interested in works of art. La Capra could have, quite legitimately, consulted Semenzato on any one of a number of questions: provenance, authenticity, price. He looked down at the papers and tried to work out a pattern between the phone calls and transfers of money into and out of the men’s accounts, but nothing emerged.
The phone rang. He picked it up and said his name. ‘I tried to call you earlier.’ He recognized Flavia’s voice instantly, noted again how low-pitched it was, how different from her singing voice. But that surprise was as nothing compared to what he felt at hearing her address him in the familiar ‘tu’.
‘I was seeing someone. What is it?’
‘Brett. She refuses to come to Milan with me.’
‘Does she give a reason?’
‘She says something about not feeling well enough to travel, but it’s just stubbornness. And fear. She doesn’t want to admit she’s afraid of these people, but she is.’
‘What about you?’ he asked, using ‘tu’ and discovering how right it sounded. ‘Are you leaving?’
‘I’ve got no choice,’ Flavia said but then corrected herself. ‘No, I do have a choice. I could stay if I wanted to, but I don’t. My children are coming home, and I’ve got to meet them. And I’ve got to be at La Scala on Tuesday for a piano rehearsal. I’ve cancelled once, but now I’ve said I’ll sing.’
He wondered how all of this was going to be connected to him, and Flavia quickly told him. ‘Do you think you could talk to her? Try to reason with her?’
‘Flavia,’ he began, intensely conscious of the fact that this was the first time he had called her by her first name, ‘if you can’t convince her to go, I doubt that anything I could say would change her mind.’ Then, before she could protest, he added, ‘No, I’m not trying to get out of doing it. I just don’t think it would work.’
‘What about protection?’
‘Yes. I can have a man put in the apartment with her.’ Almost without thinking, he corrected that, ‘Or a woman.’
Her response was immediate. And angry. ‘Just because we choose not to go to bed with men doesn’t mean we’re afraid of being in the same room with one.’
He was silent for so long that she finally asked, ‘Well, why don’t you say something?’
‘I’m waiting for you to apologize for being stupid.’
This time, it was Flavia who said nothing. Finally, to his considerable relief, her voice softened and she said, ‘All right, and for being rash, as well. I suppose I’ve got used to being able to push people around. And maybe I’m still looking for trouble about me and Brett.’
Apologies over, Flavia returned to the issue at hand. ‘I don’t know if she can be convinced to let someone stay in the apartment with her.’
‘Flavia, I have no other way to protect her.’ Suddenly, he heard a loud noise down the phone, something that sounded like heavy machinery. ‘What’s that?’
‘A boat.’
‘Where are you?’
‘On the Riva degli Schiavoni.’ She explained, ‘I didn’t want to call you from the house, so I went for a walk.’ Her voice changed. ‘I’m not far from the Questura. Are you allowed to accept visitors during the day?’
‘Of course,’ he laughed. ‘I’m one of the bosses.’
‘Would it be all right if I came over and saw you? I hate talking on the phone.’
‘Of course. Come when you want. Come now. I’ve got to wait for a phone call, but there’s no sense in your walking around in the rain all afternoon. Besides,’ he added, smiling to himself, ‘it’s warm here.’
‘All right. Do I ask for you?’
‘Yes, tell the officer at the door that you have an appointment, and he’ll bring you up to my office.’
‘Thanks. I’ll be there soon.’ She hung up without waiting for his goodbye.
As soon as he replaced the phone, it rang again, and he answered it to find Carrara.
‘Guido, your Signor La Capra was in the computer.’
‘Yes?’
‘It was the Chinese ceramics that made it easy to find him.’
‘Why?’
‘Two things. There was a celadon bowl that disappeared from a private collection in London about three years ago. The man they finally sent down for it said that he had been paid by an Italian to get that specific piece.’
‘La Capra?’
‘He didn’t know. But the person who turned him in said that La Capra’s name was used by one of the middle men who arranged the deal.’
‘ “Arranged the deal”?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Just like that, set up the robbery of a single piece?’
‘Yes. It’s getting more and more common,’ Carrara answered.
‘And the second?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Well, this one is only rumoured. In fact, we have it listed in with the “unconfirmed”.’
