Acqua Alta

‘Who else have we been talking about, Vianello?’

‘But I just talked to her, and she’s hardly capable of standing up by herself. She’s not faking that grief, sir. I’m sure of it.’

‘Her grief isn’t in question, Vianello. It’s her husband.’ Brunetti was also curious about what the widow might have known of her husband’s behaviour, but with Vianello in an uncharacteristically gallant mood, this was best left unsaid.

Vianello’s assent was grudging. ‘Even if that’s the reason—’

Brunetti cut him off. ‘What about the staff at the museum?’

Vianello allowed himself to be herded back into line. ‘They seemed to like Semenzato. He was efficient, dealt well with the unions, and he was apparently very good at delegating authority, at least to the extent that the Ministry would let him.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘He let the curators decide which paintings needed to go to restoration, let them decide what techniques to use, when to call in outside experts. From what I gathered from the people I talked to, the man who had the job before he did insisted on keeping everything under his control, and that meant things got slowed down, since he wanted to know all the details. Most of them preferred Semenzato.’

‘Anything eke?’

‘I went back up to the hallway where Semenzato’s office is and took another look around in the daylight. There’s a door that leads into that corridor from the left wing, but it’s nailed shut. And there’s no way anyone could have come across the roof. So they went up the stairs.’

‘Right past the guards’ office,’ Brunetti finished for him.

‘And past it again on the way down,’ Vianello added, not kindly.

‘What was on television that night?’

Vianello answered, ‘Reruns of Colpo Grosso,’ with an immediacy that forced Brunetti to wonder if the sergeant had been at home that night, with half of Italy, watching demi-celebrities remove their clothing piece by piece to the excited shrieks of a studio audience. If the breasts had been big enough, thieves could probably have gone into the Piazza and removed the Basilica, and no one would have noticed until the following morning.

This seemed a wise point to change the subject. ‘All right, Vianello, see what you can do about getting her phone taken care of.’ His tone couldn’t be described as dismissive, not quite.

By mutual assent, the conversation was over. Vianello stood, still not pleased with this further invasion of the grief of the widow Semenzato, but agreed to see that it was done. ‘Anything else, sir?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Ordinarily, Brunetti would ask to be informed when the tap was in place, but he left it to Vianello. The sergeant moved his chair a few centimetres forward and placed it squarely in front of Brunetti’s desk, waved a vague salute, and left the office without another word. Brunetti thought it was enough that he had one prima donna to deal with over in Cannaregio. He didn’t need another one here at the Questura.

* * * *

Chapter Fifteen

When Brunetti left the Questura fifteen minutes later, he wore his boots and carried his umbrella. He cut back to his left, heading in the general direction of Rialto, but then turned to the right, suddenly to the left, and soon found himself coming down off the bridge that led into Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Directly in front of him, on the other side of the campo, stood Palazzo Priuli, abandoned for as long as he could remember, the central prize of vicious litigation over a contested will. As the heirs and presumptive heirs fought over whose it was or should be, the palazzo went about its business of deteriorating with a single-mindedness that ignored heirs, claims and legality. Long smears of rust trickled down the stone walls from the iron gratings that tried to protect it from unlawful entry, and the roof pitched and sagged, opening up fissures here and there, allowing the curious sun to peek into the attic, closed up these many years. Brunetti the dreamer had often considered that Palazzo Priuli would be the ideal place to imprison a mad aunt, a recalcitrant wife or a reluctant heiress at the same time as his more sober and practical Venetian self viewed it as a prime piece of real estate and studied the windows, dividing the space beyond into apartments, offices and studios.

Murino’s shop, he had the vague semi-memory, stood on the north side, between a pizzeria and a mask shop. The pizzeria was closed for the season, awaiting the return of the tourists, but both the mask shop and the antique shop were open, their lights burning brightly through the late winter rain.

As Brunetti pushed open the door to the shop, a bell sounded in a room somewhere off behind a pair of damasked velvet curtains that hung in a doorway that led to the back. The room radiated the subdued glow of wealth, the wealth of ages and stability. There were, surprisingly, few pieces on display, yet each called for the complete attention of the viewer. At the back stood a walnut credenza with a row of five drawers down the leftside, the wood aglow with centuries of attentive care. Just beneath his hand stood a long oak table, probably taken from the refectory of some religious house. It, too, had been polished to a shimmering glow, but no attempt had been made to disguise or remove the chips and stains of long use. At his feet crouched a pair of marble lions, teeth bared in a threat which had perhaps once been terrifying. But age had worn away their teeth and softened their features until now they faced their enemies with a yawn rather than a growl.

‘C’ e qualcuno?’ Brunetti called towards the back. He looked down and noticed that his folded umbrella had already left a large puddle on the parquet floor of the shop. Signor Murino must surely be an optimist, as well as a non-Venetian, to have covered a floor in this part of the city with parquet, for the zone lay low, and the first serious acqua alta was sure to flow in here, destroying the wood and sweeping out both glue and varnish when the tide changed.

‘Buon giorno?’ he called again, taking a few steps towards the doorway and leaving a trail of raindrops on the floor behind him.

A hand appeared at the curtain and pushed it aside. The man who stepped into the room was the same one Brunetti remembered having seen in the city and who had been pointed out to him — he could no longer remember by whom — as the antique dealer from Santa Maria Formosa. Murino was short, as were many Southerners, with lustrous black hair which he wore in a crown of loose ringlets hanging down to his collar. His colouring was dark, his skin smooth, his features small and well proportioned. What was disconcerting, in the midst of this cliche of