desks or inside their thick-walled vaults. Before he could pursue this idea further, he was connected to the Director, who passed him along to one of the tellers, who asked for the account number. It took only a few minutes for her to explain that the transfers came in from a bank in Geneva and had been coming in on the first of every month since the account was opened three years ago, presumably when Claudia came to Venice to begin her studies.
Brunetti thanked her and asked that he be faxed copies of all statements for the last three years, which the teller said would arrive that same morning. Again, he hardly needed no
paper and pencil to calculate the sum: almost four hundred million lire, and now there remained less than three million in the account. How could a young girl spend over three hundred million lire in three years? He cast his memory back to the apartment, hunting for signs of great expenditure, but he recalled none. In fact, his guess would be that the flat was rented already furnished, for surely a woman of Signora Gallante's generation would have bought the huge mahogany wardrobes he'd seen in both bedrooms. Rizzardi would have noticed and commented upon any sign of drug use, but what other than drugs could absorb such huge sums of money?
He called down to Bocchese, who told him the names of the officers who had searched the apartment, but when he spoke to them they said that neither girl's clothing had seemed out of the ordinary in quality or quantity and thus could not explain the disappearance of so much money.
For a moment he was tempted to call Rizzardi and ask if he had checked the body for evidence of drug use but stopped himself by imagining what the doctor's response would be. If he'd said nothing, then there was nothing.
He called Paola at home. 'If s me,' he said unnecessarily.
'And what can I do for me?' she asked.
'How would you spend three hundred and sixty million lire in three years?' he asked.
'My own or stolen?' she asked, making it clear that she assumed this to be a work-related question.
'What difference does that make?'
’I’d spend stolen money differently.'
‘Why?'
'Because if s different; that's all. I mean, it's not as if I would have worked for it or struggled to earn it. It's like money you find on the street or win on the lottery. You spend it much more easily, or at least I think you would.'
'And how would you spend it?'
Is that a general
Tor me, personally, I'd buy first editions of Henry James’ Ignoring this reference to the person Brunetti had, over the course of years, come to view as the other man in his wife's life, Brunetti asked, 'And if you were just a person in general?'
That would depend on the person, I guess. The most obvious is drugs, but the fact that you're calling me to ask for ideas suggest you've already excluded that possibility. Some people would buy expensive cars or designer clothes, or, oh, I don't know, vacations.'
'No, it was taken out month by month, seldom in one big lump’ he said, remembering the pattern of deposit and withdrawal in Claudia's account.
'Expensive restaurants? Girls?'
‘It was Claudia Leonardo,' he said soberly.
This stopped Paola for a moment, then she said, 'She'd probably give it away.'
'Do what?'
'Give it away,' Paola repeated. 'Why do you say that?'
There was a long pause. 'I really don't know. I've got to admit that: I've no idea why I said it. I suppose it’s my reaction to things she said in class or wrote in her papers, just a general feeling that she had a social conscience, the way so few of them seem to these days.'
Brunetti's reflections were cut off by Paola's question: 'Where did the money come from?'
'A Swiss bank’
‘I think it was Alice in Wonderland who was wont to say, 'Curiouser and curiouser.'' After another pause, Paola asked, Is that how much - three hundred and sixty million in three years?'
'Yes. Any more ideas?'
'No. In a way, if s difficult to think of her in terms of money or a great deal of money. She was so, oh, I don't know, simple. No, that's the wrong word. She had a complex mind, at least from what I knew of her. But one would just never, somehow, associate her with money.'
Why?'
'She didn't seem interested in it, not at all. In fact I remember noticing, when she'd comment on why characters in novels did things, that she was always slightly puzzled that people could be led to do things by greed, almost as if she didn't understand it, or it didn't make any human sense to her. So, no, she wouldn't spend it on anything she wanted for herself.'
'But that’ s just books,' he said.
'I beg your pardon,' Paola said, not calmly.
'I mean, you said it was comments she'd make about characters in books. How can that show you what she'd behave like in real life?'
He heard her sigh, but her answer, when it came, showed no lack of patience or sympathy. When we tell people about what's happened to our family or our friends we can judge pretty accurately how decent they are by the way they respond, can't we?'
'Of course.'
'It's no different just because the people you're talking about are characters in a book, Guido. You should know that by now, that is if you've paid any attention to anything I've said during the last twenty years.'
He had, and she was right, but he didn't want to have to say so. 'Give it some thought, would you?' he asked. What she could have done with it?'
'All right. Will you be home for lunch?'
‘Yes. It should be at the regular time.'
'Good. Then I'll cook something special.'
'Many me’ he implored.
She hung up without answering.
He took the bank statement down to Signorina Elettra, who today wore a pair of jeans and a white shirt starched to pert attention. At her throat she wore a light blue scarf that could have been cashmere but could just as easily have been gossamer.
‘Pashmina?' he asked, gesturing towards the scarf.
Her look suggested disdain for his ignorance, but her voice was calm. If I might quote the latest French
'And so?' he asked, not at all cast down by her remark.
'Cashmere and silk,' she said, as one would speak of thorns and nettles.
'If s much what my wife says about literature: one is always safe with the classics.' He laid the bank statement on her desk. 'Ten million lire was transferred into Claudia Leonardo's'account every month from a bank in Geneva,' he said, sure that this would capture her attention.
'From which bank?'
'It doesn't say. Does that make a difference?'
She placed a finger on the bank statement and slid it closer. 'It does if I want to find out about it. If s much easier for me to do research at the private banks.'
'Research?' he inquired.
'Research,' she repeated.
'Could you find out about this?'
'The bank or the original source?' she asked.
'Both.'
She picked up the statement. ‘I could try. It might take some time. If it's a private bank, well, even if it's something hard to break into like Bank Hofmann, I should still be able to find something, Commissario.'
