'Good. I'd like this to start to make some sort of sense.'
'It never will, though, will it?'
'No, I suppose not’ he agreed as he turned away.
Back in his office he decided to try his father-in-law again, to see if he'd had time to learn anything. But when he called, he was told that the Count had gone to Paris for the day, which left him no choice but to call Lele Bortoluzzi and see if there was anything further he could remember. There was no answer at his studio, so he tried the painter at home, where he found him.
After they exchanged pleasantries, Brunetti asked, 'Do you remember a woman called Hedi - Hedwig - Jacobs, who...?' Lele broke in, 'You still asking about Guzzardi, eh?' ‘Yes. And now about Frau Jacobs.'
‘I think that 'Frau' is a courtesy title’ Lele said. 'There was never a Herr Jacobs in evidence.'
Did you know her?' Brunetti asked.
‘Yes, but not well. We talked occasionally if we met somewhere. The thing I remember most is that someone as decent as she could be so gone on a person like Guzzardi. Anything he said was marvellous and anything he did was beyond question.' The painter's voice grew reflective. 'I've seen lots of people lose their heads for love, but usually they maintain a little bit of sense. Not her, though. She would have gone down to hell for him if he'd asked her to.'
'But they never married?' Brunetti prodded.
Tie already had a wife, and a son, just a little kid then. He kept them both on a string, the wife and the Austrian. I'm sure they knew about each other, but, given what I know about Guzzardi, I'd guess they had no choice but to accept things the way they were.'
'Did you know them?'
'Who? The women, or the Guzzardis?'
'Any of them?'
‘I knew the wife better. She was a cousin of my godmother's son.' Brunetti wasn't at all sure just how close a link that would have constituted in Lele's family, but the ease and familiarity with which the painter identified the relationship suggested it was no indifferent bond.
'What was she like?' Brunetti asked.
'Why do you want to know all of this?' Lele asked, making no attempt to disguise the fact that Brunetti's curiosity had aroused his own.
'Guzzardi's name has come up in relation to something I'm working on.'
'Can you tell me what?'
'It doesn't matter,' Brunetti answered.
'All right,' Lele said, accepting this. The wife put up with it, as I said. After all, they were difficult times and he was a powerful man.'
'And when he wasn't powerful any more?'
'You mean after the war? When they arrested him?'
‘Yes.'
'She dropped him, as fast as she could. I think I remember being told that she took up with a British officer. I can't remember now. Anyway, she left the city with her son, and with the soldier.'
'And?'
'I never heard a thing about her again, and I would have, if she'd come back.' 'And the Austrian?'
'You have to understand that I was really little more than a kid myself then. What was I when the war ended? Eighteen? Nineteen? And a lot of time has passed, so much of what I remember is a mixture between what I really saw and heard and what, over the years, I've heard people say. The older I get, the harder it is to distinguish between the two.'
Brunetti wondered if he was going to be treated to a meditation on age, but then Lele continued, 'I think I saw her first at a gallery opening. But that was before she met him.'
'What was she doing in Venice?'
'I forget exactly, but I have a vague memory that it had something to do with her father. He worked here or had an office here. Something like that, I think.'
'Do you remember anything about her?'
'She was lovely. Of course, I was more than ten years younger than she was, so I might as well have lived on the moon as far as she was concerned, but I remember that she was beautiful.'
'And was she drawn to him by his power, too, like the wife?' Brunetti asked.
'No, that was the strange thing. She really loved him. In fact I always had the impression, or else the belief was there, in the air, as it were, that she had different ideas from his but put up with his because she loved him.'
'And when he was arrested? Do you remember anything about that?'
'No, not clearly. I think she tried to buy his way out, either as a return for favours or with money. At least there was a rumour that she did.'
'But if he went to San Servolo, then she wasn't very successful, was she?'
'No, he'd made too many enemies, the bastard, so no one could help him, not in the end.'
'What had he done that was so bad?' Brunetti asked, still bemused by the ferocity of Lele's feelings and thinking of the enormities committed by so many men, most of whom had danced away from the war and from any trace of guilt.
'He stole what was most precious from a lot of people.'
Brunetti waited, hoping that Lele himself would hear just how weak this sounded. At last he asked, 'He's been dead, what, more than forty years?'
'So what? It doesn't change the fact that he was a bastard and deserved to die in a place where people ate their own shit.'
Once again taken aback by Lele's anger, Brunetti found it difficult to respond. The painter, however, spared him further awkwardness by saying. This has nothing to do with you, Guido. You can ask anything you want about him’ After a pause, he added, 'It's because he touched my family’
'I'm sorry that happened’ Brunetti said.
‘Yes, well’ Lele began but found no way to finish the sentence and so left it at that.
If you think of anything else about her, would you call me?'
'Of course. And I'll ask around, see what anyone else can remember.'
Thanks.'
It's nothing, Guido.' Briefly it seemed as if Lele were going to say something more, but he made an affectionate farewell and put down the phone.
Lunch, indeed, was something special. Perhaps it was talk of three hundred and sixty million lire that had driven Paola to excess, for she had bought an entire sea bass and baked it with fresh artichokes, lemon juice and rosemary. With it she served a platter the size of an inner tube filled with tiny roast potatoes, also lightly sprinkled with rosemary. Then, to clear the palate, a salad of rucola and radicchio. They finished with baked apples.
'It's a good thing you have to go to the university three mornings a week and can't do this to us every day’ Brunetti said as he declined a second helping of apples.
'Am I meant to take that as a compliment?' Paola asked.
Before Brunetti could answer, Chiara asked for another apple with sufficient enthusiasm to confirm that her father's remark had indeed been a compliment.
The children astonished their parents by offering to do the dishes. Paola went back to her study and Brunetti, taking with him a glass of grappa, followed her shortly after. 'We really ought to get a new sofa, don't you think?' he said, kicking off his shoes and stretching out on the endangered piece of furniture.
‘It’ I thought I'd ever find anything as comfortable as that one’ Paola said, 'I suppose I'd buy it.' She studied the sofa and her supine husband for some time then said, 'Perhaps I could just have it re-covered.'
‘Hmm’ Brunetti agreed, eyes closed, hands clasped around the stem of his glass.
'Have you found out anything?' Paola asked, not at all interested in the papers that awaited her.
'Only the money. And Rizzardi said she was a virgin.'
'In the third millennium’ Paola exclaimed, unable to hide her surprise.
