“No, mamma. He got me out. Please!”
Maria went to the door.
“What are you all staring at?” she shouted. The courtyard was full of folded arms. Above those arms, dozens of curious eyes.
But the man who had brought her back was nowhere to be seen.
“Did you see him? Did you see him go?”
A woman spat. “He left,” she said grimly. “You do look a sight.”
Maria cast a wild look around the courtyard and went back in, slamming the door.
Finally, standing in the smoke-stained den that served them for a kitchen, her chin wobbled and she burst into tears.
“Mia poverina,” her mother cooed, putting on her bonnet and gathering the girl into her arms all at once. “Don’t mind them. You just sit right here, and your brother will look after you. Aurelio!”
The shambling figure of a young man broke from the shadows around the fireplace.
Signora Contarini nodded and sailed out with her nose in the air.
Like most Venetians, the signora did not hold with eating much fish, which could be bought in profusion, very cheap; her family ate it only when the church made it an obligation. In general she fed them a diet of onion, garlic, green leaves, and polenta; a few mushrooms, in season, a little risotto, and the occasional slice of pancetta might also make an appearance in her kitchen.
To buy meat she walked as far as the Rialto and spent a long time studying the different cuts, weighing up the relative advantages of beef-which made the best stock-or horsemeat, which was particularly suitable for a delicate patient. The butchers treated her with grave gallantry and patience, for although she was a rare customer it was women of the signora’s sort, who bought seldom but with determination, who kept them in business.
In the end the argument for stock won out. Maria, she reasoned, was weak and wounded, but she was not actually ill. The signora selected a fat shin and took it home in her basket, wrapped in a few pages of the Venetian Gazzettino.
60
Palewski was astonished how fast his mood had changed.
Alfredo’s revelations had bucked him up immensely. He could hardly be accused of cowardice now. The wretched brother was not, after all, dead: far from it! He appeared to be up and about, and scheming like some old Byzantine exarch.
The simile struck Palewski as particularly apt. What was Venice, after all, but some sprig of Byzantium that had somehow taken root and forced its way intact into the nineteenth century like brambles in a church roof? Armenian priests, mosaics, scheming aristocrats-why, even the Fondaco dei Turchi was a Byzantine palazzo.
He smiled grimly. What was a bullet here or there, now that the brother had won his share? And so the deal was back on track-for a thousand more, it was true, but still a very decent buy.
The ambassador would, after all, go to the ball.
61
Sergeant Vosper was a slow and methodical man, for whom orders were orders. Other than questioning the procedural validity of taking over another man’s case, he did not doubt his chief. Finkel had analyzed the murderer’s motives. Vosper’s job was to furnish the supporting evidence.
The contessa, of course, would be able to name the guilty lover easily, but Vosper was not a policeman for nothing. He was sly enough to know that she would refuse to give away the name-even if she suspected him. She was probably flattered by the passions she had aroused. Questioning her was, therefore, a waste of time.
The truth was, Vosper was slightly scared by the prospect of interviewing the Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria, with her titles and protocols, and the opportunities for making a fool of himself. But Vosper’s own aunt had been in service, many years ago, and he knew how to talk to servants. He knew, too, that servants kept their eyes open; they were a mine of information.
“So, Andrea?” he said pleasantly to the contessa’s footman, as he slipped into a chair in the little cafe on the Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini.
“It’s Antonio. Who are you?”
“Police. Don’t worry, I’m not here to put a finger on you. I just want to have a little chat.”
“It’s Barbieri, is it? I know nothing about it.”
“I see. And what makes you so sure it is about Barbieri?”
Antonio looked at the policeman and frowned. “What else would it be?”
Vosper considered the question. He couldn’t think of an answer, so he said, “The contessa, your mistress. She’s an attractive woman.”
Antonio didn’t respond.
“Unmarried, curiously.” For Vosper, an unmarried woman was a rare and rather unappealing idea. “But she has men in her life, I’m thinking. Admirers.”
Antonio looked blank. “It’s not for me to say.”
“You can confide in me, Antonio, because I am a policeman.” Vosper took out a toothpick and put it into his mouth; he saw no point in beating about the bush. “I wonder, has anyone new come calling on her recently? A new friend, perhaps?”
Antonio smiled to himself. He didn’t have much time for the friends, or their policemen. “You mean, the American?”
“The American,” Vosper returned, noncommittally. “Tell me about him.”
Antonio obliged. There was very little to tell, but he was reasonably sure that a fellow as stupid as Vosper could waste a lot of time pondering Signor Brett’s involvement in the case. He hoped Signor Brett would not be much inconvenienced: he had seemed like a decent man.
“He took the neighboring apartment? Interesting.” How better to manage an affair?
He found the details of Brett’s last-albeit first-public visit to the palazzo interesting, too.
“He felt sick, you say?” Sick with jealousy, no doubt. Brett had seen his rival in the room. He left early and then, having carefully brought Antonio to the door of his apartment to establish an alibi, he waited until the coast was clear and doubled back.
An open-and-shut case, just like the chief said.
“Thank you, Andrea, you’ve been most helpful.”
“My pleasure,” Antonio said.
Only one thing troubled Vosper as he made his way back to the Procuratie.
He was not, he would have admitted, the brightest candle in the chandelier. So why hadn’t Brunelli pounced already?
62
Brunelli returned to the Procuratie after a quick lunch, to find an anxious Scorlotti waiting for him in the office.
“Trouble, Scorlotti?”
“Vosper’s taken over the Barbieri case, Commissario. The chief told him it was a crime of passion.”
Brunelli sat down heavily at his desk and rubbed his eyes. He felt terribly tired.
“Thank you, Scorlotti.”
