She shook her head at this question but again uttered no words.
‘Signora, I ask you to excuse my ignorance, but I know almost nothing about your husband.’ She didn’t respond to this. ‘Would you tell me where he worked?’ She seemed surprised at this, as if Brunetti had suggested Mitri clocked in for eight hours at a factory, so he explained, ‘That is, in which of his factories he had his office or where he spent most of his time.’
‘There’s a chemical plant in Marghera. He has an office there.’
Brunetti nodded, but didn’t ask for the address. He knew they could find it easily. ‘Have you any idea of how much he was involved in the various factories and businesses he owned?’
‘Involved?’
‘Directly, I mean, in the day-to-day running of them.’
‘You’d have to ask his secretary,’ she said.
‘In Marghera?’
She nodded.
As they spoke, however brief her answers, Brunetti watched her for signs of distress or mourning. The impassivity of her face made it difficult to tell, but he thought he detected traces of sadness, though it was more in the way she continually looked down at her own folded hands than anything she said or the tone of her voice.
‘How many years were you married, Signora?’
‘Thirty-five,’ she said without hesitation.
‘And is that your granddaughter who let us in?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, the faintest of smiles breaking the surface of her immobility. ‘Giovanna. My daughter lives in Rome, but Giovanna said she wanted to come and stay with me. Now.’
Brunetti nodded his understanding, though the granddaughter’s concern for her grandmother made the girl’s calm demeanour seem even stranger. ‘I’m sure it’s a great comfort to have her here,’ he said.
‘Yes, it is,’ Signora Mitri agreed and this time her face softened in a real smile. ‘It would be terrible to be here alone.’
Brunetti bowed his head at this and waited a few seconds before looking up and back at her. ‘Just a few more questions, Signora, then you can be with your granddaughter again.’ He didn’t wait for her to respond, but went on without preamble, ‘Are you your husband’s heir?’
Her surprise was evident in her eyes – the first time anything appeared to have touched her. ‘Yes, I think so,’ she said without hesitation.
‘Has your husband other family?’
‘A brother and a sister, and one cousin, but he emigrated to Argentina years ago.’
‘No one else?’
‘No, no one in the direct family.’
‘Is Signor Zambino a friend of your husband’s?’
‘Who?’
‘Awocato Giuliano Zambino.’
‘Not that I know of, no.’
‘I believe he was your husband’s lawyer.’
‘I’m afraid I know very little about my husband’s business,’ she said and Brunetti was forced to wonder how many women he had heard tell him the same thing over the course of the years. Very few of them turned out to have been telling the truth, so it was an answer he never believed. At times he was uncomfortable about how very much Paola knew about his own business dealings, if that’s what one called the identities of suspected rapists, the results of gruesome autopsies, and the surnames of the various suspects who appeared in the newspapers as ‘Giovanni S, 39, bus driver, of Mestre’ or ‘Federico G, 59, mason, of San Dona di Piave’. Few secrets resisted the marriage pillow, Brunetti knew, so he was sceptical about Signora Mini’s professed ignorance. Nevertheless, he let it pass unquestioned.
They already had the names of the people she had been at dinner with the night her husband was murdered, so there was no need to pursue that now. Instead, he asked, ‘Had your husband’s behaviour changed in any way during the last weeks? Or days?’
She shook her head in strong denial. ‘No, he was just the same as always.’
Brunetti wanted to ask her exactly what that was, but he resisted and instead got to his feet. ‘Thank you, Signora, for your time and help. I’m afraid I will have to speak to you again when we have more information.’ He saw that she took no pleasure in that prospect but thought she wouldn’t deny a request for further information. His last words came unsummoned: ‘I hope this time is not too painful for you and that you find the courage to bear it.’
She smiled at the audible sincerity of his words, and again he saw sweetness in that smile.
Vianello stood, took his overcoat, and handed Brunetti his. Both men put them on and Brunetti led the way to the door. Signora Mitri got up and followed them to the threshold of the apartment.
There, Brunetti and Vianello took their leave of her and made their way downstairs to the atrium, where the palm trees still flourished.
15
Outside, neither man spoke for some time as they made their way back to the
The afternoon having grown colder, they went inside and took seats towards the front half of the empty cabin. Ahead of them, two old women sat with their heads together, talking in loud Veneziano about the sudden cold.
‘Zambino?’ Vianello asked.
Brunetti nodded. ‘I’d like to know why Mitri had a lawyer with him when he went to talk to Patta.’
‘And one who sometimes takes on criminal defence work,’ Vianello added unnecessarily. ‘It’s not as if he’d done anything, is it?’
‘Maybe he wanted advice on what sort of civil case he could bring against my wife if I managed to stop the police from proceeding with criminal charges the second time.’
‘There was never any chance of that, was there?’ Vianello asked in a voice that made evident his regret.
‘No, not once Landi and Scarpa were involved.’
Vianello muttered something under his breath, but Brunetti neither heard it nor asked the sergeant to repeat what he had said. ‘I’m not sure what happens now.’
‘About what?’
‘The case. If Mitri’s dead, it’s unlikely that his heir will press civil charges against Paola. Although the manager might.’
‘What about…’ Vianello trailed off as he wondered what to call the police. He decided and called them, ‘our colleagues?’
‘That depends on the examining magistrate.’
‘Who is it? Do you know?’
‘Pagano, I think.’
Vianello considered this, summoning up years of experience working with and for the magistrate, an elderly man in the last years of his career. ‘He’s not likely to ask for a prosecution, is he?’
‘No, I don’t think so. He’s never got on well with the Vice-Questore, so he’s not likely to be urged into it or to enjoy being cajoled.’
‘So what’ll happen? A fine?’ At Brunetti’s shrug, Vianello abandoned that question and asked instead, ‘What now?’
‘I’d like to see if anything’s come in, then go and talk to Zambino.’
Vianello looked down at his watch. ‘Is there time?’
