GB_23: By Its Cover: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

by Donna Leon

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, wondering how he could get him to reveal more: feelings, impressions, the unspoken sense of what his brother wanted to say.

  ‘Once – about six months ago – he said he’d been sitting and waiting for years, and he’d finally found someone who would go hunting with him.’ He paused and then added, surprised at his memory. ‘“In the chicken coop.” That’s exactly what he said.’

  ‘What did he mean?’ Brunetti asked, though he thought he knew.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.’ With each short phrase, Franchini’s voice grew louder.

  He started to walk towards the boat again. ‘Maybe I will accept your offer, Commissario,’ he said.

  15

  When he returned to Franchini’s apartment, Brunetti found the two crime-squad men just inside the door, busy snapping closed their equipment boxes. They still wore their protective suits, would keep them on until they returned to the Questura.

  Pucetti and Vianello, both wearing booties and gloves, emerged from a door that led to the back of the apartment; Bocchese came along behind them, he too still fully suited up.

  ‘Did you see the other room?’ Vianello asked Brunetti.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘He was reading. Someone rang the bell or knocked on the door of the apartment, and he put his book face down on the table to go and answer it. Whoever it was killed him.’ To Bocchese, he said, ‘Did your men search the apartment?’

  ‘You know we don’t do that, Guido,’ the technician said with exaggerated patience. ‘We photograph traces that have been left and make a record of the scene and collect samples, but you gentlemen get to open things up and look around.’

  Brunetti almost smiled but did not, unwilling to give Bocchese the satisfaction. ‘Then let me rephrase the question: did any of you happen to see anything we might be interested in? Accidentally, as it were.’

  ‘You’re always a fine one for careful distinctions, aren’t you?’ Bocchese asked. ‘It’s Lorenzo who did the seeing, not one of mine.’

  Brunetti turned his attention to Vianello. ‘I was looking at the books in there,’ the Inspector said, ‘and some of them seemed different from the others.’

  ‘Different’ could mean many things, Brunetti knew. ‘How?’

  ‘They looked old,’ Vianello said and smiled. Pucetti, standing behind him, nodded.

  One of the technicians called over to Bocchese that they were ready to return to the Questura. ‘I’ll go with them,’ Bocchese said, ‘and leave the books to you.’

  ‘Leave an evidence box, would you?’ Brunetti asked the chief technician. ‘Just in case.’

  Bocchese nodded and walked away, his feet making a whooshing sound on the floor. Vianello led the way into the other room. Brunetti and Pucetti followed him to the walnut bookcase behind the chair where Franchini had been sitting. As they pulled on their plastic gloves, Brunetti began to study the books. The top shelves held the usual classics of Italian history and political thinking: Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Gramsci. Even Bobbio was there. Below them started the Latin writers: modern editions of Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, Propertius. He ran his eye across their predictable presence, but on the third shelf down he was surprised, for he found Valerius Flaccus, Arrian, and Quintilian. And Justinian’s Codex, which he had never read – as, indeed, he had never read Valerious Flaccus. There was Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline, which he had read but forgotten entirely, and Varro’s On the Latin Language, which Brunetti had always assumed no one had ever read.

  On the shelf below were the playwrights, but between Seneca’s Phaedra and Plautus’ Comedies stood another book, far older than the modern editions. He pulled it from the shelf and took delight in the way the book nestled comfortably in his hand. Black morocco binding on what might be wooden boards, three raised horizontal bars on the spine. He looked at the cover and saw the double circle within a finely drawn rectangle of gold: CATVL TIBULLUS PROPER. Fumbling with his plastic-covered finger, he opened it to the title page and saw that it had been printed in Lyon by Gryphius in … he worked out the Roman numerals … 1534.

  He stepped aside and set it on the cushion of the chair where Franchini had been sitting and returned his attention to the shelf. He took another book that was farther along the row and opened it. The title page identified it as Seneca’s tragedies. He turned the page, again not without difficulty, and felt the comfortable jolt that beauty always gave him. The illuminator’s hand had taken life from the elaborate N with which the page began and used it as the starting point for a chain of tiny flowers – red and gold and blue and looking as though they had been painted the day before – that enclosed the text. At the bottom, the flowers flowed across to meet and then slipped under a coat of arms with two lions rampant before dancing up the inside margin of the page and back to the originating N. He bent to read the text. ‘NISI GRATIAS AGEREM tibi, vir optime’. So the writer was giving thanks to a good man, Brunetti worked out. Perhaps Enrico Franchini was right, and being able to translate Latin did not discipline the mind.

  He placed the book on top of the other and saw that there were three more such volumes on that shelf and even more on the ones below. On the bottom shelf, he saw a large volume lying horizontally and bent to retrieve it. Tacitus, the first five books. He set it on the back of the chair and opened it, flinching when he saw the inked notations in the margins. He paged through it, having once read it, though in Italian. He could translate phrases and whole sentences, but he could never read it in Latin, not after all these years and not after all the indiscipline of his mind. He tried to read the handwritten notes, but the calligraphy outwitted him and he gave it up.

  He closed the Tacitus and placed it on the growing pile, then stepped back and studied the spines of the remaining books: the antique volumes were easily recognized: almost all of them showed signs of where their paper catalogue stickers had been removed.

  His chose one at random and opened it without bothering to look at the title: the binding had told him its age and suggested its value. He cupped it in his hands and let it fall open where it willed. He saw the illuminated T, a man kneeling to the left of it, two sheep on the other side of the letter. The sight of the lines of poetry printed in italic script caused his heart, and then his hands, to tighten. He had first seen this same text more than twenty years before, during his initial, strained visit to Paola’s parents – he an awkward university student from a humble family invited to dinner at Palazzo Falier – when the Conte had shown him some of the books in the library. He turned back to the title page, and memory was confirmed: the Manutius Virgil. He worked out the date: 1501. He turned to page 36 and looked on the bottom for the stamp with the Conte’s seal, but it was not there.

  Brunetti added the book to the pile. There was a fortune stacked on that chair, and not for an instant did he think that Franchini had come by the books honestly. ‘A thief and a blackmailer, a liar and a fraud.’

  Retrieving the Seneca from the pile, he opened it again, quickly finding the small oval stamp on the bottom left of the title page. ‘Biblioteca Querini Stampaglia,’ he read. He flipped ahead to pages 57 and then 157, where the same identification was repeated. And then, just to be sure – though there was no longer any need of that – he turned to the last page, where he saw the stamp again. It was the library’s numbering pattern he had known since he was a student

  Vianello, who had been silently observing him all this time, said, ‘I thought you’d understand what they are.’ He picked one up: Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. ‘I don’t know anything about them,’ he said. ‘I can barely figure out the title and the date. I didn’t have Latin at school.’

  Pucetti broke in to say, ‘For me it’s old and that’s all.’

  ‘It’s something you might enjoy,’ Brunetti told the younger man.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Pucetti replied. Then, sounding so much like Raffi it made Brunetti’s
ears tingle, he asked, ‘Are they interesting?’

  ‘It depends on what you think is interesting, Roberto,’ he stalled. ‘I read them and I like them.’

  ‘Why?’

  Brunetti reached over and took the book from Vianello. ‘I suppose it’s because I like the past,’ he said. ‘Reading about it shows us that we really haven’t changed much in all these centuries.’

  ‘Why should we change?’ Pucetti asked.

  ‘It might be nice to get rid of some of the bad things,’ Vianello interrupted to say.

  ‘Put the likes of us all out of work,’ Brunetti said and left them to go and ask the technicians if they had a box large enough to hold the books.

  At the Questura, the three men went to Brunetti’s office, he walking first, carrying the box of books. Inside, they put on their gloves again and, following his instructions, opened the books by latching their fingers under the front covers and turning each one to the title page to search for any indication of the rightful owner. The men were careful to touch the books as little as possible and to turn pages only by holding the corners.

  Twelve had come from the Merula. In one that was not from the Merula, Brunetti found the familiar Manutius dolphin and anchor insignia and made out the Greek letters of Sophocles’ name and the date, 1502. Below the insignia there was a modern nameplate with the initials ‘P D’ separated by a single upright dolphin. Two others came from a public library in Vicenza. The next he opened was a 1485 edition of Livy’s History, printed in Treviso, also bearing the ‘P D’ insignia. Another – a 1470 edition of Cicero’s Rhetorica – bore no identification whatsoever. For all Brunetti knew, Franchini could have bought it himself, though he doubted that.

  Only when he had finished making a list of the books did he call Bocchese and ask him to send one of his men for them. Sooner or later, they might find a common fingerprint, other than Franchini’s, on them.

  When the books were gone and Vianello and Pucetti had said they’d return to Franchini’s neighbourhood to speak to the people in the area, Brunetti called Dottoressa Fabbiani and told her about Franchini’s death and then about the books they had found in the apartment.

  ‘My God, poor Tertullian,’ she said without giving a thought to the books. There followed a long pause Brunetti lacked the courage to interrupt. In an altered voice, she then thanked him for the information and told him that the rare book section would be closed until they had done a complete audit of the collection. He started to ask her something, but she cut him off and said she couldn’t talk any more, and then she was gone.

  After he hung up, Brunetti went to the window and told himself he was there to check on the advance of springtime. He looked at the trailing vines slipping over the top of the fence that enclosed the garden on the far side of the canal, but the buds and shoots could have lined up and danced the cancan for all he saw of them. Something at the back of his memory was irritating him, and he tried to work at it, as Dottoressa Fabbiani had at her nail. Push and pull and back and forth … what was the story he had been told that he couldn’t now believe?

  And there it was, standing forthright in his memory. Viale Garibaldi, a woman sitting on the bench and talking to Franchini, sudden arrival of another man, the assault, Franchini’s refusal to press charges. Look at it one way, and it might have been a random attack. Add in Franchini’s fondness for women and blackmail, and the same events might tell a different story entirely.

  He went back to his computer and punched in the assailant’s surname and called up the file on him. On the second page he found his companion’s name and address, the one who had a restraining order against him: Adele Marzi, Castello 999, the sestiere where Franchini had lived. He checked his address in Campo Ruga: 333. It was unlikely that the buildings could be close to one another, but still he pulled his Calli, Campielli e Canali out of the bottom drawer, found the coordinates and opened to map 45. He studied the incoherent numbers for a moment and then saw that 999 lay just at the bottom of Ponte S. Gioachin and thus – thanks to the chaos of the city – less than two minutes from Franchini’s apartment.

  He typed the woman’s name into the system, but she was present there only for having requested the court order keeping Durà away from her. On her application for the request he found her telefonino number and dialled it.

  ‘Sì?’ a woman’s voice answered on the fifth ring.

  ‘Signora Marzi?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘This is Commissario Guido Brunetti,’ he said and waited long enough for her to work it out that he was a commissario of police. ‘I’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘What about?’ she asked after a pause.

  ‘That incident on Viale Garibaldi.’

  She said nothing for a long time and then asked, ‘What about it?’

  ‘We’ve decided to take another look at it.’

  ‘He’s in jail,’ she said.

  ‘I know that, Signora. But it’s still necessary that we discuss the incident.’

  Her voice unsteady with the fear all citizens felt at any brush with the state, she said, ‘I haven’t heard from him.’

  Brunetti wondered whether she meant her ex-companion or Franchini but did not ask. ‘It’s still necessary that we speak, Signora.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we need to know more about what happened.’ It was a stupid answer, but he knew how fear could dull people’s perceptions and make them uncritical.

  ‘When?’

  It sounded like negotiation, but he recognized it as surrender.

  ‘Whenever is most convenient for you, Signora,’ he said in a warm voice. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost eight. ‘Would tomorrow be convenient?’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Whatever time you choose, Signora.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘You could come here to the Questura, or …’

  ‘No,’ she said, cutting off his sentence.

  The fear was back in her voice. He had been about to suggest a place close to where she lived, but that would only confirm that they knew where she lived; it would also put her, near her home, in the company of an unknown man, and she might not like that. ‘We could meet at Florian’s,’ he suggested.

  ‘All right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘What time?’

  It might be better to let her have some time to worry about this, Brunetti found himself thinking. ‘Three,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ she agreed after a silence during which he could almost hear her readjusting her day.

  ‘Good. I’ll see you there.’ Before she could ask, he added, ‘When you come in, ask for me, Brunetti: I’ll leave my name with the waiters.’

  ‘All right,’ she said yet again and cut the line.

  He opened his email and wrote to Signorina Elettra, surely gone home by now. ‘Could you see what there is to know about Adele Marzi, Castello 999? I know that she was granted a restraining order against her ex-companion, Roberto Durà, but nothing else.’ Then, with a not very subtle nudge, he added, ‘I’m meeting her tomorrow afternoon.’ He turned off his computer without bothering to see what mail was waiting for him and went home.

  16

  It was after nine before he got there, not having called to say he would be late. Paola was accustomed to his delays and lapses and usually left something for him in the oven or on the stove while she went back to her study to read or to grade student papers. Years ago, decades ago, he had felt guilty about being late, but his guilt had diminished in the face of her apparent lack of concern at his absences.

  He had asked her about this once, and she had asked in return if he really thought she’d mind spending an hour with Trollope or Fielding instead of with two teenaged children and a husband preoccupied with some horrendous crime. There were times when it was difficult for Brunetti to reconcile the things Paola said with his belief that she was a devoted wife and mother.

  In the kitchen he found a large platter
of artichokes, not the giant, vulgar Roman ones, but their own delicate castraura. There must have been a dozen of them. He picked up the fork that sat beside them and put five on a plate, then took a spoon from the drawer and covered them with olive oil from the bottom of the dish. Then a sixth. He opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of white wine without bothering to look at the label. He put two slices of bread on the side of the plate, noticing that it had dried out a bit. Brunetti could think of no fate more cruel than having to eat alone, so he went towards the back of the house and Paola’s study.

  The door was ajar and he went in without bothering to knock. She looked up from the sofa, where she had staked her territorial rights by lying across most of its length. He sat in the empty place at the end, and put his plate and glass on the low table.

  ‘Guido,’ she said as he picked up the wine and took a sip, ‘someone’s told me a very strange story.’

  ‘About what?’ he asked, piercing the first artichoke. They had been fried in olive oil and a bit of water, with a whole garlic clove left in and parsley added at the end. He cut it in half and shoved the pieces around in the olive oil, flipped them over and made sure the other sides got their fair share. He ate a piece, sipped the wine, and wiped up some olive oil with a fragment of bread. Taking his glass, he sat back in the sofa. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I was talking to Bruno today.’

  ‘The one who has the camping place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he said he’s going to run off to Rio with a German tourist and start a samba studio?’ Bruno, whom Brunetti had known for years, was the uncle of a classmate of Paola’s and ran a small hotel on the Lido. Because the Lido was removed from the city centre, the Guardia di Finanza was a less oppressive presence there, and so Brunetti had always assumed that Bruno was less than rigorous in his bookkeeping.