This time his wife shook her head.
‘Tell me, Professore, how much time do you spend in the apartment each year?’
He thought about this for a moment. ‘We come for Carnevale.’
His wife finished his sentence with a firm, ‘Of course.’
Her husband continued. ‘Then we come for September, and sometimes for Christmas.’
His wife broke in here and added, ‘We come for the odd weekend during the rest of the year, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Brunetti repeated. ‘And the maid?’
‘We bring her with us from Milano.’
‘Of course,’ Brunetti nodded and added another squiggle to the paper in front of him.
‘May I ask you, Professore, if you are familiar with the purposes of the Lega? With its goals?’
‘I know that it aims at moral improvement,’ the professor answered in a tone that declared there could never be too much of
‘Ah, yes,’ Brunetti said, then asked, ‘But beyond that, to its purpose in renting apartments?’
This time, it was Ratti who glanced at his wife. ‘I think their purpose was to attempt to give the apartments to those they considered worthy of them.’
Brunetti continued, ‘Knowing this, Professore, did it at any time seem strange to you that the Lega, which is a Venetian organization, had given one of the apartments it controls to a person from Milano, a person who would, moreover, make use of the apartment only a few months of the year?’ When Ratti said nothing, Brunetti urged him, ‘Surely, you know how difficult it is to find an apartment in this city?’
Signora Ratti chose to answer this. ‘I suppose we believed that they wanted to give an apartment like this to people who would know how to appreciate it and care for it.’
‘By that are you suggesting that you would be better able to care for a large and desirable apartment than would, for example, the family of a carpenter from Cannaregio?’
‘I think that goes without saying,’ she answered.
‘And who, if I might ask, pays for repairs to the apartment?’ Brunetti asked.
Signora Ratti smiled and answered, ‘So far, there has been no need to make any repairs.’
‘But surely there must be a clause in your contract – if you were given a contract – which makes clear who is responsible for repairs.’
‘They are,’ Ratti answered.
‘The Lega?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes.’
‘So then maintenance is not the responsibility of the people who rent?’
‘No.’
‘And you are there for – ‘ Brunetti began and then glanced down at the paper in front of him, as though he had the number written there,’ – for about two months a year?’ When Ratti said nothing, Brunetti asked, ‘Is that correct, Professore?’
His question was rewarded with a grudging, ‘Yes.’
In a gesture he made consciously identical to the one used by the priest who taught catechism to his grammar-school class, Brunetti folded his hands neatly in front of him, just short of the bottom of the sheet of paper on his desk, and said, ‘I think it is time to begin making choices, Professore.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Then perhaps I can explain it to you. The first choice is that I have you repeat this conversation and your answers to my questions into a tape recorder or that we have a secretary come in and take it down in shorthand. Either way, I would ask you to sign a copy of that statement, ask both of you to sign it, since you are telling me the same thing.’ Brunetti paused long enough for that to register. ‘Or you could, and I suggest this is by far the wiser course, begin to tell me the truth.’ Both feigned surprise, Signora Ratti going so far as to add outrage.
‘In either case,’ Brunetti added calmly, ‘the least that will happen to you is that you will lose the apartment, though that might take some time to happen. But you will lose it; that is little, but it is certain.’ He found it interesting that neither demanded that he explain what he was talking about.
‘It is clear that many of these apartments have been rented illegally and that someone associated with the Lega has been collecting rents illegally for years.’ When Professore Ratti began to object, Brunetti raised a hand for an instant, then quickly folded his fingers back together. ‘Were it only a case of fraud, then perhaps you would be better advised to continue to maintain that you know nothing about all of this. But, unfortunately, it is far more than a case of fraud.’ He paused here. He’d have it out of them, by God.
‘What is it a case of?’ Ratti asked, speaking more softly than he had since he entered Brunetti’s office.
‘It is a case of murder. Three murders, one of them a member of the police. I tell you this so that you will begin to realize that we are not going to let this go. One of our own has been killed, and we are going to find out who did that. And punish them.’ He paused a moment to let that sink in.
‘If you persist in maintaining your current story about the apartment, then you will eventually become involved in a prosecution for murder.’
‘We know nothing about murder,’ Signora Ratti said, voice sharp.
‘You do now, Signora. Whoever is at the back of this plan to rent the apartments is also responsible for the three murders. By refusing to help us discover who is responsible for renting you your apartment and collecting your rent each month, you are also obstructing a murder investigation. The penalty for that, I need not remind you, is far more severe than for being evasive in a case involving fraud. And I add, but quite at the personal level, that I will do everything in my power to see that it is imposed upon you if you continue to refuse to help us.’
Ratti got to his feet. ‘I’d like some time to speak to my wife. In private.’
‘No,’ Brunetti said, raising his voice for the first time.
‘I have that right,’ Ratti demanded.
‘You have the right to speak to your lawyer, Signor Ratti, and I will gladly allow you to do that. But you and your wife will decide that other matter now, in front of me.’ He was way beyond his legal rights, and he knew it; his only hope was that the Rattis did not.
They looked at one another for so long that Brunetti lost hope. But then she nodded her burgundy head and they both sat back down in their chairs.
‘All right,’ Ratti said, ‘but I want to make it clear that we know nothing about this murder.’
‘Murders,’ Brunetti said and saw that Ratti was shaken by the correction.
‘Three years ago,’ Ratti began, ‘a friend of ours in Milano told us he knew someone he thought could help us find an apartment in Venice. We had been looking for about six months, but it was very difficult to find anything, especially at that distance.’ Brunetti wondered if he was going to have to listen to a series of complaints. Ratti, perhaps sensing Brunetti’s impatience, continued, ‘He gave us a phone number we could call, a number here in Venice. We called and explained what we wanted, and the person on the other end asked us what sort of apartment we had in mind and how much we wanted to pay.’ Ratti paused, or did he stop?
‘Yes?’ Brunetti urged, his voice just the same as that priest’s had been when the children had some question or uncertainty about the catechism.
‘I told him what I had in mind, and he said he’d call me back in a few days. He did, and said he had three apartments to show us, if we could come to Venice that weekend. When we came, he showed us this apartment and two others.’
‘Was he the same man who answered the phone when you called?’
‘I don’t know. But it was certainly the same man who called us back.’
‘Do you know who the man was? Or is?’
‘It’s the man we pay the rent to, but I don’t know his name.’
‘And how do you do that?’
‘He calls us in the last week of the month and tells us where to meet him. It’s usually a bar, though sometimes, during the summer, it’s outside.’
‘Where, here in Venice or in Milano?’
His wife interrupted. ‘He seems to know where we are. He calls us here if we’re in Venice or Milano if we’re there.’
‘And then what do you do?’
Ratti answered this time. ‘I meet him and I give him the money.’
