Signorina Elettra looked up from some papers on her desk and, making no attempt to disguise her curiosity, asked, ‘Well?’
‘It’s mine,’ Brunetti said.
‘But that’s crazy.’ Signorina Elettra spoke before she could stop herself. Hastily, she added, ‘I mean, the press will go wild when they learn.’
Brunetti shrugged. There was little he could do to curb the enthusiasms of the press. Ignoring her remark he asked, ‘Have you got those papers I told you not to get?’
He watched while she followed this question to the places it could lead: charges of disobedience and insubordination, failure to obey a direct order from a superior, grounds for dismissal, destruction of her career. ‘Of course, sir,’ she answered.
‘Can you give me a copy?’
‘It will take a few minutes. I’ve got them hidden in here,’ she explained, waving a hand at her computer screen.
‘Where?’
‘In a file I think no one else could find.’
‘No one?’
‘Oh,’ she said loftily, ‘if they were as good as I, perhaps.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘No, not here.’
‘Good. Bring them up when you’ve printed them out, would you?’
‘Of course, sir.’
He waved a hand in her direction and went back upstairs.
He called Rizzardi immediately and found the pathologist in his office at the hospital. ‘You had time yet?’ Brunetti asked as soon as he’d identified himself to the other man.
‘No, I’ll start in about an hour. I’ve got a suicide first. Young girl, only sixteen. Her boyfriend left her, so she took all her mother’s sleeping pills.’
Brunetti remembered that Rizzardi had married late and had teenaged children. Two daughters, he thought. ‘Poor girl,’ Brunetti said.
‘Yes.’ Rizzardi allowed a pause to establish itself, then went on, ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt. It could have been a thin wire, probably plastic-covered.’
‘Like electrical cord?’
‘That’s the most likely. I’ll know once I take a closer look. It might even have been that double wire they use to hook up stereo speakers. There were faint traces of a second impression, parallel to the other, but it might just be that the killer loosened it for a moment to get a better grip. I’ll know more once I take a look under the microscope.’
‘Man or woman?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Either, I’d say. That is, either could have done it. If you come from behind with a cord, they don’t have a chance; your strength doesn’t matter. But it’s usually men who strangle: I don’t think women are sure they’re strong enough.’
‘Thank God for that at least,’ Brunetti said.
‘And it looks like there might be something under the nails of his left hand.’
‘Something?’
‘If we’re lucky, skin. Or material from what the killer was wearing. I’ll know after I have a closer look.’
‘Would that be enough to identify someone?’
‘If you find the someone, yes.’
Brunetti considered that, then asked, ‘Time?’
‘I won’t know until I have a look inside. But his wife saw him at seven thirty when she went out and found him a little after ten when she got back. So there’s little doubt and there’s nothing I could find that would make it any more certain than that.’ Rizzardi stopped for a moment, covered the phone with his hand and spoke to someone in the room with him. ‘I’ve got to go now. They’ve got her on the table.’ Even before Brunetti could thank him, Rizzardi said, ‘I’ll send it over to you tomorrow,’ and hung up.
Though impatient to go and speak to Signora Mitri, Brunetti forced himself to stay at his desk until Signorina Elettra brought him the information about Mitri and Zambino, which she did after about five minutes.
She came in after knocking and placed two folders on his desk, saying nothing. ‘How much of this is common knowledge?’ Brunetti asked, glancing down at the files.
‘Most of it comes from the newspapers,’ she answered. ‘But some comes from their banks and from incorporation papers held by the various companies.’
Brunetti couldn’t contain himself. ‘How do you know this?’
Hearing only curiosity, not praise, in his voice she didn’t smile. ‘I have a number of friends who work in city offices and in banks. I can occasionally ask them to answer queries for me.’
‘And what do you do for them in return?’ Brunetti asked, finally voicing the question that had teased at him for years.
‘Most of the information we have here, Commissario, soon becomes common knowledge or, at least, public knowledge.’
‘That’s not an answer, Signorina.’
‘I’ve never given police information to anyone without a right to know it.’
‘Legal or moral?’ Brunetti asked.
She studied his face for a long time, then answered, ‘Legal.’
Brunetti knew that the only price high enough for certain information was other information, so he persisted, ‘Then how do you get all of this?’
She considered that for a moment. ‘I also advise my friends on more efficient methods of information retrieval.’
‘What does that mean in real language?’
‘I teach them how to snoop and where to look.’ Before Brunetti could respond, she continued, ‘But I have never, sir,
He nodded to show that he did, resisting the temptation to ask if she had ever explained to anyone how to get information from the police. Instead, he tapped the folders again. ‘Will there be more?’
‘Perhaps a longer client list for Zambino, but I don’t think there’s anything more to learn about Mitri.’
Of course there was, Brunetti told himself: there was the reason someone would put a wire round his throat and pull it tight until he or she choked the life out of him. ‘I’ll have a look, then,’ he said.
‘I think it’s all clear, but if you have questions, please ask me.’
‘Does anyone else know you’ve given me this?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said and left the office.
He chose the thinner file first: Zambino. From Modena originally, the lawyer had studied at Ca Foscari and begun to practise in Venice about twenty years ago. He specialized in corporate law and had built a reputation for himself in the city. Signorina Elettra had attached a list of some of his better-known clients; Brunetti recognized more than a few of them. There was no apparent pattern, and certainly Zambino did not work only for the wealthy: the list held as many waiters and salesmen as it did doctors and bankers. Though he accepted a certain number of criminal cases, his chief source of income was the corporate work Vianello had told Brunetti about. Married for twenty-five years to a teacher, he had four children, none of whom had ever been in trouble with the police. Nor, Brunetti observed, was he a wealthy man; at least whatever wealth he might have was not held in Italy.
The fatal travel agency in Campo Manin had belonged to Mitri for six years, though, ironically, he had nothing
