‘Good. Then my time hasn’t been wasted.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti said.
Nodding to an enormous woman who had just enthroned herself in front of the piano, the count said, ‘I know from Paola that you’ve been assigned this Wellauer thing. It’s bad for the city, a crime like this.’ As he spoke, he could not restrain his look of disapproval at the conductor for having gotten himself killed, especially during the social season. ‘In any case, when I heard that Paola called to say you both wanted to come tonight, I made a few phone calls. I assumed that you would want to know about his finances.’
‘Yes, that correct.’ Was there any information this man couldn’t get, just by picking up the phone and dialing the right number? ‘May I ask what you learned?’
‘He wasn’t as wealthy as he was generally thought to be.’ Brunetti waited for this to be translated into numbers he could understand. He and the count, surely, would have different ideas of what ‘wealthy’ meant. ‘His total holdings, in stocks and bonds and real estate, probably didn’t amount to more than ten million deutsche marks. He’s got four million francs in Switzerland, at the Union Bank in Lugano, but I doubt that the German tax people will learn anything about that.’ As Brunetti was calculating that it would take him approximately three hundred and fifty years to earn such money, the count added, ‘His income from performances and recordings must bring in at least three or four million marks a year.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti acknowledged. ‘And the will?’
‘I didn’t succeed in getting a copy of it,’ the count said apologetically. Since the man had been dead only two days, Brunetti believed this was a lapse he could overlook. ‘But it’s divided equally among his children and his wife. There is talk, however, that he tried to get in touch with his lawyers a few weeks before he died; no one knows why, and it need not have been about his will.’
‘What does that mean, “tried to get in touch with”?’
‘He called his lawyers’ office in Berlin, but apparently there was something wrong with the connection, and he never called back.’
‘Did any of the people you spoke to say anything about his personal life?’
The count’s glass stopped just short of his mouth with such a sudden motion that some of the pale liquid splashed onto the lapel of the jacket. He glared at Brunetti in astonishment, as though all the reservations he had harbored for almost two decades had suddenly been proved true. ‘What do you think I am, a spy?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Brunetti said, offering the count his handkerchief to dry his lapel. ‘It’s the job. I forget.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ the count agreed, though his tone was void of any assent. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find Paola and her mother.’ He left, retaining the handkerchief, which Brunetti feared would be washed, starched, ironed, and sent back by special courier.
Brunetti pushed himself away from the bar and set out into the sea of people to begin his own search for Paola. He knew many of those in the room but, as it were, at second hand. Though he had never been introduced to most of them, he knew their scandals, their histories, their affairs, both legal and romantic. Part of this came from his being a policeman, but most of it came from living in what was really a provincial town where gossip was the real cult and where, had it not been at least a nominally Christian city, the reigning deity would surely have been Rumor.
During the more than five minutes it took him to find Paola, he exchanged greetings with a number of people and turned down repeated offers of a fresh drink. The countess was nowhere in sight; her husband had no doubt warned her of the risk of moral infection that stalked the room.
When Paola came up to him, she grabbed his arm and whispered into his ear. ‘I’ve found just what you want.’
‘A way to leave?’ he said, but only to himself. With her, he practiced some restraint. ‘What?’
‘The voice of gossip, the real thing. We were at university together.’
‘Who? Where?’ he asked, interested in his surroundings for the first time that night.
‘He’s over there, at the door to the balcony.’ She nudged him with her elbow and pointed with her chin to a man who stood across the room, at the central windows that overlooked the canal. The man looked to be about the same age as Paola, though he had clearly had a harder time getting there. From this distance, all Brunetti could distinguish was a short beard, mottled with gray, and a black jacket that seemed to be made of velvet.
‘Come on; I’ll introduce you,’ urged Paola, tugging at his arm and leading him across the room toward the man, who smiled when he recognized Paola coming toward him. His nose was flat, as though it had once been broken, and his eyes were sad, as though his heart had been. He looked like a stevedore who wrote poetry.
‘Ah, the lovely Paola,’ he said as she reached him. He switched his drink into his left hand, took Paola’s with his right, and bent to place a kiss in the air just above it. ‘And this,’ he said, turning to Brunetti, ‘must be the famous Guido, about whom all of us grew so tired of hearing more years ago than it is discreet of me to remember.’ He took Brunetti’s hand and shook it firmly, making no attempt to disguise the interest with which he studied him.
‘Stop it, Dami, and stop staring at Guido as if he were a painting.’
‘Force of habit, my treasure, peering and prying at everything I observe. Next I’ll no doubt peel back his jacket and try to see where he’s signed.’
None of this made any sense to Brunetti, whose confusion must have been obvious to both of the others, for the man hastened to explain. ‘As I can see, Paola will never introduce us, and she apparently has chosen to keep our past together a secret from you.’ Before Brunetti could respond to the suggestion here, he continued: ‘I am Demetriano Padovani, former classmate of your fair wife and currently a critic of things artistic’ He made a small bow.
Brunetti was, like most Italians, familiar with the name. This was the bright new art critic, the terror of both painters and museum directors. Paola and he had read his articles with shared delight, but he’d had no idea that they had gone to university together.
The other man grabbed a fresh drink from a passing waiter. ‘I must apologize to you, Guido—if I may take the liberty of calling you Guido at our first meeting and of giving you the
