A Question of Belief

tightened his lips, then relaxed them. The pencil never stopped moving. Finally he pulled the phone away from his ear, slowly, with great effort, as though there were a magnetic field between the receiver and his ear. He held it in front of him for at least ten seconds, and Brunetti heard the voice coming through the line: female, old, querulous. Vianello opened his eyes and studied the surface of his desk. Then, slowly, tenderly, as though he were replacing the person from whom the voice was still coming, he set the phone down.

The Inspector sat for a long time, looking at the phone. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped at his forehead, then returned it to his pocket and got to his feet. By the time he turned towards the door, Brunetti had removed all emotion from his face and was taking a stride towards his assistant, the sheaf of papers clutched in his hand.

Before Brunetti could mention the papers, Vianello said, ‘Let’s go down to the bridge. I need a drink.’

Brunetti refolded the papers, but because he wasn’t wearing his jacket he folded them smaller and slipped them into the back pocket of his trousers.

They walked out on to the pavement in front of the Questura and Brunetti realized that his sunglasses were upstairs in the pocket of his jacket. He could not stop himself from raising his left hand to protect his eyes from the glare. ‘I wonder if this is what it’s like to be in a lineup,’ he said. Squinting, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dazzle; then, keeping his hand above his eyes, he started towards the bar.

Inside, Bambola stood behind the counter, his djellaba looking as fresh as a document just pulled from an envelope.

It was after eleven, so both men ordered a spritz, Vianello asking Bambola to put them in water glasses with lots of ice. When the drinks came, Vianello picked them up and headed toward the booth farthest from the door. It was an airless corner, but Brunetti had given in to the heat: nothing could make it worse, but at least there they could talk in peace.

When they were seated opposite one another, Brunetti decided to abandon all pretence that he had not understood the nature of the phone call and asked, ‘Your aunt?’

Vianello sipped at his drink, took a longer swallow, and set the icy glass on the table. ‘Yes.’

‘You looked worried,’ Brunetti prompted.

‘I suppose I am,’ Vianello said, wrapping both hands around his glass, a gesture more common with hot drinks than with cold. ‘I’m also trapped.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t shout at her, which is what I want to do. It’s a normal enough response when people do this.’ He looked at Brunetti and quickly away.

‘When people do what?’ Brunetti asked.

Their eyes met for an instant, but then Vianello looked at his glass again and said, ‘Go crazy. Take leave of their senses.’ He picked up the glass with both palms and set it down on the surface a few times, creating a pattern of rings, then he slid the glass through them, erasing them all.

‘What’s she done?’

‘She hasn’t done it yet,’ Vianello said. ‘But she will. I told you, Zia Anita has a strong will, and when she makes up her mind there’s no changing her.’

‘What’s she decided to do?’ Brunetti asked, and finally took a sip of his drink. It was by now so watery as to be almost tasteless, but it was cold and so he drank it.

‘She wants to sell the business.’

‘I thought it was your uncle’s.’

‘It was. Well, it was his, and now it belongs to his sons. But only in name.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Legally it all belongs to her. When he opened it, bought the building where the workshop and offices are, his commercialista told him it would be better for taxes if he put it in his wife’s name. Then, as time passed, they could transfer it to the boys.’ Vianello sighed.

‘But they didn’t?’

Vianello shook his head, finished his drink, and went to get another, not bothering to ask Brunetti if he wanted one. Brunetti finished his and slid the glass over near the wall.

Vianello was quickly back, but this time the glasses contained only mineral water and ice. Brunetti took his gratefully; the melting ice had ruined the first one, diluting the Campari and rendering the prosecco flat and tasteless.

‘Why does she want to sell it?’ he asked.

‘To get money,’ Vianello said and drank some of his water.

‘Come on, Lorenzo. Either tell me about this or we go back to work.’

Vianello propped his elbows on the table, his open palms pressed to either side of his mouth. Finally he said, ‘I think she wants to give it to a soothsayer.’

5

‘Gesu Bambino,’ Brunetti whispered; then, remembering what Vianello had told him, asked, ‘The magazines?’

‘That’s just a part of it,’ Vianello answered, his distress audible. He put his right hand inside the open collar of his shirt and ran his hand up his neck. ‘God, I hate this heat. There’s no way to get away from it.’

Brunetti avoided the distraction and took another sip of his water. He and Vianello had interrogated so many witnesses and suspects together that there was no tactic they had not been exposed to. He sat back with his arms folded, the very model of patience.

Vianello leaned back, as well. ‘I told you that’s how it started: reading the horoscopes. And the radio programme in the morning, and then she discovered those private channels where they have the people who read the cards.’ He made a fist with his right hand and banged it on the table, but lightly to show it was a gesture and not an act of rage.

‘One of her friends told her about the programmes, how much help they were to the people who called.’

‘What does your aunt need help with?’ Brunetti could not stop himself from asking. From the way Vianello had spoken of her over the years, she had always sounded like the pillar of strength and certainty in the family.

Something flashed across Vianello’s face, something Brunetti had never seen, at least never seen directed at him. ‘I’m coming to that, Guido,’ he said. Vianello must have been startled by his own voice because he opened his fist and spread his arm along the top of the bench, as if offering his open hand as an apology.

Brunetti smiled but said nothing.

Vianello continued. ‘She liked the way the people who read the cards gave advice to everyone who called. They seemed sensible. That’s what she told her children.’ Vianello paused, as if to invite questions, but Brunetti had none to ask.

‘That’s how I learned about this,’ the Inspector continued. ‘A few months ago, my cousin Loredano mentioned it to me, almost as a joke: something his mother had got interested in. Like she was listening to Radio Maria or had started to read gardening magazines. He didn’t think much of it, but then his sister, my cousin Marta, called me about a month after that and told me she was worried about their mother, that she talked about it all the time and really seemed to believe in all this horoscope stuff.

‘She didn’t know what to do, Marta.’ Vianello finished his glass of water and set it on the table. ‘I didn’t, either. She was worried, but Loredano thought it would pass, and I guess I thought it would, too, or I wanted to believe that because it was easier.’ He looked across at Brunetti and pulled up one side of his mouth in a wry grimace. ‘I think we all wanted it not to be a problem. So we ignored it and pretended it wasn’t happening.’

There was noise at the door as people came into the bar, but neither of them paid attention to it. Vianello continued: ‘Then Loredano called me about a month ago and told me Zia Anita had taken three thousand Euros out of the company account without telling him.’

He waited for Brunetti to comment, but he did not, so the Inspector went on. ‘Loredano took a look at the bank account and saw that, over the last few months, she’d been taking money from the account: five hundred, three hundred, six hundred at a time. When he asked her about it, all she said was that it was her money and she