Fatal Remedies

‘Friends of mine have used him.’

‘As a lawyer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? I mean for what sort of cases?’

‘Remember when Lily was attacked?’ she asked.

Brunetti recalled the case, one that had reduced him to speechless rage. Three years ago, Lily Vitale, an architect, had been attacked on her way home from the opera, in what might have begun as a mugging, but which ended in a much more violent attack, when her face had been repeatedly punched and her nose broken. No attempt had been made to rob her; her bag was found, untouched, beside her by the people who came out from their homes in answer to her screams.

Her attacker was arrested that night and quickly identified as the same man who had attempted to rape at least three other women in the city. But he had never stolen anything and he was actually incapable of rape, so he was given three months of house arrest, but not before his mother and girlfriend had stepped forward at the trial to praise his virtue, loyalty, and integrity.

‘Lily brought a civil suit against him for damages. Zambino was her lawyer.’

Brunetti knew nothing of this. ‘And?’

‘She lost.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he never tried to rob her. All he did was break her nose, and the judge didn’t think that was as serious as stealing her purse. So he didn’t even award damages. He said that the house arrest was sufficient punishment.’

‘And Lily?’

Signorina Elettra shrugged. ‘She doesn’t go out alone any more, so she gets around less.’

The young man was currently in jail for having stabbed his girlfriend, but Brunetti didn’t think that would matter to Lily, nor would it change anything.

‘How did he react to losing the case?’

‘I don’t know. Lily never said.’ She didn’t offer anything after this and got to her feet. ‘I’ll go and have a look,’ she said, reminding him that they were here about Mitri and not about a woman whose courage had been broken.

‘Yes, thank you. I think I’ll have a word with Awocato Zambino.’

‘As you will, Commissario.’ She turned to the door. ‘But, believe me, if anyone is clean, he is.’ As the person named was a lawyer, Brunetti gave this the attention he devoted to the mutterings of the lunatics in front of Palazzo Boldu.

* * * *

17

He decided not to take Vianello with him, hoping that his visit to the lawyer would thus appear a more casual thing, though he hardly believed a man as exposed to the law in all its workings as Zambino would be much affected by the sight of a uniform. A quotation Paola often used slipped into his mind, the description of one of Chaucer’s pilgrims, the Man of Law: ‘He seemed busier than he was.’ Brunetti thus thought it might be wise to call ahead and let the avvocato know that he was coming and thus avoid being kept waiting while he did lawyerly things. His secretary, or whoever it was that answered the phone, said that he would be free in about half an hour and would be able then to speak to the commissario.

The office was in Campo San Polo, so Brunetti could end his morning close to home and would have plenty of time for lunch. He called Paola to tell her this. Neither of them discussed anything but time and menu.

As soon as he’d finished talking to her, Brunetti went downstairs into the officers’ room, where he found Vianello at his desk, reading the morning paper. When he heard Brunetti approach, the sergeant looked up and closed the paper.

‘Anything today?’ Brunetti asked. ‘I haven’t had time to read them.’

‘No, it’s tapering off, probably because there’s not much to say. Not until we arrest someone.’

Vianello started to get to his feet, but Brunetti said, ‘No, don’t bother, Sergeant. I’m going to go and see Zambino. Alone.’ Before the other could say anything to this, Brunetti added, ‘Signorina Elettra said she’s going to take a closer look at Mitri’s finances and I thought you might like to see how she does it.’

Recently, Vianello had become absorbed in the manner in which Signorina Elettra discovered things with the help of her computer and the scores of friends, some of whom she’d never met, it linked her to. No barriers of nation or language seemed any longer to impede the free exchange of information, much of it very interesting to the police. Brunetti’s attempt to follow along had met with failure, so he was pleased at Vianello’s enthusiasm. He wanted someone else to be able to do what Signorina Elettra did, or at least understand how she did it, in case they ever had to work without her. Even as the thought came, he breathed a silent incantation against its possibility.

Vianello finished folding up the paper and let it drop on his desk. ‘Gladly. She’s shown me a lot, but there’s always something she thinks of when the regular paths don’t work. The kids are amazed,’ he went on. ‘They used to kid me about how little I understood of what they brought home from school or what they talked about, but now they come and ask me if they have trouble or can’t access someone.’ Unconsciously, he used the English verb, the language in which he and Signorina Elettra pursued most of their information.

Strangely unsettled by this brief conversation, Brunetti took his leave of the sergeant and left the Questura. A single cameraman stood outside, but his back was to the entrance as he faced away from the wind and lit a cigarette, so Brunetti walked away unnoticed. When he arrived at the Grand Canal, the wind made him decide not to take the traghetto and, instead, he crossed the Rialto. As he walked, he ignored the glory that surrounded him on all sides and, instead, thought about what he wanted to ask Avvocato Zambino. He was distracted from this only once when he saw what he was sure were porcini mushrooms on one of the vegetable stalls and was filled with a momentary hope that Paola would see them too and serve them with polenta for lunch.

He walked quickly along Rughetta, past his own calle, through the underpass, and out into the campo. The leaves had long since fallen from the trees, so the broad expanse seemed curiously naked and exposed.

* * * *

The lawyer’s office was on the first floor of Palazzo Soranzo, and when he arrived Brunetti was surprised to have the door opened by Zambino himself.

‘Ah, Commissario Brunetti, this is a pleasure,’ the lawyer said, extending his hand and shaking Brunetti’s firmly. ‘I can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you, since we’ve already met, but it’s a pleasure to have you come here to speak to me.’ At their first meeting Brunetti had paid most attention to Mitri, so the lawyer had passed all but unobserved. He was short, stocky, with a body that showed signs of a lot of good living and not much exercise. Brunetti thought he was wearing the same suit he’d had on in Patta’s office, though he wasn’t sure. Thinning hair covered a head that was disconcertingly round; the face was the same and the cheeks as well. His eyes were those of a woman: thick-lashed, almond-shaped, cobalt-blue and strikingly beautiful.

‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said, looking away from the lawyer and around the office. It was, he saw to his considerable surprise, humble, the sort of room he’d expect to find in the ambulatorio of a doctor just graduated from medical school who had recently set up his first practice. The chairs were metal, with seats and backs made from formica that was disguised, badly, to look like wood. A single low table stood in the centre of the room and on it lay a few copies of outdated magazines.

The lawyer led him to an open door and into what must be his office. The walls were covered with books Brunetti recognized instantly as law texts, case studies, and the codes of law, both civil and criminal, of the State of