workmen had not overlooked them. What a wondrous thing was language.
‘And do you know if any details were overlooked in the room you call the gallery?’
Scattalon’s answer was immediate. ‘I didn’t call it that, Dottor Brunetti. I said it might serve that function. And, no, there were no details overlooked there.’
‘Do you know if your workmen had reason to go into that room when they went back to the palazzo for the last pieces of work?’
‘If there was no work to be done in the room, then there would be no reason for my men to enter it, so I’m sure they would not.’
‘Of course, of course, Signor Scattalon. I’m sure that’s true.’ His sense of the conversation suggested that Scattalon had patience for one more question, no more. ‘Is the door the only means of access to that room?’
‘Yes. That, and the air-conditioning duct.’
‘And do the gratings open?’
‘No.’ Simple, monosyllabic, and quite audibly terminal.
‘Thank you for your help, Signor Scattalon. I’ll be sure to mention it to my father-in-law.’ Brunetti concluded, giving no more explanation at the end of the conversation than he had at the beginning but reasonably certain that Scattalon, like most Italians, would be sufficiently suspicious of anything having to do with a police investigation not to mention it to anyone, most assuredly not to a client who might not yet have paid him in full.
* * * *
Chapter Nineteen
Would signor La Capra, he wondered, turn out to be yet another of those well-protected men who were appearing on the scene with unsettling frequency? Rich, but with a wealth that had no roots, at least none that were traceable, they seemed to be moving north, coming up from Sicily and Calabria, immigrants in their own land. For years, people in Lombardy and the Veneto, the wealthiest parts of the country, had thought themselves free from la piovra, the many-tentacled octopus that the Mafia had become. It was all roba dal Sud, stuff from the South, those killings, the bombings of bars and restaurants whose owners refused to pay protection money, the shoot-outs in city centres. And, he had to admit, as long as it had remained, all that violence and blood, down in the South, no one had felt much concern with it; the government had shrugged it off as just another quaint custom of the meridione. But in the last few years, just like an agricultural blight that couldn’t be stopped, the violence had moved north: Florence, Bologna, and now the heartland of industrialized Italy found themselves infected and looked in vain for a way to contain the disease.
Along with the violence, along with the hired killers who shot twelve-year-olds as messages to their parents, had come the men with the briefcases, the soft-spoken patrons of the opera and the arts, with their university- educated children, their wine cellars and their fierce desire to be perceived as patrons, epicures and gentlemen, not as the thugs they were, prating and posturing with their talk of omerta and loyalty.
For a moment, he had to stop himself and accept the fact that Signor La Capra might well be no more than what he appeared to be: a man of wealth who had bought and restored a palazzo on the Grand Canal. But even as he thought this, he thought of the presence of Salvatore La Capra’s fingerprints in Semenzato’s office and saw again the names of those cities and the identical dates when La Capra and Semenzato had visited them. Coincidence? Absurd.
Scattalon had said La Capra was living in the palazzo; perhaps it was time for a representative of one of the official arms of the city to greet the new resident and have a word with him about the need for security in these sadly criminal times.
Since the palazzo was on the same side of the Grand Canal as his home, he had lunch there but had no coffee after it, thinking that Signor La Capra might be polite enough to offer it to him.
* * * *
The palazzo stood at the end of Calle Dilera, a small street that dead-ended into the Grand Canal. As he approached, Brunetti could see the sure signs of newness. The exterior layer of intonaco plastered over the bricks from which the walls were constructed was still virgin and free of graffiti. Only near the bottom did it show the first signs of wear: the recent acqua alta, had left its mark at about the height of Brunetti’s knee, lightening the dull orange of the plaster, some of which had already begun to crumble away and now lay kicked or swept to the side of the narrow calle. Iron gratings were cemented into place on the four ground-level windows and thus prevented all chance of entry. Behind them, he saw new wooden shutters, tightly closed. He moved to the other side of the narrow calle and put his head back to study the upper floors. All of them had the same dark green wooden shutters, these thrown back, and windows of double-glazed glass. The gutters that hung under the new terracotta tiles of the roof were copper, as were the pipes that carried the run-off water from them. At the second floor, however, the pipes changed to far less tempting tin and ran down to the ground.
The nameplate by the single bell was taste itself: a simple italic script with only the name, ‘La Capra’. He rang the bell and stood near the intercom.
‘Si, chi e ?’ a male voice asked.
‘Polizia,’ he answered, having decided not to waste time with subtlety.
‘Si. Arrivo,’ the voice said, and then Brunetti heard only a mechanical click. He waited.
After a few minutes, the door was opened by a young man in a dark blue suit. Clean-shaven and dark-eyed, he was handsome enough to be a model but perhaps a bit too stocky to photograph well. ‘Si?’ he asked, not smiling but not seeming any more unfriendly than the average citizen would be if asked to come to the door by the police.
‘Buon giorno,’ Brunetti said. ‘I’m Commissario Brunetti; I’d like to speak to Signor La Capra.’
‘About what?’
