Carrara’s whistle, either of surprise or admiration for such a feat, came clearly through the line.
‘And it seems he was silent partner in a pair of antique shops, one here and one in Milan,’ Brunetti continued.
‘Whose?’
‘Francesco Murino Do you know him?’
Carrara’s voice was slow, measured. ‘Only in the way we knew Semenzato, unofficially. But his name has turned up more than a few times.’
‘Anything definite?’
‘No, nothing. It looks like he covers himself very well.’ There was a long pause, and then Carrara added, in a voice suddenly grown more serious, ‘Or someone covers things for him.’
‘Like that, is it?’ Brunetti asked. It could mean anything: some branch of the government, Mafia, a foreign government, even the Church.
‘Yes. Every lead we get turns to nothing. We hear his name, and then we don’t. The finance police have checked him three times in the last two years, and he’s clean.’
‘Has his name ever been linked to Semenzato’s?’
‘Not by anyone here. What else have you got?’
‘Are you familiar with Dottoressa Lynch?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course I’m familiar with her. I have a degree in art history, Guido, after all.’
‘Is she that well known?’
‘Her book on Chinese art is the best one around. She’s still in China, isn’t she?’
‘No, she’s here.’
‘In Venice? What’s she doing there?’
Brunetti had asked himself the same question. Trying to decide whether to go back to China, whether to stay here because of her lover, or, now, waiting to see if her former lover had been murdered. ‘She came here to talk to Semenzato about the pieces that were sent back to China. Two toughs beat her up last week. Cracked her jaw and broke some ribs. It was in the papers here.’
Again, Carrara’s whistle came across the line from Rome, but this one somehow managed to convey compassion. ‘There was nothing here,’ he said.
‘Her assistant in China, a Japanese woman who came here to oversee the return of the exhibits to China, died in an accident out there.’
‘Freud says somewhere that there are no accidents, doesn’t he?’Carrara asked.
‘I don’t know if Freud meant to include China when he said that, but, no, it doesn’t sound like it was an accident.’
Carrara’s grunt could have meant anything. Brunetti chose to interpret it as assent and said, ‘I’m going to talk to Dottoressa Lynch tomorrow morning.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to try to convince her to leave the city for a while, and I want to learn more about the pieces that were substituted. What they were, whether they have a market value—’
Carrara interrupted him. ‘Of course they have a market value.’
‘Yes, I understand that, Giulio. But I want to get some idea of what the market would be, whether they could be sold openly.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t understand what you meant, Guido.’ His pause could have been read as an apology, and then he added, ‘If it’s coming out of a dig in China, you can pretty much put any price you want on it.’
‘That rare?’ Brunetti asked.
‘That rare. But what do you want to know about it?’
‘Chiefly, I want to know where or how the copies could have been made.’
Carrara interrupted again, ‘Italy is full of studios that make copies, Guido. Everything: Greek statues, Etruscan jewellery, Ming pottery, Renaissance paintings. You name it, and there’s an Italian artisan who can make you one that will fool the experts.’
‘But haven’t you people down there got all sorts of ways to detect them? Surely I’ve read that. Carbon-14 and things like that.’
Carrara laughed. ‘Talk to Dottoressa Lynch, Guido. She has a whole chapter on it in her book, so I’m sure she can tell you things that will keep you awake on long winter nights.’ Brunetti heard noise from the other end, then silence as Carrara covered the phone with his hand. In a moment, he was back. ‘Sorry, Guido, but I’ve got a call coming in from Vietnam; it’s taken two days to get it through. Call me if you hear anything, and I’ll call you if I do.’ Before Brunetti could agree, Carrara was gone and the line was dead.
* * * *
Chapter Fourteen
