professor of?’
‘I don’t think of anything, sir.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said and screwed the cap back on to his pen.
Vianello went over to the door and opened it, then stepped back to allow Professore and Signora Ratti to come into the office.
Professore Ratti might have been in his early fifties, but he was keeping that fact at bay to the best of his ability. He was aided in the attempt by the ministrations of a barber who cut his hair so close to the scalp that the grey would be mistaken for blond. A Gianni Versace suit in dove-grey silk added to the youthful look, as did the burgundy silk shirt which he wore open at the throat. His shoes, which he wore without socks, were the same colour as the shirt, made of woven leather that could have come only from Bottega Veneta. Someone once must have warned him about the tendency of the skin under his chin to wattle, for he wore a knotted white silk cravat and held his chin artificially high, as if compensating for a careless optician who had put the lenses in his bifocals in the wrong places.
If the professor was fighting a holding action against his age, his wife was engaged in open combat. Her hair bore an uncanny resemblance to the colour of her husband’s shirt, and her face had the tautness that came only from the vibrancy of youth or the skill of surgeons. Blade-thin, she wore a white linen suit with a jacket left open to display an emerald-green silk shirt. Seeing them, Brunetti wondered how they managed to walk around in this heat and still look fresh and cool. The coolest part of them was their eyes.
‘You wanted to speak to me, Professore?’ Brunetti asked, rising from his chair but making no attempt to shake hands.
‘Yes, I did,’ Ratti said, motioning to his wife to sit in the chair in front of Brunetti’s desk and then going, unasked, to pull a second from where it stood against the wall. When they were both comfortable, he continued, ‘I’ve come to tell you how much I dislike having the police invade the privacy of my home. Even more, I want to complain about the insinuations that have been made.’ Ratti, like so many Milanesi, elided all of the R’s in his speech, a sound which Brunetti could not help associating with actresses of the more pneumatic variety.
‘And what insinuations are those, Professore?’ Brunetti asked, resuming his seat and signalling to Vianello to stay where he was, just inside the door.
‘That there is some irregularity pertaining to my tenancy.’
Brunetti glanced across at Vianello and saw the sergeant raise his eyes towards the ceiling. Not only the Milano accent but now big words to go with it.
‘What makes you believe this insinuation has been made, Professore?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Well, why else would your police push their way into my apartment and demand that I produce rent receipts?’ As the professor spoke, his wife was busy running her eyes around the office.
‘ “Push”, Professore?’ Brunetti asked in a conversational voice. ‘ “Demand”?’ Then, to Vianello, ‘Sergeant, how did you gain access to the property to which the professor has…’ he paused, ‘tenancy?’
‘The maid let me in, sir.’
‘And what did you tell the maid who let you in, Sergeant?’
‘That I wanted to speak to Professore Ratti.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said and turned his attention back to Ratti. ‘And how was the “demand” made, Professore?’
‘Your sergeant asked to see my rent receipts, as if I’d keep such things around.’
‘You are not in the habit of keeping receipts, Professore?’
Ratti waved a hand, and his wife gave Brunetti a look of studied surprise, as if to suggest what an enormous waste of time it would be to keep a record of a sum so small.
‘And what would you do if the owner of the apartment were ever to claim that you had not paid the rent? What proof would you offer?’ Brunetti asked.
This time, Ratti’s gesture was meant to dismiss the possibility of that ever happening, while his wife’s look was meant to suggest that no one would ever think of questioning her husband’s word.
‘Could you tell me just how you pay your rent, Professore?’
‘I don’t see how that is any business of the police,’ Ratti said belligerently. ‘I’m not used to being treated like this.’
‘Like what, Professore?’ Brunetti asked with real curiosity.
‘Like a suspect.’
‘Have you been treated like a suspect before, by other police, that would make you familiar with what it feels like?’
Ratti half rose in his seat and glanced over at his wife. ‘I don’t have to put up with this. A friend of mine is a city councillor.’ She made a slight gesture with her hand, and he slowly sat back down.
‘Could you tell me how you pay your rent, Professore Ratti?’
Ratti looked directly at Brunetti. ‘I deposit the rent at the Banca di Verona.’
‘At San Bartolomeo?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how much is that rent, Professore?’
‘It’s nothing,’ the professor said, dismissing the sum.
‘Is two hundred and twenty thousand lire the sum?’
‘Yes.’
Brunetti nodded. ‘And the apartment, how many square metres is it?’
Signora Ratti interrupted here, as if driven past her power to put up with such idiocy. ‘We have no idea of that. It’s adequate for our needs.’
Brunetti pulled the list of the apartments held in trust by the Lega towards him and flipped to the third page, then ran his finger down the list until he came to Ratti’s name. ‘Three hundred and twelve square metres, I think. And six rooms. Yes, I suppose that would be adequate for most needs.’
Signora Ratti was on him in a flash. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
Brunetti turned a level glance on her. ‘Just what I said, Signora, and no more. That six rooms ought to be adequate for two – there are only two of you, aren’t there?’
‘And the maid,’ she answered.
‘Three, then,’ Brunetti agreed. ‘Still adequate.’ He turned away from her, face unchanged, and returned his attention to her husband. ‘How was it that you came to be given one of the apartments of the Lega, Professore?’
‘It was very simple,’ Ratti began, but it seemed to Brunetti that he had begun to bluster. ‘I applied for it in the normal fashion, and I was given it.’
‘To whom did you apply?’
‘To the Lega della Moralita, of course.’
‘And how did you happen to learn that the Lega had apartments which it rented?’
‘It’s common knowledge here in the city, isn’t it, Commissario?’
‘If it is not now, then it soon will be, Professore.’
Neither of the Rattis said anything to this, but Signora Ratti glanced quickly at her husband and then back at Brunetti.
‘Do you remember anyone in particular who told you about the apartments?’
Both of them answered instantly, ‘No.’
Brunetti allowed himself the bleakest of smiles. ‘You seem very sure of that.’ He made a meaningless squiggle against their name on the list. ‘And did you have an interview in order to obtain this apartment?’
‘No,’ Ratti said. ‘We filled out the paperwork and sent it in. And then we were told that we had been selected.’
‘Did you receive a letter, or perhaps a phone call?’
‘It’s been so long ago. I don’t remember,’ Ratti said. He turned to his wife for confirmation, and she shook her head.
‘And you’ve been in this apartment for two years now?’
Ratti nodded.
‘And you haven’t saved any of the receipts for the rent you’ve paid?’
