Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

‘No, I can’t. We’ve identified his body.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Mascari, Leonardo. He’s the director of the Banca di Verona here. Do you know him?’

‘No, never heard of him. Is he Venetian?’

‘I think so. The wife is.’

Again, he heard Chiara’s voice. It went on for a long time. Then Paola was back. ‘Sorry, Guido. Chiara’s going for a walk and couldn’t find her sweater.’ The very word made Brunetti more conscious of the heat that simmered in the apartment, even with all the windows open.

‘Paola, do you have Padovani’s number? I looked in the phone book here, but it’s not listed.’ He knew she wouldn’t ask why he wanted the number, so he explained, ‘He’s the only person I could think of to answer questions about the gay world here.’

‘He’s been in Rome for years, Guido.’

‘I know, I know, Paola, but he’s got a house here for when he comes up every couple of months to review art shows, and his family’s still here.’

‘Well, maybe,’ she said, managing to sound not at all convinced. ‘Wait a second while I get my address book.’ She set down the phone and was gone long enough to convince Brunetti that the address book was in another room, perhaps another building. Finally she was back. ‘Guido, his Venice number is 5224404. If you talk to him, please say hello for me.’

‘Yes, I will. Where’s Raffi?’

‘Oh, he was gone the minute we set down the bags. I don’t expect to see him until dinner-time.’

‘Give him my love. I’ll call you this week.’ With mutual promises of calls and another admonition about the insalata di calamari, they hung up, and Brunetti thought about how strange it was for a man to go away for a week and not call his wife. Perhaps if there were no children, it made a difference, but he thought not.

He rang Padovani’s number and got, as was increasingly the case in Italy these days, a machine telling him that Professore Padovani was not able to come to the phone at the moment but would return the call as soon as possible. Brunetti left a message asking Padovani to ring, and hung up.

He went into the kitchen and pulled the now-famous insalata from the refrigerator. He peeled back the plastic wrap from the top and picked out a piece of squid with his fingers. Chewing on it, he pulled a bottle of Soave from the refrigerator and poured himself a glass. Wine in one hand, insalata in the other, he went out on to the terrace and set them both down on the low glass table. He remembered bread, went back into the kitchen to grab a panino, and while there, remembering civilization, he took a fork from the top drawer.

Back on the terrace, he broke off a piece of the bread, put another piece of squid on top of it, and popped them into his mouth. Certainly, banks had work to be done on Saturday – no holiday for money. And certainly whoever was working on the weekend wouldn’t want to be disturbed by a phone call, so he’d say it was a wrong number and then not answer the next call. So as not to be disturbed.

The salad had rather more celery than he liked, so he pushed the tiny cubes to the side of the bowl with his fork. He poured himself more wine, and he thought of the Bible. Somewhere, he thought it was in Mark, there was a passage about Jesus’ disappearance when he was going back to Nazareth after he’d first been taken up to Jerusalem. Mary thought he was with Joseph, travelling with the men, and that sainted man believed the boy to be with his mother and the women. It wasn’t until their caravan stopped for the night that they spoke to one another and discovered that Jesus was nowhere to be found: he turned out to be back in Jerusalem, teaching in the Temple. The Bank of Verona believed Mascari to be in Messina; hence, the office in Messina must have believed him to be somewhere else, or they surely would have called to check.

He went back into the living-room and found one of Chiara’s notebooks on the table, left there in a muddle of pens and pencils. He flipped through the notebook; finding it empty and liking the picture of Mickey Mouse on the cover, he took it and one of the pens out to the terrace.

He began to jot down a list of things to do on Monday morning. Check the Bank of Verona to see where Mascari was supposed to go and then call that bank to see what reason they’d been given for his failure to arrive. Find out why there had been no progress on finding where the shoes and dress came from. Start digging into Mascari’s past, both personal and financial. And take another look at the autopsy report for any mention of those shaved legs. He also had to see what Vianello had managed to learn about the Lega and about Avvocato Santomauro.

He heard the phone ring and, hoping it would be Paola but knowing it couldn’t be, he went inside to answer it.

‘Ciao, Guido, it’s Damiano. I got your message.’

‘What are you a professor of?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Oh, that,’ the journalist answered dismissively. ‘I liked the sound of it, so I’m trying it on my message machine this week. Why? Don’t you like it?’

‘Of course I like it,’ Brunetti found himself saying. ‘It sounds wonderful. But what are you a professor of?’

A long silence emanated from Padovani’s end of the phone. ‘I once gave a series of classes in painting in a girls’ school, back in the seventies. Do you think that counts?’

‘I suppose so,’ Brunetti admitted.

‘Well, perhaps it’s time to change the message. How do you think Commendatore would sound? Commendatore Padovani? Yes, I think I like that. Would you like me to change the message, and you call me back?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Damiano. I’d like to talk to you about something else.’

‘Just as well. It takes me forever to change the message. So many buttons to push. The first time I did it, I recorded myself swearing at the machine. No one left a message for a week, until I thought the thing wasn’t working and called myself from a phone booth. Shocking, the language the machine used. I dashed home and changed the message immediately. But it’s still very confusing. Are you sure you don’t want to call me back in twenty minutes?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Damiano. Do you have time to talk to me now?’

‘For you, Guido, I am, as an English poet says in an entirely different context, “as free as the road, as loose as the wind”.’

Brunetti knew he was supposed to ask, but he didn’t. ‘It might take a long time. Would you be willing to meet me for dinner?’

‘What about Paola?’

‘She’s taken the kids up to the mountains.’

There was a moment’s silence from Padovani, a silence which Brunetti could not help but interpret as entirely speculative. ‘I’ve got a murder case here, and the hotel’s been reserved for months, so Paola and the kids have gone up to Bolzano. If I get through with this on time, I’ll go up, as well. That’s why I called you. I thought you might be able to help me.’

‘With a murder case? Oh, how very exciting. Since this AIDS business, I’ve had so little to do with the criminal classes.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Brunetti said, momentarily at a loss for a suitable rejoinder. ‘Would you like to meet for dinner? Any place you like.’

Padovani considered this for a minute then said, ‘Guido, I’m leaving to go back to Rome tomorrow, and I’ve got a house full of food. Would you mind coming here to help me finish it up? It won’t be anything fancy, just pasta and whatever else I find.’

‘That would be fine. Tell me where you live.’

‘I’m down in Dorsoduro. Do you know the Ramo degli Incurabili?’

It was a small campo with a running fountain, just back from the Zattere. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Stand with your back to the fountain looking at the little canal, and it’s the first door on the right.’ Far clearer than giving a number or street name, this would get any Venetian to the house with no difficulty.

‘Good, what time?’

‘Eight.’

‘Can I bring anything?’

‘Absolutely not. Anything you bring, we just have to eat, and I’ve already got enough here for a football team.