‘Officially.’
‘Absolutely not. Nothing. No. Not a thing.’ Before Brunetti could do it, Carrara broke into his own litany and asked, ‘Is that enough to make you ask the next question, Guido?’
Brunetti smiled into the phone. ‘All right. Unofficially?’
‘How strange of you to ask that. In fact, I have a note here on my desk to call you. I didn’t know you were handling the case until I read your name in the papers this morning, so I thought I’d give you a call and suggest a few things. And ask a few favours, as well. I think there are a number of things we might both be interested in.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like his bank statements.’
‘Semenzato’s?’
‘Isn’t that who we’re talking about?’
‘Sorry, Giulio, but I’ve had people telling me all day that I ought not to talk ill of the dead.’
‘If we can’t talk ill of the dead, who can we talk ill of?’ Carrara asked with surprising good sense.
‘I’ve already got someone working on them. I ought to have them by tomorrow. Anything else?’
‘I’d like to have a look at records of his longdistance calls, both from his home and from the office at the museum. Do you think you could get them?’
‘This still unofficial?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll have them.’
‘Good.’
‘What else?’
‘Have you spoken to his widow yet?’
‘No, I haven’t, not personally. One of my men has spoken to her. Why?’
‘She might have some idea of where he travelled to during the last few months.’
‘Why do you want to know that?’ Brunetti asked, honestly curious.
‘No special reason, Guido. But we like to know this sort of thing, once a person’s name has come under our noses more than once.’
‘And his had?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Nothing specific, if I have to tell the truth.’ Carrara sounded disappointed that he didn’t have a definite accusation to pass on to Brunetti. ‘Two men we arrested at the airport here, more than a year ago, with Chinese jade figurines, said only that they had heard him named in conversation. They were only carriers; they didn’t know much at all, didn’t even know the value of what they were carrying.’
‘And that was?’Brunetti asked.
‘Billions. The statues were traced back to the National Museum in Taiwan. They’d disappeared three years before; no one ever learned how.’
‘Were those the only things taken?’
‘No, but they’re the only things recovered. So far.’
‘When else did you hear his name?’
‘Oh, from one of the little people we keep on a string down here. We can get him for drugs or for breaking and entering any time we want him, so we let him run loose, and in return he brings us back a piece of information now and again. He said that he had overheard Semenzato’s name mentioned on the phone by one of the men he sells things to.’
‘Stolen things?’
‘Of course. He has nothing else to sell.’
‘Was the man speaking to Semenzato, or about him?’
‘About him.’
‘Did he tell you what he heard?’
‘The man who was speaking said only that the other person should try to speak to Semenzato. At first, we assumed the reference to him was innocent. After all, the man was a museum director. But then we caught the two men at the airport, and then Semenzato turned up dead in his office. So I thought it was time to call and tell you.’ Carrara paused long enough to signal that he was finished with what he had to give, and now it was time to see what he could get. ‘What have you found out about him there?’
‘Remember the Chinese exhibition a few years ago?’
Carrara grunted in assent.
‘Some of the pieces that were sent back to China were copies.’
