across the desk to him. He bent over the paper and began to write and, as he did, Brunetti watched his large hand, holding the pen as though it were a foreign object. The list was short, and he was quickly finished with it. When he was done, Canale set the pen down on the desk and got to his feet.

  Brunetti got up and came round his desk. He walked with Canale to the door, where he asked, ‘What about Crespo? Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘No, he’s not someone I worked with.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of what might have happened to him?’

  ‘Well, I’d have to be a fool not to think it’s related to the other man’s murder, wouldn’t I?’

  This was so self-evident that Brunetti didn’t even nod.

  ‘In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say he was killed because he talked to you.’ Seeing Brunetti’s look, he explained, ‘No, not to you, Commissario, but to the police. I’d guess he knew something about the other killing and had to be eliminated.’

  ‘And yet you came down here to talk to me?’

  ‘Well, Signor Mascari spoke to me like I was just an ordinary person. And you did, too, didn’t you, Commissario? Spoke to me like I was a man, just like other men?’ When Brunetti nodded, Canale said, ‘Well, then, I had to tell you, didn’t I?’

  The two men shook hands again, and Canale walked down the corridor. Brunetti watched as his dark head disappeared down the steps. Signorina Elettra was right, a very handsome man.

  * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brunetti went back into his office and dialled Signorina Elettra’s number. ‘Would you come up to my office, please, Signorina?’ he asked. ‘And could you bring anything you’ve discovered about those men I asked you to look into this week?’

  She said she would be delighted to come up; he had every confidence that this was true. Brunetti was, however, prepared for her disappointment when she knocked, came in, and looked around, only to find the young man gone.

  ‘My visitor had to leave,’ Brunetti said in answer to her unspoken question.

  Signorina Elettra recovered herself immediately. ‘Ah, did he?’ she asked, voice level with lack of interest, and handed two separate files to Brunetti. ‘The first is Avvocato Santomauro.’ He took it from her hand, but even before he could open it, she said, ‘There’s nothing whatsoever worthy of comment. Law degree from Ca’ Foscari: a Venetian born and bred. He’s worked here all his life, is a member of all the professional organizations, married in the church of San Zaccaria. You’ll find tax returns, passport applications, even a permit to put a new roof on his home.’

  Brunetti glanced through the file and found exactly what she described, nothing more. He turned his attention to the second, which was considerably thicker.

  ‘That’s the Lega della Moralità,’ she said, making Brunetti wonder if everyone who spoke those words did so with the same heavy sarcasm or if this was perhaps no more than an indication of the kind of people he spent his time with. ‘The file is more interesting, but I’ll let you take a look through it and see what I mean,’ she said. ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you, Signorina,’ he said and opened the file.

  She left and he spread the file flat on his desk and began to read through it. The Lega della Moralità had been incorporated as a charitable institution nine years ago, its charter proclaiming it an organization seeking to ‘improve the material condition of the less fortunate so that the lessening of their worldly cares would aid them more easily to turn their thoughts and desires toward the spiritual.’ These cares were to be lessened in the form of subsidized houses and apartments which were owned by various churches in Mestre, Marghera, and Venice and which had passed into the administration of the Lega. The Lega would, in its turn, assign these apartments, at minimal rents, to parishioners of the churches of those cities who were found to meet the standards established by the joint agreement of the churches and the Lega. Among those requirements were regular attendance at Mass, proof of baptism of all children, a letter from their parish priest attesting that they were people who maintained the ‘highest moral standards’, and evidence of financial need.

  The charter of the Lega placed the power to select among applicants in the hands of the board of directors of the Lega, all of whom, to remove any possibility of favouritism on the part of Church authorities, were to be laymen. They were themselves, as well, to be of the highest moral character and were to have achieved some prominence in the community. Of the current board of six, two were listed as ‘honorary members’. Of the remaining four, one lived in Rome and another in Paris, while the third lived on the monastery island of San Francesco del Deserto. The only active member of the board living in Venice, therefore, was Avvocato Giancarlo Santomauro.

  The original charter provided for the transfer of fifty-two apartments to the administration of the
Lega. At the end of three years, the system had been judged to be so successful, this on the basis of letters and statements from tenants and from parish officials and priests who had interviewed them, that six other parishes were led to join, passing another forty-three apartments to the care of the Lega. Much the same thing happened three years after that, when another sixty-seven apartments, most of them in the historic centre of Venice and the commercial heart of Mestre, were passed to the Lega.

  Since the charter under which the Lega operated and which gave it control of the apartments it administered was subject to renewal every three years, this process, Brunetti calculated, was due to be repeated this year. He flipped back and read the first two reports of the evaluation committees. He checked the signatures on both: Avvocato Giancarlo Santomauro had served on both boards and had signed both reports, the second as chairman. It was shortly after that report that Avvocato Santomauro had been appointed president - an unpaid and entirely honorary position - of the Lega della Moralità.

  Attached to the back of the report was a list of the addresses of the one hundred and sixty-two apartments currently administered by the Lega, as well as their total area and the number of rooms in each. He pulled the paper Canale had given him closer and read through the addresses on it. All four appeared on the other list. Brunetti liked to think of himself as a man of broad views, relatively free of prejudice, yet he wasn’t sure whether he could credit five transvestite prostitutes as being people of the ‘highest moral standards’, even if they were living in apartments which were rented for the specific purpose of helping tenants ‘turn their thoughts and desires to the spiritual’.

  He turned back from the list of addresses and continued reading through the body of the report. As he had expected, all of the tenants of Lega apartments were expected to pay their rents, which were no more than nominal, to an account at the Venice office of the Banca di Verona, which bank also handled the contributions the Lega made to the ‘relief of widows and orphans’, donations paid out of the funds raised from the minimal rents paid on the apartments. Even Brunetti found himself surprised that they would dare a rhetorical flourish like this - ‘the relief of widows and orphans’ - but then he saw that this particular form of charitable work was not undertaken until Avvocato Santomauro had assumed the leadership of the Lega. Flipping back, Brunetti saw that the five men on Canale’s list had all moved into their apartments after Santomauro became president. It was almost as it having achieved that position, Santomauro felt himself free to dare anything.

  Brunetti stopped reading here and went and stood at the window of his office. The brick facade of San Lorenzo had been free of scaffolding for the last few months, but the church still remained closed. He looked at the church and told himself that he was committing an error against which he warned other police: he was assuming the guilt of a suspect, even before he had a shred of tangible evidence to connect the suspect with the crime. But just as he knew that the church would never be reopened, not in his lifetime, he knew that Santomauro was responsible for Mascari’s murder and for Crespo’s, and for that of Maria Nardi. He, and probably Ravanello. A hundred and sixty-two apartments. How many of them could be rented to people like Canale or to others who were willing to pay their rent in cash and ask no questions? Half? Even a third would give them more than seventy million lire a month, almost a billion lire a year. He thought of those widows and orphans, and he wondered if Santomauro could have been led so to overreach himself that they, too, were part of it, and even the minimal rents that reached the coffers of the Lega were then turned around and paid out to phantom widows and invented orphans.

  He went back to his desk and paged through the report until he found the reference to the payments made to those found worthy of the charity of the Lega: yes, payments were made through the Banca di Verona. He stood with both hands braced on the desk, head bent down over the papers, and he told himself, again, that certainty was different from proof. But he was certain.

  Ravanello had promised him copies of Mascari’s accounts at the bank, no doubt the records of the investments he oversaw or the loans he approved. Clearly, if Ravanello was willing to supply those documents, then whatever Brunetti was looking for would not be among them. To have access to the complete files of the bank and of the Lega, Brunetti would need an order from a judge, and that could come only from a power higher than Brunetti had at his disposal.

  * * * *

  Patta’s ‘Avanti’ came through the door, and Brunetti entered his superior’s office. Patta looked up, saw who it was, and bent down again over the papers in front of him. Much to Brunetti’s surprise, Patta seemed actually to be reading them, not using them as props to suggest his own industry.

  ‘Buon giorno, Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said as he approached the desk.

  Patta looked up again and waved to the chair in front of him. When Brunetti was seated, Patta asked, pushing a finger at the papers in front of him, ‘Do I have you to thank for this?’

  Since Brunetti had no idea of what the papers were and didn’t want to lose a tactical advantage by admitting that, he had only the Vice-Questore’s tone to guide his answer. Patta’s sarcasm was usually broad, but there had been no trace of it. Because Brunetti was entirely unfamiliar with Patta’s gratitude, indeed, could only speculate as to its existence, much in the way a theologian would think of guardian angels, he could not be certain that this was the sentiment which underlay Patta’s tone.

  ‘Are they the papers Signorina Elettra brought you?’ Brunetti ventured, playing for time.

  ‘Yes,’ Patta said, patting them, much as a man would pat the head of a favoured dog.

  That was enough for Brunetti. ‘Signorina Elettra did all the work, but I did suggest a few places to look,’ he lied, casting his eyes down in false humility to suggest that he dare not seek praise for doing something so natural as being of use to Vice-Questore Patta.

  ‘They’re going to arrest him tonight,’ Patta said with savage delight.

  ‘Who are, sir?’

  ‘The finance people. He lied on his application for citizenship in Monaco, so that’s not valid. That means he’s still an Italian citizen and hasn’t paid taxes here for seven years. They’ll crucify him. They’ll hang him up by his heels.’

  The thought of some of the tax dodges which former and current ministers of state had managed to get away with led Brunetti to doubt that Patta’s dreams would be realized, but he thought this not the moment to demur. He didn’t know how to ask the next question and sought to do so delicately. ‘Will he be alone when he’s arrested?’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Patta said, meeting his glance. ‘The arrest is secret. They’re going in at eight tonight. I know about it only because a friend of mine in Finance called to tell me about it.’ As Brunetti watched, Patta’s face clouded with preoccupation. ‘If I call her and warn her, she’ll tell him, and then he’ll leave Milano and won’t be arrested. But if I don’t call her, she’ll be there when they arrest him.’ And then, he didn’t have to say, there was no way her name could be kept from the press. And then, inevitably, Patta’s. Brunetti watched Patta’s face, fascinated by the emotions that played upon it as he was torn between vengeance and vanity.

  As Brunetti knew it would, vanity won. ‘I can’t think of a way to get her out of there without warning him.’

  ‘Perhaps, sir, but only if you think it’s a good idea, you could have your lawyer call her and ask her to meet him in Milano this evening. That would get her out of, er, where she is when the police arrive.’

  ‘Why would I want my lawyer to talk to her?’

  ‘Perhaps he could say you were willing to discuss terms, sir? It would serve to get her somewhere else for the evening.’

  ‘She hates my lawyer.’

  ‘Would she be willing to talk to you, sir? If you said you were going to Milano to meet her?’

  ‘She ...’ Patta began but pushed himself back from his desk and stood without finishing the thought
. He walked over to his window and began his own silent inspection of the facade of San Lorenzo.

  He stood there for a full minute, saying nothing, and Brunetti realized the peril of the moment. Should Patta turn round and confess to some sort of emotional weakness, confess that he loved his wife and wanted her back, he would never forgive Brunetti for having been there to hear it. Worse, should he give some physical sign of weakness or need and Brunetti see it, Patta would be relentless in exacting vengeance upon the witness.

  Voice level and serious, as though Patta and his personal problems were already dismissed from his mind, Brunetti said, ‘Sir, the real reason I came down was to discuss this Mascari business. I think there are some things you ought to know.’

  Patta’s shoulders moved up and down once as he took a deep breath, and then he turned around and came back to his desk. ‘What’s been happening?’