leaving the lawyers in front of the dais.
They turned to face one another and spoke briefly. One opened a case file and showed the other a paper. The second lawyer took it and read it, both of them undisturbed by the sound of chairs being pushed back as the spectators got to their feet and started to file out of the courtroom. Brunetti and Vianello also stood, the better to let people move past them, then sat again when their row was empty.
The second lawyer moistened his lips, then raised his eyebrows in a gesture of reluctant acceptance. He took the paper and went back to where his client was sitting. He placed the paper on the desk in front of the man and pointed to it. The other man placed a finger on the paper and moved it back and forth along the lines, as if expecting his finger to transmit the text to him. At a certain point, his finger gave up and his hand fell flat on the surface of the sheet covering — accidentally or intentionally — the text that he had just read.
He looked at his lawyer and shook his head. The lawyer spoke, and the man glanced away. Time passed, the lawyer said something else as he grabbed up the paper and took it back to his colleague. He handed him the now- wrinkled sheet of paper, and the two lawyers turned and left the room, leaving the second lawyer’s client sitting alone at the table.
Brunetti and Vianello got to their feet and moved towards the door. ‘The loser was Manfredi,’ said Brunetti, ‘so that means Penzo won.’
‘I wonder what was on the paper,’ Vianello said.
‘Manfredi’s as crooked as they come,’ Brunetti said in a voice heavy with long experience, ‘so it was probably something that proved he or his client has been lying.’
‘And Penzo can prove it.’
‘One would like to think,’ said Brunetti, reluctant to believe in the integrity of a lawyer until he had had direct experience of the person. ‘Let’s talk to him.’ They found the lawyer at the end of the corridor, where he stood looking out of a window, his robe tossed on the windowsill, his arms lifted from his body in what Brunetti was sure was a vain attempt to find relief from the heat. Seeing Penzo from the back, Brunetti was struck by how thin the man was: hips no wider than a boy’s, his shirt puffed in damp, empty folds from shoulder to waist.
‘Avvocato Penzo?’ Brunetti said.
Penzo turned, a look of mild inquiry on his face. Like his body, his face was narrow, an effect created by the hollows under his cheekbones, which in turn made his nose, quite a normal nose, seem disproportionately large. His eyes were the colour of milk chocolate and were encircled by the sort of small wrinkles that come from years of squinting into the sun.
‘
As if he had not noticed Penzo’s expression, Brunetti said, ‘I’m Commissario Guido Brunetti, and this is Ispettore Lorenzo Vianello.’
Penzo turned, retrieved his robe from the windowsill, and draped it over his arm. ‘How may I help you?’ he asked.
‘We’d like to talk to you about a client of yours,’ Brunetti said.
‘Of course. Where shall we do it?’ Penzo asked, glancing around the corridor. It was no longer crowded now, during lunchtime, but there were still people walking by now and again.
‘We could go to Do Mori and have a drink,’ Brunetti suggested. Vianello breathed an audible sigh of relief, and Penzo smiled in agreement.
‘Could you give me five minutes to get rid of this,’ Penzo said, raising the arm that held the robe, ‘and I’ll meet you at the entrance?’
It was agreed and Brunetti and Vianello turned away towards the stairs.
As they walked down, Brunetti asked, ‘Who do you think he’s calling?’
‘His wife, probably, to say he’ll be late for lunch,’ Vianello said, declaring his partisanship for the lawyer.
Neither of them spoke again until they stood outside. The sun had blasted all life from Campo San Giacometto. The florist’s and the two stands that sold dried fruit were closed; even the water trickling from the fountain looked beaten down by the heat. Only the stall that huddled under the protection of the long arcade was open.
Brunetti and Vianello stepped into the shadow of the arcade and waited. Penzo arrived quickly, carrying a briefcase.
‘What did you show your colleague, Avvocato?’ Vianello asked, then excused himself for his curiosity.
Penzo laughed out loud, an infectious sound. ‘His client was claiming damages for whiplash he says he experienced in a road accident. My client was driving the other car. My colleague’s client claimed he was incapacitated for months and couldn’t work and because of that lost the chance of promotion at his job.’
Curious now, Brunetti asked, ‘How much was he claiming?’
‘Sixteen thousand Euros.’
‘How long was he out of work?’
‘Four months.’
‘What did he do?’ Vianello interrupted.
‘Excuse me?’ Penzo asked.
‘What sort of work did he do?’
‘A cook.’
‘Four thousand a month,’ Vianello said appreciatively. ‘Not bad.’
The three men had begun walking towards Do Mori, automatically turning right and left and right again. Outside, Penzo halted, as if he wanted to conclude this part of their conversation before they went inside, and said, ‘But his union saw that he was paid while he was out. This was damages for pain and suffering.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said. Payment every week for pain and suffering. Far better than working. ‘What did you show him?’
‘A statement from two cooks who worked in a restaurant in Mira who said the man had worked with them for three of the four months he was claiming compensation.’
‘How’d you find out?’ Vianello asked impulsively, even though he knew this was something lawyers were always unwilling to divulge.
‘His wife,’ Penzo said with another loud laugh. ‘She was separated from him at the time — they’re divorced now — and he started being late with the child support. He used the accident as an excuse, but she knew him well enough to be suspicious, and so she had him followed when he went out to Mira. When she found out he was working there, she told me about it, and I went and spoke to the other cooks, got their statements.’
‘If I might ask, Avvocato,’ Brunetti began, ‘how long ago did this happen?’
‘Eight years,’ Penzo answered in a cool voice, and none of them, each well versed in the workings of the law, found this in any way unusual.
‘So he loses sixteen thousand Euros?’ Vianello asked.
‘He doesn’t lose anything, Ispettore,’ Penzo corrected him. ‘He simply doesn’t get the money he doesn’t deserve.’
‘And still has to pay his lawyer,’ Brunetti observed.
‘Yes, that’s a lovely touch,’ Penzo allowed himself to comment. That topic resolved, he waved them through the double doors that stood ajar and waited while Brunetti and Vianello went in ahead of him.
22
Some of the same people Brunetti had seen in the courtroom stood in front of the counter, wineglass in one hand,
