Wilful behaviour

side, reached the riva and turned up toward the Piazza.

It's strange, sir,' Vianello began, ‘But for the last few years - and I think it's happening more and more often -I meet someone and they say things, and I come away from talking to them thinking that they're crazy. I mean really crazy.'

Brunetti, who had had much the same experience, asked only, 'What sort of things?'

Vianello paused over this for a long time, suggesting that he had perhaps never before revealed this to anyone. Well, I talk to people who say they're worried about the hole in the ozone layer and what will happen to their kids and future generations, and then they tell me that they've just bought one of those monster cars, you know, the ones like the Americans drive.' He walked on, in step with Brunetti, considered a moment, then continued. This isn't even to mention religion, with Padre Pio being cured by a statue they flew over his monastery in a plane.'

What?' Brunetti asked, having thought this was something Fellini invented for a film.

What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter which story they tell about him. He was a nut, and they want to make him a saint. Yes,' Vianello said, his ideas clarified, 'it's things like that, that people can believe all of that, that makes me wonder if the whole world isn't mad.'

'My wife maintains that she finds it easier to accept human behaviour if she thinks of us as savages with telefonini,' Brunetti said.

'Is she serious?' Vianello asked, his tone one of curiosity, not scepticism.

Thaf s always a very difficult thing to judge, with my wife,' Brunetti admitted, then, turning the conversation back to their recent visit, he asked, What did you think?'

'He recognized the name, that's for sure’ Vianello said.

Brunetti was glad to see his own intuition confirmed. 'Any ideas about the woman?'

'I was paying more attention to the old man.'

'How old do you think she is?' Brunetti asked him.

‘Fifty? Sixty? Why do you ask?'

'It might help in figuring out how she's related to him.'

'Related, as in relative?'

'Yes. He didn't treat her like a servant.'

'He told her to pull out your chair,' Vianello reminded him.

'I know; that's what I thought at first. But it's not the way people treat servants: they're politer with them than with their families.' Brunetti knew this because, for decades, he had observed the way Paola's family treated their servants, but he didn't want to explain this to Vianello.

'His name wasn't listed in her address book, was it?' Vianello asked.

'No, only the phone number.'

'Has Signorina Elettra checked the phone records to see how often the girl call him?' 'She's doing that now.'

'Be interesting to know why she called him, wouldn't it?'

'Especially as he said he didn't know her’ Brunetti agreed.

They found themselves in the Piazza, and it was only then that Brunetti realized that he had been leading Vianello away from his house. He stopped and said, I'm going to go up and take the Number One. Would you like a drink?'

'Not around here’ Vianello said, his eyes taking in the Piazza and its hosts of pigeons and tourists, one as annoying as the other. 'Next thing, you'll be suggesting we go to Harry's Bar.'

‘I don't think they let anyone in who isn't a tourist’ Brunetti said.

Vianello guffawed, as Venetians often do at the thought of going to Harry's Bar, and said he'd walk home.

Brunetti, with farther to go, walked up to the vaporetto stop and took the Number One towards San Silvestro. He used the trip to gaze inattentively at the facades of the palazzi they passed, thinking back over his visit to Filipetto. The room had been so dim that he had not observed much, but nothing he had seen there suggested wealth. Notaries were believed to be among the richest people in the country, and the Filipettos had been notaries for generations, each one succeeding to the studio and practice of the one before him, but no sign of wealth had been evident in the room or what Brunetti could see of its furnishings.

The old man's jacket had been worn bald at the ends of the cuffs; the woman's clothing was undistinguished by any quality other than drabness. Because he had been taken directly to see Filipetto, he had not gained any idea of the total size of the apartment, but he had had a glimpse down the central corridor, and it suggested the existence of many rooms. Besides, a poor notaio was as inconceivable as a celibate priest.

At home, though Paola did not ask if there had been any progress, he could sense her curiosity, so he told her about Filipetto while she was dropping the pasta into boiling water. To the left of the pot simmered a pan of tomatoes with, as far as he could identify, black olives and capers. Before she could comment, he asked, 'Where'd you get such big capers?'

'Sara's parents were on Salina for a week, and her mother brought me back half a kilo.'

'Half a kilo of capers?' he asked, astonished, 'It'll take us years to eat them.'

They're salted, so they'll keep,' Paola responded and then said, 'You might like to ask my father about him.'

'Filipetto?'

‘Yes.'

'What does he know?' 'Ask him.'

'How long will the pasta . . .' Brunetti began, but she cut him off saying, 'Wait to call him until after dinner. It might take some time’

Because of Brunetti's eagerness to make the call, the capers, to make no mention of the pasta, went less appreciated than they might ordinarily have been. The instant he finished his barely tasted dessert, Brunetti returned to the living room and made the call.

At the mention of Filipetto, the Count surprised Brunetti by saying, 'Perhaps we could talk about this in person, Guido.'

Without hesitation, Brunetti asked, 'When?'

'I'm leaving for Berlin tomorrow morning and I won't be back until the end of the week.'

Before the Count could suggest a later date, Brunetti asked, 'Have you time now?'

'It's after nine,' the Count said, but only as an observation, not as a complaint.

'I could be there in fifteen minutes,' Brunetti insisted.

'All right. If you like,' the Count said and put down the phone.

It took Brunetti less than that, even including the time he spent explaining to Paola where he was going and then listening to her greetings and best wishes to her parents, given as though she didn't speak to them at least once a day.

The Count was in his study, wearing a dark grey suit and a sober tie. Brunetti sometimes wondered if the midwife who had delivered the heir to the Falier title had been taken aback by the emergence of a tiny baby already wearing a dark suit and tie, a thought he had never dared voice to Paola.

Brunetti accepted the grappa the Count offered him, nodded in appreciation of its quality, settled himself on one of the sofas, and asked directly, 'Filipetto?'

'What do you want to know about him?'

'His phone number was listed in the address book of the young woman who was murdered last week. I'm sure you've read about it.'

The Count nodded. 'But surely you don't suspect Notaio Filipetto of having murdered her’ he said with a small smile.

'Hardly. I doubt that he's able to leave his apartment. I spoke to him earlier this evening and told him about the number, but he denied knowing her.' When the Count made no response, Brunetti added, 'My instinct is that he did know her.'

'That's very like the Filipettos’ the Count said. They lie by impulse and inclination, all of them, the whole family, and always have.'