whatsoever to do with the day-to-day running of the business. A manager who rented the agency licence from him took care of all practical matters; apparently it was he who had decided to handle the tours that had provoked Paola’s action and appeared to have led to Mini’s murder. Brunetti made a note of the manager’s name and read on.
Mitri’s wife was also Venetian, two years younger than he. Though there had been only one child, she had never had a career, and Brunetti did not recognize her name as being involved in any of the charitable institutions of the city. Mitri was survived by a brother, a sister and a cousin. The brother, also a chemist, lived near Padova, the sister in Verona, and the cousin in Argentina.
There followed the numbers of three accounts in different banks in the city, a list of government bonds, and stock holdings, all for a total of more than a billion lire. And that was all. Mitri had never been accused of a crime and had never, not once in more than half a century, come to the attention of the police in any way.
Instead, Brunetti reflected, he had probably come to the attention of a person who thought – though he tried to shy away from this, Brunetti could not – as Paola did and who had, like her, decided to use violent means to express his opposition to the tours conducted by the travel agency. Brunetti knew that history was filled with examples of the wrong people dying. Kaiser Wilhelm’s good son, Friedrich, had survived his father by only a few months, leaving the path of succession open to his own son, Wilhelm II, and thus leaving the same path open to the first truly global war. And Germanicus’s death had put the succession at risk and, ultimately, had led to Nero. But those were cases where fate, or history, had intervened; there had been no figure with a wire to drag the victim down to death; there had been no deliberate selection.
Brunetti called down to Vianello, who answered on the second ring. ‘The lab through with the note yet?’ he asked him without preamble.
‘Probably. Want me to go down and ask them?’
‘Yes. And bring it up if you can.’
While he waited for Vianello, Brunetti read again through the short list of Zambino’s criminal clients, trying to recall whatever he could about the names he recognized. There was one case of homicide and, though the man was convicted, the sentence had been reduced to only seven years when Zambino brought in a number of women who lived in the same building to testify that the victim had, for years, been abusive to them in the elevator and the halls of the building. Zambino had proceeded to convince the judges that his client had been defending his wife’s honour when an argument broke out between them in a bar. Two robbery suspects had been released for lack of evidence: Zambino arguing that they had been arrested only because they were Albanians.
Brunetti was interrupted by a knock at the door and Vianello’s entrance. He carried a large transparent plastic envelope in his right hand and held it up as he came in. ‘They’d just finished. Nothing at all.
Vianello came across the room and placed the envelope on Brunetti’s desk. He propped his weight on his hands and leaned over it, studying it again, along with Brunetti.
It looked to Brunetti as if the words had been cut from
Brunetti picked up the envelope by a corner and turned it over. All he could see were the same lines and some small patches where the glue had seeped through the paper, staining it grey. He turned it back over and read it again. ‘There seem to be some crossed wires, don’t there?’ he asked.
‘To say the least,’ Vianello agreed.
Though Paola had told the police who arrested her why she broke the window, she had never spoken to any of the reporters, except briefly and under duress, so whatever stories they carried about her motivation had come from some other source; Lieutenant Scarpa was a good guess. The stories Brunetti had read had done little more than suggest that her motivating force was ‘feminism’, though the term was never defined. Mention had been made of the tours arranged by the agency, but the accusation that they were sex-tours had been heatedly denied by the manager, who insisted that most of the men who bought tickets to Bangkok at his agency took their wives along. The
Thus the weight of opinion and authority was lined up against Paola, a hysterical ‘feminist’, and in favour of the law-respecting manager and, behind him, the murdered Dottor Mitri. Whoever had got the idea of ‘baby pornographer’ had got things wildly wrong.
‘I think it’s time we talked to a few people,’ Brunetti said, getting to his feet. ‘Starting with the manager of the agency. I’d like to hear what he has to say about all these married women who want to go to Bangkok.’
Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was almost two. ‘Is Signorina Elettra still here?’ he asked Vianello.
‘Yes, sir. She was when I came up.’
‘Good. I’d like to have a word with her, then perhaps we could go and get something to eat.’
Confused, Vianello nodded and followed his superior down to Signorina Elettra’s office. From the door, he watched Brunetti lean down and speak to her, saw and heard Signorina Elettra’s laugh. She nodded and turned towards her computer, then Brunetti joined him and they went down to the bar by Ponte dei Grechi and had wine and tramezzini, talking of this and that. Brunetti seemed in no hurry to leave, so they had more sandwiches and another glass of wine.
After another half hour Signorina Elettra came in, managing to capture a smile from the barman and the offer of coffee from two men who stood at the bar. Though it was less than a block from the office, she had put on a quilted black silk coat that came to her ankles. She shook her head in polite refusal of coffee and came towards the two policemen. She pulled a few sheets of paper from her pocket and held them up. ‘Child’s play.’ She shook her head in false exasperation. ‘It’s just too easy.’
‘Of course.’ Brunetti smiled and paid for what had passed as lunch.
13
Brunetti and Vianello turned up at the travel agency just as it was reopening at 3.30 p.m. and asked to speak to Signor Dorandi. Brunetti glanced back into the
Not quite as tall as Brunetti, he had a full beard already starting to go grey, though he could not have been much into his thirties. When he saw Vianello’s uniform, he came forward with his hand outstretched, a smile spreading up from the corners of his mouth. ‘Ah, the police. I’m glad you’ve come.’
Brunetti said good-afternoon but didn’t give either of their names, letting Vianello’s uniform serve as sufficient introduction. He asked if they might speak in Signor Dorandi’s office. Turning, the bearded man held open the door for the other two and paused long enough to inquire if they’d like some coffee. Both refused.
Inside, the walls of the office were filled with the predictable posters of beaches, temples and palaces, sure proof that a bad economy and continuing talk of financial crises were not enough to keep Italians at home. Dorandi took his place behind his desk, pushed some papers to the side, and turned to Brunetti, who folded his coat over the back of one of the chairs facing Dorandi and sat down. Vianello lowered himself into the other.
Dorandi was wearing a suit, but something was wrong with it. Distracted, Brunetti tried to figure out what it was, whether the garment was too big or too small, but neither seemed to be the case. Double-breasted, the jacket was cut of some thick blue material which looked like wool but could as easily have been plasterboard. The jacket fell in a straight line, without a single wrinkle, from his shoulder before disappearing behind the desk. Dorandi’s face gave Brunetti the same impression of something being amiss, but he didn’t understand what. Then
