The Waters of Eternal Youth

by Donna Leon

  Vianello ran his hands through his hair. ‘But . . .’ he began. ‘But it’s what everyone says.’

  After a while, he added, ‘They also say that they don’t have to pay tax on it.’ He looked at Brunetti. ‘If that’s the case, then it’s what a person who makes about three thousand euros a month would take home.’ He folded the newspaper in half and slid it slowly to the edge of his desk.

  Looking at Brunetti he asked, ‘It can’t be true, can it? That they’d be given so much?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I’ve heard lots of variants on the same story: that they have entire apartments, not just rooms in an apartment. That their names always go to the top of the lists for housing, so Italians have no place to live.’ One of the circulars he’d been sent from the Ministry of the Interior estimated a cost of fifty euros, but that was the cost to the government for each day it kept an immigrant at one of its shelters or housing facilities: very little went directly into their hands. ‘The government might spend fifty euros a day on them, but it doesn’t go to them,’ he concluded.

  ‘Mamma mia,’ Vianello exploded. ‘Next thing you know, I’ll be voting for the Lega Nord.’

  As if to justify his critical stance, Brunetti said, ‘Logic was my favourite class in school. I liked it because it’s a way to see how what someone says is nonsense.’

  ‘For example?’ Vianello asked.

  ‘As with these immigrants and the argument that they impoverish us as a country, take all of the money that should be ours. And our jobs and our women.’

  He paused, but Vianello did not prompt him with another question, so he went on. ‘In logic, that’s the appeal to fear. Make people afraid of something and you can make them do what you want.’

  Vianello, who had just joked about joining the Lega, added, ‘Once you multiply the fifty euros a day by a couple of months, you do see it’s impossible.’

  Brunetti shrugged. ‘Exactly. Appeal to fear,’ he said.

  ‘Lot of that around, isn’t there?’ Vianello asked.

  This time a silent Brunetti nodded. He was about to ask Vianello if Signorina Elettra had told him about the attempt to hack into the ­Vice-­Questore’s email, when the Inspector said, ‘But still, regardless of whether it goes directly to the immigrants or not, fifty euros a day is still being spent, isn’t it?’ He gave Brunetti a quick glance and asked, ‘Eighteen thousand euros a year?’

  This time, it was Vianello’s turn to wait. When he had figured it out, Brunetti nodded.

  ‘That’s still more than I take home in a year.’ Vianello did some calculations and was forced to clarify. ‘After taxes, that is.’ Was that a grin he saw on Vianello’s face?

  Brunetti decided it was time to go up to his office.

  9

  Brunetti met no one on the steps. He went into his office and, rejecting the temptation to close the door behind him, walked over to the window and looked across towards the façade of San Lorenzo. The restoration team had long since disappeared, leaving no trace that they had been there. Worse, the cat condominium that had stood there for years had vanished, as had, unfortunately, the cats.

  Over the years, most of the street cats had disappeared from the area, and now their last home, that ­multi-­storey extravaganza, was gone. Brunetti realized he minded more for the humans than for the cats. They were wily and would find new safe places to hide in and go on living, but the people from the nursing home who took such pleasure in the cats’ presence and their survival in the face of terrible odds, what of them? And what of Vianello, to whom he had been so condescending with his talk of logic and all its wonders?

  He heard a noise at the door, called ‘Avanti,’ and turned to greet his guest.

  It was Signorina Elettra, today dressed in something that might have been mistaken for battle fatigues. The cloth of her jacket was mottled green and grey, with twin breast pockets buttoned closed. Things got a bit confused with her trousers, which were charcoal grey and very narrow – hardly the sort of thing to wear into battle. Her boots, however, slipped back into role: ­heavy-­soled, thick black leather brushed to a ­mirror-­like shine, tied halfway up her shins with elaborately choreographed white laces. In her hand she held a folder, not a weapon.

  ‘Are you planning to repel an invasion?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve got some information about Contessa Lando-­Continui’s granddaughter,’ she said by way of response. Perhaps he had only imagined speaking?

  ‘Please tell me,’ he said, waving a hand towards the chairs on the other side.

  She sat and crossed her legs. She opened the folder.

  ‘Manuela,’ she began, ‘has been declared 80 per cent mentally handicapped, and her mother receives a monthly payment of six hundred and twelve euros to help care for her.’

  Signorina Elettra glanced at Brunetti, who nodded, urging her to continue. ‘Her oxygen supply was cut off for a certain time. The official report gives this as the reason for her handicap and the resulting payment and further states that the damage manifests itself in permanent ­child-­like behaviour. They estimate her mental age at seven, though for some things it is estimated that she has greater cap­acity.’ She looked at Brunetti, but he shook his head: that was more than enough to know.

  ‘I found the school she was attending and spoke to the preside, who’s been there only four years. Manuela’s file is online and states that she was absent from classes for a good portion of her last three months there. Only one of her teachers is still there: he taught Italian but doesn’t remember much about her save that she was beautiful.’

  Brunetti realized that, although the facts kept rising around him like a tide, he had discovered little to suggest a crime of any sort. If he wanted to make any real progress, he could no longer continue without an official request.

  Signorina Elettra saw his attention move away from her and asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘The ­Vice-­Questore doesn’t know anything about this. I’ve not had time to mention it to him.’ Hearing himself, Brunetti recognized how lame the excuse was.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, eyes moving away from his face, as though a solution were written on the far wall and she had only to study it to discover what it was. ‘It would be best,’ she began and paused to consult the wall again to read the rest of the message. ‘ . . . if he believed that this was an investigation that would somehow help his career.’

  Brunetti turned his attention to the wall she had studied with such success. Their ­eye-­beams threaded on one double string, the same their postures were, staring at the wall in hope of some revelation.

  ‘Have you met Dottor Patta’s wife?’ he broke the silence by asking.

  ‘Once. At a reception for the Praetore. She wanted his attention, not mine.’

  Brunetti was struck by her last sentence and by the idea of a person who wanted attention. Finally he said, ‘That’s how to do it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By using the Contessa’s attention as bait to offer his wife.’

  He watched as Signorina Elettra worked this out. Her eventual smile was sufficient reward.

  In his desk drawer, Brunetti kept a ­ten-­year-­old Nokia that he had bought for Raffi on sale for nineteen euros. The telefonino had served his son for four years, then passed to Chiara until her embarrassment at owning a phone so out of fashion – but that refused to die – grew so great that she used her allowance to buy herself a newer one. The phone, now battered and cracked, had ended up in Brunetti’s briefcase and then in his desk. In it was a chip that had been bought for him, with cash, by one of his ­contacts, purchased with a false carta d’identità and thus untraceable. Brunetti left it in the drawer, sure that no one would bother to steal it.

  He used it only when he wanted no trace of a call to lead back to him.

  The Contessa had given him her number, told him to call if he had
to, and had also told him she would do anything she could to help him. She answered the phone with a simple ‘Sì ’, no doubt because she did not recognize the number.

  ‘It’s me, Contessa. You said I could contact you.’

  ‘Ah,’ she whispered.

  ‘Would you be willing to invite two people to dinner and, if necessary, ask the wife to be on the board of Salva Serenissima?’

  ‘If you asked me to, I would,’ she answered immediately.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said and hung up.

  He glanced across the desk at Signorina Elettra and, in keeping with her outfit, held his fingers up in a triumphant ‘V’.

  Twenty minutes later, Brunetti was sitting in front of his superior’s desk, doing his best to look awkward, almost embarrassed, no doubt the result of his having been chosen, a mere mortal, to help arrange a conjunction of the stars.

  ‘No, ­Vice-­Questore, I have to admit I didn’t bring it up. It was the Contessa who did.’ He carefully avoided meeting Patta’s glance and kept his eyes on the top of the desk. ‘As I told you, we were there for dinner a few nights ago, and she was talking about her foundation, Salva Serenissima, and said that there was an opening for a board member, but she wanted to appoint a woman – definitely a woman – and one who would have objectivity in relation to the other members. She said she was tired of social climbers and wanted a serious person who was deeply committed to the best interests of the city.’

  Brunetti looked up and into Patta’s eyes. ‘It was then that Paola thought to mention your wife.’

  Patta had leaned ever more forward with each sentence and had insisted that Brunetti tell him again exactly what had happened, almost as if he wanted to be sure to give an accurate account of it, should it happen that he repeated it to some other person. ‘Go on,’ he said in a pleasant voice. ‘Please.’

  ‘Of course, Dottore. As I said, Paola has heard so many good things about your wife that she suggested the Contessa might want to speak to her about the possibility of her joining the board.’

  ‘Did the Contessa ask your opinion?’ Patta said, trying to sound affable but managing only to sound menacing.

  ‘She did. And I said I thought Paola was right.’

  ‘Good,’ Patta affirmed in a more pleasant voice. ‘And so?’

  ‘I took the liberty of giving her your phone number, sir. I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t have your wife’s to give her.’

  ‘And?’ Patta asked.

  ‘She said she’d call you this week and see if . . .’ he was about to say, ‘if your wife would be willing to speak to her’, but he realized in time that this was too obsequious, even for Patta, and so, instead, said, ‘your wife might be interested in a position such as this.’ Brunetti recrossed his legs, and awaited his superior’s words.

  ‘I’ll discuss it with her this evening,’ Patta said, doing his best to sound nonchalant, as if this were the sort of offer he and his wife had to deal with every day. Then, ‘Can you tell me a bit more about the ­Lando-­Continui family?’

  ‘It’s one of the oldest families in the city,’ Brunetti lied. ‘And the Contessa’s foundation is renowned.’ He’d let Patta think about that. ‘The palazzo is impressive.’ His ­father-­in-­law had said it was ­second-­rate, but that was surely not an opinion Brunetti was meant to publicize.

  ‘There is one thing, however . . .’ Brunetti began.

  ‘’What?’ Patta asked.

  ‘The granddaughter.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Well, sir, few people remember, but the Contessa – I know this only because my ­mother-­in-­law told me about it – is very troubled by something she thinks we’re responsible for.’

  ‘You and your wife?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Brunetti said with a smile he made sure looked nervous. ‘The police.’

  ‘How can a woman of that stature have anything to do with the police?’ Patta demanded.

  Now that Patta had bit at the hook, Brunetti decided to give it a hard tug by using Paola’s mother’s title.

  ‘Contessa Falier told us about it at dinner the other night. Years ago, Contessa ­Lando-­Continui, who is her best friend, told her how dissatisfied she was with the way the police investigated what she thinks was an attack on her granddaughter.’

  ‘I know nothing about this,’ Patta said, as Brunetti knew he would. Brunetti was surprised he didn’t ring a bell and have Lieutenant Scarpa bring in a basin of warm water so that he could wash his hands of all responsibility.

  ‘It was before you were here, Dottore. Of course you can’t know about it. But she’s apparently convinced there was some error.’ Brunetti held up his hands and shrugged, as if to suggest that his superior’s wife would have other opportunities to break into Venetian society.

  ‘Have you studied the case?’ Patta demanded.

  ‘I remember it from the past, sir,’ Brunetti said, lying more easily this time. He moved his head from side to side, either to give his imitation of an Indian actor he’d seen in a Bollywood film some weeks before or to express uncertainty.

  ‘What?’ Patta asked, voice grown crisper.

  ‘I think it’s possible that some details might have been overlooked during the original investigation,’ Brunetti answered vaguely.

  ‘Could it be reopened?’ Patta asked.

  ‘If you asked a magistrate to order it, I’m sure it could be, Dottore.’ Brunetti could not have been more helpful and accommodating.

  ‘Right,’ Patta said in his voice of command. ‘Send me an email with all of the information: case number, dates, people involved, and I’ll see about finding someone who will authorize it.’ He paused for a moment and then added, ‘Gottardi would be the right one. He’s new, and he won’t give any trouble.’

  Brunetti knew when to disappear. He got to his feet. ‘That’s very good of you, sir. I’m sure Contessa Lando-­Continui will be pleased.’

  The very idea that a member of the aristocracy would be pleased with him brought a smile to Patta’s lips. Brunetti took his leave.

  Outside Patta’s office, uncertain as to whether Patta would call his wife immediately or wait to surprise her at dinner with the news, he was reluctant to linger and talk to Signorina Elettra. She, however, waved him nearer to her desk and said, ‘I’ve spoken to Giorgio. He’s just been promoted and is very busy, but he said he’d look into that matter as soon as he can.’

  So enchanted had Brunetti been by his exchange with Patta that it took him a moment to realize she was talking about the attempt to break into the emails of both the ­Vice-­Questore and the Lieutenant.

  ‘What is it that he’s doing now?’ Brunetti asked. Her look assessed Brunetti’s right to know as well as his ability to be trusted with information. He must have passed both tests, for she said, lowering her voice, ‘He’s working on a way to erase all record of the numbers that have been called from a person’s phone as well as to erase any recordings that might have been made of actual conversations.’

  ‘Am I to understand that this can all be done with his computer?’

  ‘Well,’ she said with feigned hesitation, ‘not from his computer, but from a computer.’

  ‘From one of Telecom’s own computers?’ Brunetti asked, astonished to learn that Giorgio had turned on his employer and even more surprised that he would risk using one of their own computers to work against them.

  ‘I thought I’d told you, Dottore. He doesn’t work for Telecom any more. He hasn’t for some time.’ She might as well have pasted a DO NOT TRESPASS sign across her forehead and switched it on.

  ‘Ah,’ Brunetti said in sudden understanding. ‘I hope he’s still willing to . . . ?’ he began but proved unable to complete the sentence or, in fact, to find the proper term for whatever it was Giorgio had been doing for Signorina Elettra for years. Most o
f the terms that occurred to him would ordinarily lead to criminal prosecution.

  ‘Yes, he’s willing.’ It was evident that this was the last thing she had to say for now. He nodded and went back to his own office.

  Half an hour later, Brunetti still sat in his office, uncertain about what he wanted to do. He had read his way through most of the papers accumulated on his desk and would have been able to recall them, so strongly had he forced himself to concentrate. But none of the cases required his attention. The one regarding the Bangladeshi porter who had stabbed another porter to death during a furious argument over territory at the train station had been solved within a few hours of the victim’s death; the body found floating in the laguna four days ago was quickly identified as a retired electrician who had had a heart attack and fallen out of his boat while fishing; the postman on the Lido who had set fire to the camper van of the new boyfriend of his ­ex-­wife had been found and arrested.

  Brunetti knew that he would use the speedy resolution of those cases to justify his investigation of a ­fifteen-­year-old accident that might well not even be a criminal case.

  Is this what retirement would be for him? he wondered. Sticking his nose into other people’s business whenever he had the feeling that something wasn’t consistent in a story? Must every death come in a tidy package before ­ex-­Commissario Brunetti would leave it alone and let people get on with their lives?

  He dialled Rizzardi’s number in the office at the morgue. The pathologist answered with his name.

  ‘It’s me, Ettore,’ Brunetti said. ‘I have a favour to ask you.’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ Rizzardi said in a pleasant voice. ‘And you?’

  ‘It’s about patient records at the hospital. I thought you might know something.’ Rizzardi remained silent, so Brunetti plunged on. ‘From about fifteen years ago. I’m going to have a magistrate’s order that will let me have a look, but not for a few days, I’d guess, so as of the moment, I’m not authorized to ask questions or see files. Is there anyone in the Records Office who might be able to help?’