Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

cities. Other countries, though I have no idea of what you’ll be able to find.’ Signorina Elettra nodded as she took notes, suggesting that all of this was child’s play. ‘Also,’ he continued, ‘once Vianello finds out who’s paying rent under the table, then I’d like you to take those names and do the same.’ She looked up a few seconds after he finished speaking. ‘Do you think you could do this, Signorina? I have no idea what happened to the old files after we began to switch over to computers.’

‘Most of the old files are still down there,’ she said. ‘They’re a mess, but some things are still to be found in them.’

‘Do you think you could do this?’ She had been here less than two weeks, and already it seemed to Brunetti that she had been there for years.

‘Certainly. I find myself with a great deal of time on my hands,’ she said, leaving an opening wide enough for Brunetti to herd sheep through.

He gave in to the impulse and asked, ‘What’s happening?’

‘They’re having dinner tonight. In Milano. He’s having himself driven over there this afternoon.’

‘What do you think will happen?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew he shouldn’t.

‘Once Burrasca’s arrested, she’ll be on the first plane. Or perhaps he’ll offer to drive her back to Burrasca’s after dinner – he’d enjoy that, I think, driving up with her and finding the cars from the Finance Police. She’ll probably come back with him tonight if she sees them.’

‘Why does he want her back?’ Brunetti finally asked.

Signorina Elettra glanced up at him, puzzled by his density. ‘He loves her, Commissario. Surely, you must realize that.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

The heat usually robbed Brunetti of all appetite, but that night he found himself really hungry for the first time since he had eaten with Padovani. He stopped at Rialto on the way home, surprised to find some of the fruit and vegetable stalls still open after eight. He bought a kilo of plum tomatoes so ripe the vendor warned him to carry them carefully and not put anything on top. At another stall, he bought a kilo of dark figs and got the same warning. Luckily, each warning had come with a plastic bag, so he arrived at home with a bag in each hand.

When he got inside, he opened all the windows in the apartment, changed into loose cotton pants and a T- shirt, and went into the kitchen. He chopped onions, dropped the tomatoes in boiling water, the more easily to peel them, and went out on the terrace to pick some leaves of fresh basil. Working automatically, not really paying attention to what he was doing, he prepared a simple sauce and then put water on to cook the pasta. When the salted water rose to a rolling boil, he threw half a package of penne rigate into the water and stirred them around.

As he did all of this, he kept thinking of the various people who had been involved in the events of the last ten days, not trying to make any sense of the jumble of names and faces. When the pasta was done, he poured it through a colander, tossed it into a serving bowl, then poured the sauce on top of it. With a large spoon, he swirled it round, then went out on to the terrace, where he had already taken a fork, a glass and a bottle of Cabernet. He ate from the bowl. Their terrace was so high that the only people close enough to see what he was doing would have to be in the bell tower of the church of San Polo. He ate all the pasta, wiping the remaining sauce up with a piece of bread, then took the bowl inside and came out with a plate of freshly washed figs.

Before he started on them, he went back inside and picked up his copy of Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome. Brunetti picked up where he had left off, with the account of the myriad horrors of the, reign of Tiberius, an emperor for whom Tacitus seemed to have an especial distaste. These Romans murdered, betrayed, and did violence to honour and to one another. How like us they were, Brunetti reflected. He read on, learning nothing to change that conclusion, until the mosquitoes began to attack him, driving him inside. On the sofa, until well after midnight, he read on, not at all troubled by the knowledge that this catalogue of crimes and villainies committed almost two thousand years ago served to remove his mind from those that were being committed around him. His sleep was deep and dreamless, and he awoke refreshed, as if he believed that Tacitus’ fierce, uncompromising morality would somehow help him through the day.

* * * *

When he got to the Questura the following morning, he was surprised to discover that Patta had found time, before he left for Milano the previous day, to request of the instructing judge a court order that would provide them with the records of both the Lega della Moralita and the Banca di Verona. Not only that, but the order had been delivered to both institutions that morning, where the officials in charge had promised to comply. Though both institutions insisted it would take some time to prepare the necessary documents, neither had been precise on just how long that would be.

By eleven, there was still no sign of Patta. Most of the people who worked in the Questura bought a newspaper that morning, but in none of them was there mention of Burrasca’s arrest. This fact came as no surprise, neither to Brunetti nor the rest of the staff, but it did a great deal to increase the eagerness, to make no mention of the speculation, about the results of the Vice-Questore’s trip to Milano the evening before. Rising above all of this, Brunetti contented himself with calling the Guardia di Finanza to ask if his request for the loan of personnel to check the financial records of both the bank and the Lega had been granted. Much to his surprise, he learned that the instructing judge, Luca Benedetti, had already called and suggested that the papers be examined by the Financial Police as soon as they were produced.

When Vianello came into his office shortly before lunch, Brunetti was sure he had come to report that the papers had not arrived or, more likely, that some bureaucratic obstacle had suddenly been discovered by both the bank and the Lega, and delivery of the papers would be delayed, perhaps indefinitely.

‘Buon giorno, Commissario,’ Vianello said when he came in.

Brunetti looked up from the papers on his desk and asked, ‘What is it, Sergeant?’

‘I’ve got some people here who want to talk to you.’

‘Who?’ Brunetti asked, placing his pen down on the papers in front of him.

‘Professore Luigi Ratti and his wife,’ Vianello answered, offering no explanation save the terse, ‘from Milano.’

‘And who are the professor and his wife, if I might ask?’

‘They’re the tenants in one of the apartments in the care of the Lega, have been for a little more than two years.’

‘Go on, Vianello,’ Brunetti said, interested.

‘The professor’s apartment was on the part of the list I had, so I went to speak to him this morning. When I asked him how he had come by the apartment, he said that the decisions of the Lega were private. I asked him how he paid his rent, and he explained that he paid two hundred and twenty thousand lire into the Lega’s account at the Banca di Verona every month. I asked him if I might take a look at his receipts, but he said he never kept them.’

‘Really?’ Brunetti asked, even more interested now. Because there was never any telling when some agency of the government would decide that a bill had not been paid, a tax not collected, a document not issued, no one in Italy threw out any official form, least of all proof that some sort of payment had been made. Brunetti and Paola, in fact, had two complete drawers filled with utility bills that went back a decade and at least three boxes filled with various documents stuffed away in the attic. For a person to say he had thrown away a rent receipt was either an act of sovereign madness, or a lie. ‘Where is the professor’s apartment?’

‘On the Zattere, with a view across to the Giudecca,’ Vianello said, naming one of the most desirable areas in the city. Then he added, ‘I’d say it’s six rooms, the apartment, though I saw only the entrance hall.’

‘Two hundred and twenty thousand lire?’ Brunetti asked, thinking that this was what Raffi had paid for a pair of Timberlands a month ago.

‘Yes, sir,’ Vianello said.

‘Why don’t you ask the professor and his wife to come in, then, Sergeant? By the way, what is the professor a