A Noble Radiance

by Donna Leon

'No, not until later, after they were married’

  'But I thought the Lorenzonis were well known’

  The Count sighed.

  'What?' Brunetti asked.

  'It was Ludovico's father who gave the Jews to the Germans’ "Yes, I know’

  'Everyone knew it, but there was no proof, so nothing happened to him after the war. But none of us would speak to him. Even his brothers wouldn't have anything to do with him’

  'And Ludovico?' Brunetti asked.

  'He spent the war in Switzerland, with relatives. He was just a baby then.'

  'And after the war?'

  'His father didn't live long. Ludovico didn't see him, didn't come back to Venice until after he was dead. There wasn't much to inherit, the title and the palazzo, but nothing else. He came back and made peace with his uncles and aunts. Even then, it seemed like all he could think about was making the name so famous that everyone would forget about his father’

  'It seems he's succeeded,' Brunetti remarked.

  'Yes, he has.' Brunetti knew enough about his father-in-law's interests to know that many of them overlapped, perhaps competed with those of the Lorenzoni family, and so he accepted the Count's assessment of the other man.

  'And now?' Brunetti asked."

  'And now? And now all he has is a nephew.' Brunetti sensed them to be on very uncertain ground here. Count Orazio himself had no son to carry on the name, not even a nephew to carry on the family businesses. He had, instead, one daughter, and she was married, not to a man of rank as exalted as her own, but to a policeman who seemed destined never to rise above the rank of commissario. The same war that had led Ludovico's father to commit crimes against humanity had made Brunetti's father the captain of a regiment of infantry who had gone off to Russia in their paper-soled boots to fight against the enemies of Italy. Instead, they had fought a losing battle against the Russian winter, and those few who survived, Brunetti's father among them, had then disappeared for years into Stalin's gulags. The grey-haired man who walked back to Venice in 1949 was still a captain and lived out his remaining years with a captain's pension, but crimes had been done against his spirit, and Brunetti, as a boy, seldom saw in his father evidence of the playful, joyous young man his mother had married.

  Shaking himself free of the grip of memory and of his involvement with the Lorenzonis, Brunetti said, I've tried to speak to Paola.'

  'Tried?'

  'It’s not easy.'

  'To tell someone you love them?' Astonished that the Count would say something so close to passion, Brunetti said nothing. 'Guido?'

  ‘Yes?' Brunetti braced himself for a long reproach from the Count, but instead he listened to a silence as long as his own had been.

  ‘I understand. I didn't mean to snap.' The Count said nothing more, but Brunetti chose to interpret it as an apology. For twenty years, he and the Count had dodged around the fact that, though marriage had made them relatives, it had failed to make them friends, and yet here was the Count, seeming to offer him just that.

  Another silence blossomed. Finally the Count ended it. 'Be careful with these people, Guido.'

  'The Lorenzonis?'

  'No. With whoever kidnapped that boy. There was no harm in him. And Lorenzoni could have given them the money. That was something else I was told.'

  ‘What?'

  'A friend of mine said that he'd heard a rumour that someone had offered to lend it to the Count.' 'All of it?'

  'Yes, as much as he needed. There would have been considerable interest, of course. But the offer was made.'

  ‘Who?'

  ‘It doesn't matter.' Do you believe it?'

  ‘Yes, it's true. But they still killed him. Lorenzoni could have got the money to them somehow; there's little doubt of that. But they killed him even before he had a chance to get it to them.'

  'How would he have done it? There was police surveillance.' The file on the kidnapping had shown how closely the Lorenzonis and their assets had been watched.

  'People are kidnapped all the time, Guido, and the ransoms are paid without the police ever being informed. It's not a difficult thing to arrange.'

  Brunetti knew this was true. 'Did he, or whoever was going to lend him the money, hear from the kidnappers?'

  'No. Nothing happened after the second note, so he never had to borrow it.'

  The file had told Brunetti that the police had been completely at a loss about the crime. No leads, no rumours among their informers; the boy had been snatched into the void, and all trace of him had been lost until what remained of him turned up in a ditch.

  That's why I tell you to be careful, Guido. If they'd kill him, even knowing that they could easily have had the money, then they're dangerous people.'

  ‘I’ll be careful’ Brunetti said, struck by how often he had said the same thing to this man's daughter.

  'And thank you’

  'It's nothing. I’ll call you if I hear anything else.' With that, the Count hung up. Why kidnap someone and not collect the ransom? wondered Brunetti. The descriptions of Roberto's state of health in the weeks before his kidnapping hardly suggested that he could offer resistance or try to escape his kidnappers. So they had someone who would have been easy to keep captive. And yet they had killed him.

  And the money. Despite the efforts of the government, it had been readily available to the Count, a man who certainly was clever and well connected enough to have found a way to get the money to the kidnappers.

  And yet there had been no third note. Brunetti poked around in the pile of papers on his desk until he found the original report made by the Belluno police. He read the opening paragraphs again. The body, it stated, had been covered in parts by only a few centimetres of earth, one of the reasons there had been such extensive 'animal damage'. He turned to the back and opened the envelope that contained the many photos taken of the body. He pulled out those of the original site and spread them on his desk.

  Yes, the bones were right there, close to the surface. In some of the photos, he could see what appeared to be fragments sticking up through the grass beside the furrow, in the part of the field that had not been ploughed. Roberto's burial had been a hasty and careless thing, as if his killers didn't care if the body was discovered.

  And the ring. The ring. Perhaps, like his girlfriend, Roberto had attempted to hide it in the beginning, when he still might have thought it was only a robbery shoved it into his pocket and forgotten about it, like so much about Roberto's disappearance and death, there was no way to know what had happened.

  Brunetti's reflections were interrupted by Vianello, who burst into his office, panting heavily at having run up the stairs from the floor below.

  'What is it?'

  'Lorenzoni,' the sergeant gasped. 'What?'

  ‘He's killed his nephew.'

  22

  Vianello seemed undone by the news. He could barely speak for a few moments and leant an arm against the doorway, head hanging down while he pulled in deep breaths. Finally, when he had his breathing under control, Vianello went on, 'The call just came in’

  'Who called?'

  'He did. Lorenzoni’

  'What happened?'

  'I don't know. He spoke to Orsoni, told him the boy attacked him and that there'd been a fight.'

  'Anything else?' Brunetti asked, moving past Vianello out into the corridor. Together they headed for the front door and the police launches. Brunetti raised an arm to get the attention of the guard. 'Where's Bonsuan?' he shouted. Heads turned at the urgency of his voice.

  'Outside, sir.'

  ‘I called him,' Vianello said, coming up behind.

  Tell me the rest,' said Brunetti, pushing open the heavy glass door.

  With a nod to Bonsuan, Brunetti leaped on to the waiting launch and turned to pull Vianello on to the already-moving boat.

  'What else?' Brunetti demanded.

  'Nothing. That’ s all he said.'

  'How did he attack him? With what?' Brunetti raised his voic
e over the roar of the boat’s accelerating motor.

  ‘I don't know, sir.'

  'Didn't Orsoni ask?' Brunetti asked, directing his anger towards Vianello.

  'He said he hung up. Just gave that message and hung up.'

  Brunetti banged the open palm of his hand against the railing of the boat, and as if spurred by the blow, the boat soared out into the open waters of the Bacino, cutting across the wake of a taxi, slamming down with a jarring thump. Bonsuan hit the siren, and its dual-toned cry preceded them up the Grand Canal until they pulled in at the private dock of the Lorenzoni palazzo.

  The water gate was open, but no one was there to greet them. Vianello was off the boat first, but his foot missed the top step and fell back onto the one below it, stepping into water that came above his ankle. He barely noticed, turned and half-pulled, half-held Brunetti as he made the longer jump to the higher step. Together they ran into the dark entrance hall and through an open door on the right that led to a lighted stairway. At the top stood the maid who had let Brunetti in the last time. Her face was white, and she kept her arms clasped around herself, as though she'd taken a hard blow to the stomach.

  'Where is he?' Brunetti asked.

  She pulled one arm loose and pointed to another staircase at the end of the hall. She gestured once, twice, with her extended hand.

  The two men made towards the stairs and quickly went up them. At the first landing, they paused, listening, but they heard nothing, and so they continued up the next flight. As they approached the top, a slight sound, that of a single male voice, grew faintly audible. It came from an open door on their left.

  Brunetti went directly into the room. Count Lorenzoni sat beside his wife, holding one of her hands in both of his, speaking softly to her. Anyone viewing the scene would believe that it spoke of domesticity and order: an elderly man sat in soft conversation with his wife, her hand held gently within his own. That is, until they glanced down and saw that the lower half of the man's trousers, and his shoes, were bathed in blood and that smatterings of it spotted his hands and cuffs.

  'Gesu bambino’ Vianello whispered.

  The Count glanced up at them, then back to his wife. 'Don't worry, dear, everything's all right now. I'm all right. Nothing's happened.'

  As Brunetti watched, the Count released her hand, and Brunetti could hear a faint sucking sound as his blood-flecked hands pulled loose from hers. The Count got to his feet and moved away from her. Brunetti saw no sign that his wife realized that he had spoken to her or that he had left her.

  'This way’ the Count said and led them from the room, back towards the steps, and down to the floor beneath. He went down the corridor, towards the room in which Brunetti had twice spoken to him. The Count pushed open the door but made no move to enter the room. He said nothing but shook his head when Brunetti gestured him into the room.

  Brunetti stepped inside, closely followed by Vianello. What he saw made him understand the Count's refusal. The worst was the top of the curtains in front of the far window, which had absorbed whatever remained of the force of the pellets from the shot. They had also absorbed the bulk of the brain matter and blood that had exploded from Maurizio's head. The young man's body lay crumpled at the foot of the curtains, pulled, or collapsed, into a foetal position. Maurizio's face had escaped the force of the shot; the back of his head was gone. The barrel must have been just below his chin when the shot was fired. Brunetti saw this much before he turned away.

  He went back into the corridor, thinking of what he must do, wondering whether anyone, in the wake of his sudden departure from the Questura, would have thought to send the crime team.

  The Count was nowhere to be seen. Vianello came out behind him. His breath was as laboured and forced as it had been when he came into Brunetti's office. 'Will you call them and see if they've sent a team?' Brunetti asked.

  Vianello started to talk but then stopped and nodded.

  'There's got to be another phone,' Brunetti said.

  Try one of the bedrooms’ Viahello nodded, ‘You?'

  Brunetti tilted his chin back towards the stairs. ‘I’ll go and talk to them’ 'Them?' 'Him.'

  This time Vianello's nod signalled that he was again in control. He turned and went back down the corridor, not looking into the room where Maurizio's body lay.

  Brunetti forced himself to go back to the door of the room and look inside. The shotgun lay to the right of the body, its glossy stock just a centimetre from the pool of blood that seeped towards it. Two small rugs lay unevenly bunched together, pushed up in parts, silent witnesses to the struggle that had taken place above them. A man's jacket lay in a heap just inside the door; Brunetti could see that the front was covered with blood.

  He turned, pulling the door closed behind him, and went back to the stairs. He found the Count and Countess as he had left them, though there was no longer any blood on the Count's hands. When he went inside, the Count looked up at him again.

  'Could I speak to you?' Brunetti asked. The Count nodded and again released his wife's hand.

  In the hall, Brunetti said, 'Where can we go to talk?'

  Here's as good as anywhere,' the Count answered. ‘I want to keep an eye on her.' 'Does she know what's happened?' 'She heard the shot,' the Count said. 'From up here?'

  'Yes. Yes. But then she came downstairs.'

  To that room?' Brunetti asked, incapable of disguising his horror. The Count nodded. 'Did she see... him?'

  This time the Count shrugged. 'When I heard her coming - I could hear her slippers in the hall - I walked towards the door. I thought she'd see me, that I could block him out.'

  Brunetti, remembering the jacket that lay inside the door downstairs, wondered what difference this would make.

  The Count suddenly turned away. 'Maybe we had better go down here,' he said, leading Brunetti into the next room. There was a desk and chair and a bookcase filled with ledgers.

  The Count sat just inside the door, lowering himself into a padded armchair. He rested his head against the back, closed his eyes momentarily, then opened them and looked at Brunetti. But he said nothing.

  'Can you tell me what happened?'

  'Last night, late, after my wife had gone to bed, I asked Maurizio if I could speak to him. He was nervous. So was I. I told him that I'd begun to rethink everything about the kidnapping, about how it happened and how the people who did it must have known a lot about the family and what Roberto was doing. To know to wait for him at the villa, they would have to know that he was going there that night.'

  The Count bit his lip, looking off to the left. ‘I told him, told Maurizio, that I no longer could believe that it was a kidnapping, that someone wanted money for Roberto.'

  He stopped here until Brunetti prodded, 'What did he say?'

  'He seemed not to understand me, said that ransom notes had come, that it had to be a kidnapping.' The Count pulled his head away from the back of the chair and sat up straight. 'He's lived with me most of his life. He and Roberto grew up together. He was my heir.'

  As he pronounced that word, the Count's eyes filled with tears. 'That's why,' he said in a voice suddenly grown so soft that Brunetti had to strain to hear him. He said nothing else.

  'What else happened last night?' Brunetti asked.

  'I told him I wanted him to tell me what he did when Roberto disappeared.'

  'It says in the file that he was here with you’

  'He was. But I remember that he cancelled a date that night, a business dinner. It was as if he wanted to be here, with us, that night.'

  'Then he couldn't have done it,' Brunetti said.

  'But he could have paid someone to do it,' the Count said, and Brunetti didn't doubt that this was what he believed.

  'Did you tell him that?'

  The Count nodded. ‘I told him that I was going to give him time to think about this, what I suspected. That he could go to the police himself.' The Count sat up straighter. 'Or do the honourable thing.'

&nb
sp; 'Honourable?'

  'Honourable,' the Count repeated but didn't bother to explain. 'And then?'

  'He was gone all day yesterday. Not in the office, because I called and asked. Then tonight - my wife had already gone to bed - he came into the room -he must have gone up to the villa to get it - he came into the room with the gun. And he said... he said ... that I was right. He said horrible things about Roberto, things that weren't true.' Here the Count could no longer contain his tears; they streamed down his face, but he made no attempt to wipe them away.

  'He said Roberto was worthless, a spoiled playboy, and that he, Maurizio, was the only one who understood the business, the only one who was good enough to inherit it.' The Count looked at Brunetti to see if he could comprehend his own horror at having raised this monster.

  'And then he came towards me with the gun. At first I couldn't believe him, didn't believe all the things he said. But then he said that it would have to look like I'd done it myself, out of grief for Roberto. And then I knew he meant it.'

  Brunetti waited.

  The Count swallowed and wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve, covering his cheeks with streaks of Maurizio's blood. 'He came up in front of me, holding the gun, and he put it against my chest. Then he raised it up under my chin, saying he'd thought about it, and it had to be done that way.' The Count paused, recalling the horror of the scene.

  'When he said that, I must have gone mad. No, not because he would kill me, but that he would be so cold-blooded about it, could have planned it like that. And because of what he did to Roberto.'

  The Count stopped talking, mind pulled away by this memory. Brunetti ventured a question. 'What happened?'

  The Count shook his head. ‘I don't know. I think I kicked him or pushed him. The only thing I remember is pushing the gun towards him and shoving at it with my shoulder. I hoped to knock him over on to the floor. But then the gun went off, and I felt it all over me, his blood. Other things.' He stopped talking and brushed violently at his chest, caught up in the memory of that violent cascade.

  He looked at his hands, clean now. 'And then I heard my wife coming down the hall, towards the room, calling my name. I remember seeing her at the door, and I remember going towards her. But I don't remember anything else, at least not clearly.'