17

‘Oh, Guido, how incredibly ridiculous. I think the heat’s got to you, really I do.’ His mother-in-law, it seemed, was going to present obstacles to her enlistment. She sat opposite him, dressed in a white linen shirt worn over black silk slacks. She had recently had her hair cut boyishly short, and Brunetti could not shake the idea that, seen from the back, she would look like a white-haired adolescent. Her motions were still quick and decisive, definitely the gestures of a younger person. The fact that he often had trouble keeping up with her when they walked Brunetti attributed to her small size: this made it easier for her to pass through crowded streets, and there was no other kind in Venice any more.

He sat, late that same afternoon, his second spritz on the low table in front of him, watching the reflection of the setting sun in the windows of the palazzo opposite Palazzo Falier. It was the first time he had relaxed all day; Brunetti put this down to the drinks and to the lofty ceilings that kept the rooms cool no matter what the outside temperature, and to the breeze that played perpetually through the windows. He sat and watched the curtains fluttering in and out, in and out, and thought of how he could convince her to consult Signor Gorini.

‘It would help Vianello,’ he said, though she had met the Ispettore only once, and then on the street for a total of two minutes.

She glanced at him but did not bother to answer. She leaned forward and sipped at her spritz, her first, and set the glass back on the table. Small wrinkles radiated out from her eyes, but the skin was taut over her cheekbones and under her chin. From Paola, Brunetti knew that this was the result of genes and not the surgeon’s knife.

‘And it might help this old woman,’ he said.

‘One old woman helping another?’ she inquired lightly.

He laughed, knowing that her age was a subject about which she was not sensitive. ‘No, not at all. It’s more a case of a woman of the upper classes helping one of the worthy poor.’

‘And me without my lorgnette and tiara.’

‘No, I’m serious, Donatella. No one is going to help this woman. Someone’s manipulating her, but she’s refused to listen to her family, so they can’t help her. Her banker apparently can’t talk any sense into her. And if she knew we were investigating this Gorini – which is entirely against the rules, probably even illegal – I’m sure she’d break off relations with Vianello. And that would hurt him terribly, I know.’

‘So it becomes the responsibility of the aristocracy to save a member of the lower orders?’ she asked, her voice enclosing that last phrase in ironic quotation marks.

‘Something like that, I suppose,’ Brunetti said and took another sip of his drink.

‘Do you have proof that this Gorini person is a charlatan?’

‘He has a long record of dishonesty.’

‘Ah,’ she whispered, ‘not unlike our own dear leaders.’

Brunetti let that pass.

‘Would you like another drink?’ she asked, seeing the level of his glass.

‘No. I want to go home and get something to eat, call Paola, and go to bed. I spent hours on trains today.’ He chose not to tell her about the murder investigation that was beginning: she could read about that tomorrow.

‘Do you think this Signor Gorini is a bad man?’ she asked.

He consulted the opposite windows and was relieved to see that the light had faded even more. ‘To date, there’s been no suggestion that he’s violent,’ he finally said. ‘He’s never been accused of that. But, yes, I do think he’s a bad man. He sees where there’s a weakness, and he goes for that. In the past, he’s defrauded the state, but it seems he’s realized it’s easier to defraud people. The state will defend itself, but it has little time to defend the citizen.’ He thought about stopping here but decided not to and added, ‘And less interest.’

‘And this from an employee of the state,’ she said.

Had he been less tired, Brunetti would have been quite happy to banter with her about this, as they had countless times in the past. Paola’s sardonic vision of the world had come from her father: he was sure of that. But it was her mother who had passed on the sense of irony with which she tempered what she saw.

Brunetti put his hands on the arms of his chair and was pushing himself upright when she surprised him by saying, ‘All right.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘All right. I’ll do it. I’ll go and talk to this man and see what he’s up to. But you have to find a way for me to justify my visit to him: I can’t just walk in from the street and say I saw his name on the doorbell and thought perhaps he could find an astrological solution for all my problems, can I?’

‘Hardly,’ Brunetti agreed, lowering himself back into the chair. ‘I’ll have Signorina Elettra see if there is a place where he advertises or where interested people can find out more about him.’

‘In the computer?’ she asked, unable to disguise her astonishment.

‘It’s the new age, Donatella.’

The first thing he did when he got home was throw open all of the windows and step out on to the terrace where the hot air, he hoped, would follow him. The curtain brushed against his leg as it flowed outside, chasing the escaping air, a sign that his wish was coming true. After about ten minutes, Brunetti went back inside a cooler apartment.

Believing that they would be away for two weeks, Paola had cleared out the refrigerator. He opened it, found some onions in the bottom drawer. Two containers of plain yoghurt. A piece of vacuum-packed parmigiano. He opened a cabinet and found a small jar of pesto, a six-pack of canned tomatoes, and a jar of black olives.

He called Paola’s telefonino number. She answered by saying, ‘Fry the onions, then add the tomatoes and olives. They don’t have any pits. Make sure you put the parmigiano in a new plastic bag, one of the zip-lock ones.’

‘I miss you desperately, too,’ Brunetti said.

‘Don’t get smart with me, Guido Brunetti, or I’ll tell you it’s 14 degrees and I’m wearing a sweater in the house.’ He started to defend himself but she added, ‘And there’s a fire in the stove.’

‘I know a lot of lawyers who handle divorce work, you know.’

‘And we went for a walk this afternoon; three hours, full sun, and the Ortler is still covered with snow.’

‘All right, all right. I’ll beat Patta into confessing and come up tomorrow.’

‘Tell me about the phone call. Who was it that got killed?’ she asked, all humour fled from her voice.

‘A man who works at the Tribunale. It could have been a mugging that went wrong.’

She had been married to this man for more than twenty years and so she asked, ‘ “Could have been”? Does that mean that it probably was a mugging or that Patta is going to try to pass it off as one?’

‘It could have been. He was killed in the courtyard of his home, and no one found him until this morning. I don’t know yet what Patta will do.’

‘Do you have any ideas?’

‘Only vague ones,’ he said. Because Paola had asked about the murder case, Brunetti felt no need to tell her that he had enlisted her mother into helping the police investigate what might be another crime. In order to stay away from that subject, he asked, ‘How are the kids?’

‘Tired. I’ve fed them and they’re trying to stay awake until ten. I think they still believe it’s only little kids who go to bed before that.’

‘Oh, to be a little kid,’ Brunetti exclaimed.

‘All right. Make the sauce and eat. Then go to bed. It will be well after ten by then.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I hope it stays sunny and cool enough to make you wear a sweater all the time.’

‘How is it there?’

‘Hot.’

‘Go and eat, Guido.’

‘I will,’ he answered, said goodbye and hung up the phone.