at the power of the fantasy to stir him. Oh, God, how much easier it had been in Naples, with a kick and a shove.
The American released him from his reverie by asking, ‘Does this mean you think Flavia could have done it? Or that I could have?’
‘It’s far too early to speak like that,’ he said, though this was hardly true. ‘It’s far too early to speak of suspects.’
‘But it’s not too early to speak of motive,’ the singer said.
‘No, it’s not,’ he agreed. He hardly needed to point out that she now appeared to have one.
‘I suppose that means I’ve got one as well,’ added her friend, as strange a declaration of love as Brunetti had ever heard. Or friendship? Or loyalty to an employer? And people said Italians were complicated.
He decided to temporize. ‘As I said, it’s too early to talk of suspects.’ He decided to change the topic. ‘How long will you be in the city, Signora?’
‘Until the end of the performances,’ she said. ‘That’s another two weeks. Until the end of the month. Though I’d like to go back to Milan for the weekends.’ It was phrased as a statement, but it was clear that she was asking for permission. He nodded, the gesture conveying both understanding and police permission to leave the city.
She continued. After that, I don’t know. I haven’t any other engagements until—’ she paused, looking across at her friend, who supplied immediately, ‘Covent Garden, on the fifth of January.’
‘And you’ll be in Italy until then?’ he asked.
‘Certainly. Either here or in Milan.’
‘And you, Miss Lynch?’ he asked, turning to her.
Her glance was cool, as cool as her answer. ‘I’ll be in Milan, as well.’ Though it was hardly necessary, she added, ‘With Flavia.’
He took his notebook from his pocket then and asked if he could have the address in Milan where they would be. Flavia Petrelli gave it to him and, unasked, supplied the phone number. He wrote down both, put the notebook back in his pocket, and stood.
‘Thank you both for your time,’ he said formally.
‘Will you want to speak to me again?’ the singer asked.
‘That depends on what I’m told by other people,’ Brunetti said, regretting the menace in it but not the honesty. Understanding only the first, she picked up the score and opened it, posing it on her lap. He no longer interested her.
He took a step toward the door and, as he did, stepped into one of the beams of light that washed across the floor. Looking up toward its source, he turned to the American and asked, finally, ‘How did you manage to get those skylights?’
She crossed in front of him and went into the hallway, stopped before the door, and asked him, ‘Do you mean how did I get the skylights themselves or the permits to build them?’
‘The permits.’
Smiling, she answered, ‘I bribed the city planner.’
‘How much?’ he asked automatically, calculating the total area of the windows. Six of them, each about a meter square.
She had obviously lived in Venice long enough not to be offended by the indelicacy of the question. She smiled more broadly and answered, ‘Twelve million lire,’ as though she were giving the outside temperature.
That made it, Brunetti calculated, about half a month’s salary a window.
‘But that was two years ago,’ she added by way of explanation. ‘I’m told prices have risen since then.’
He nodded. In Venice, even graft was subject to inflation.
They shook hands at the door, and he was surprised at the warmth of the smile she gave him, as though their talk of bribery had somehow made them fellow conspirators. She thanked him for having come, though there was no need for that. He responded with equal politeness and found real warmth in his voice. Had it taken so little to win him over? Had her display of corruptibility rendered her more human? He said goodbye and mused on this last question as he walked down the stairs, glad again to feel their sea-like unevenness under his feet.
* * * *
CHAPTER NINE
Back at the Questura, he learned that officers Alvise and Riverre had gone to the Maestro’s apartment and looked through his personal effects, coming away with documents and papers, which were now being translated into Italian. He called down to the lab, but they still had no results on fingerprints, though they had confirmed the self-evident, that the poison was in the coffee. Miotti was nowhere to be found; presumably he was still at the theater. At a loss for what to do, knowing that he would have to speak to her soon, Brunetti called the Maestro’s widow and asked if it would be possible for her to receive him that afternoon. After an initial and entirely understandable reluctance, she asked him to come at four. He rooted around in the top drawer of his desk and found half a package of
A half hour before his appointment with Signora Wellauer, he left his office and walked slowly up toward Piazza San Marco. Along the way, he paused to look into shop windows, shocked, as he always was when in the center of the city, by how quickly their composition was changing. It seemed to him that all the shops that served the native population— pharmacies, shoemakers, groceries—were slowly and inexorably disappearing, replaced by slick boutiques and souvenir shops that catered to the tourists, filled with luminescent plastic gondolas from Taiwan and papier-mache masks from Hong Kong. It was the desires of the transients, not the needs of the residents, that the city’s merchants answered. He wondered how long it would take before the entire city became a sort of living museum, a place fit only for visiting and not for inhabiting.
