Brunetti with endless pleasure. Thanks, Marco, but I had lunch at home’ he said. He took Marco by the arm and pulled him away from the disappointment in Maria's eyes and out of the way of a waiter who scrambled past, a loaded tray held at shoulder height. They stood just inside the door to the storeroom that held clean linens and cans of tomatoes.
'Whaf s the architect's name?' Brunetti asked.
'Why do you want to know?' Marco demanded in the same sulky tone he'd used before.
Brunetti toyed with the idea of not explaining, but then he thought he would, if only to stop Marco from using that tone. 'Because I am going to go back to the Questura and see what I can find out about him, and if he has ever been in trouble or if there is any sort of case outstanding against him, I am going to endanger my job by threatening him with the abuse of my power until he agrees not to bring charges against you.' His voice had risen as he spoke, and he realized how similar his anger towards Marco was to that he sometimes felt towards the children. 'Does that answer your question? And now give me his name.'
‘Piero Sbrissa’ Marco said. 'His studio is in San Marco.'
Thanks’ Brunetti said, slipping around Marco and back into the restaurant, from where he called back, 'I'll call you. Don't talk to anyone’ and left.
At the Questura, Vianello spent an hour on the computer and Brunetti two on the phone, and by the end of that time, each had found sufficient indication that there might be some hope of persuading Architetto Sbrissa to see the wisdom of refraining from making any formal charge against his client, Marco Erizzo. The architect, it seemed, had more than once experienced unaccountably long delays in obtaining building permits, or so three of his former clients told Brunetti. In each case, they had agreed to Sbrissa's suggestion that they use a less than legal - though more than common - method of resolving their problems, though none of the men was willing to name the sum involved. Vianello, for his part, discovered that Sbrissa reported having earned only sixteen million lire from Marco Erizzo the previous year, though Marco's secretary, when the inspector called her, said that their records contained signed receipts for more than forty.
Brunetti called a friend of his at the
Marco, when Brunetti phoned to tell him that the situation was being taken care of, at first refused to believe him. He wanted to know what Brunetti had done, and when Brunetti refused to tell him, Marco went silent, then blurted out that he had been
With some effort, Brunetti restrained himself from commenting and, instead, said only, 'You're my friend, Marco, and that's the end of it.'
'But you have to let me do something for you.'
'All right, you can,' Brunetti said immediately.
'Good. What? Anything.'
'The next time we eat at the restaurant, ask Signora Maria to give Paola the recipe for the filling she makes for the mussels.'
There was a long pause, but finally Marco said, as much in sorrow as in earnest. That's blackmail. She'd never do it.'
If s too bad Signora Maria didn't hit Sbrissa, then’
'No, you wouldn't get it, even then,' Marco said, resigned.
'She'd go to jail before she'd tell you about the mussels.' ‘I was afraid of that,' Brunetti said, assured Marco that he'd
think of some way he could pay his debt, and hung up.
Rewarding as this was at a personal level, it did little to advance Brunetti's understanding of what he had come to think of as the Leonardo, Guzzardi, Filipetto triangle. He went down to Signorina Elettra's office but found that she had left for the day: not surprising, really, as it was almost five, and she often complained of the tedium of the last two hours in the office. Just as he was turning to leave, the door to Vice-Questore Patta's office opened and the man himself emerged, his dove grey overcoat folded over one arm and a new briefcase Brunetti identified instantly as Bottega Veneta in his left hand.
'Ah, Brunetti,' Patta said at once, 'I've got a meeting with the Praetore in twenty minutes.' Brunetti, who cared nothing about whether Patta chose to come to work or not or how long he chose to remain there, thought it interesting that the man's response was always a kind of Pavlovian mendacity: he wondered if Patta planned a career in politics after retiring from the police.
'Then I won't keep you, sir,' Brunetti said and moved aside to allow his superior to pass.
'Has there been any progress on . . .' Patta began but, obviously unable to recall Claudia's surname, continued, 'the murder of that young girl?'
'I'm gathering information, sir,' Brunetti said.
Patta, with a hurried glance at his watch, gave him a distracted, 'Good, good,' said goodbye, and was gone.
Brunetti was curious as to whether Signorina Elettra had discovered anything, but he hesitated to approach her computer: if she had found anything important, she would surely have told him; and the information in her computer, given the suspicion with which she regarded some of the men who worked at the Questura, would surely be hedged round by moats and mazes more than sufficient to defeat any attempt he might make to penetrate them.
He went back upstairs to his own office and leafed through the file on Claudia's murder until he found the home phone number of her flatmate. He dialled the Milano prefix, then the number, and was soon talking to her mother, who agreed to call the girl to the phone; she warned Brunetti that her daughter was not to be upset, and said she'd be listening on the extension.
The call proved futile, however, for Lucia had no memory of hearing Claudia use Filipetto's name, nor did she remember hearing her speak of a notary. His sense of the mother's silent presence prevented Brunetti from asking the girl how she was, and when Lucia asked if there had been any progress, he could tell her nothing more than that they were investigating all possible leads and were optimistic that there would be progress soon. It distressed Brunetti to have to listen to himself coming out with such platitudes.
He was unable to set himself to anything after that, the echo of futility ringing clear in his ears, and so he left the Questura and headed back towards Rialto and. home. At Piero's cheese stand, where he should have turned left, he continued straight on and allowed himself to head deeper into Santa Croce, toward Campo San Boldo. He didn't stop until he was in front of Signora Jacobs's home and ringing her doorbell.
He had to wait a long time before her deep voice asked who it was.
'Commissario Brunetti,' he answered.
'I told you I don't want to talk to you’ she said, sounding weary rather than angry.
'But I need to talk to you, Signora.'
‘What about?'
'Notaio Filipetto’
‘Who?’ she asked after a long time.
'Notaio Filipetto’ Brunetti repeated, offering no further clarification.
The door clicked open, surprising Brunetti. He went in and quickly up to her floor, where he found her propped against the door jamb as though drunk.
Thank you, Signora’ he said, slipping his hand under her elbow and accompanying her back inside. He forced himself to pay no attention to the things in the room this time and took her slowly over to her chair, noting the lightness of her body. The instant she was seated, she reached beside her for a cigarette, but her hand was shaking so much that three of them jumped out of the packet and fell at her feet before she managed to get one lit. Just as he often wondered where all the food his children ate could possibly go, so too did he wonder, as he watched her inhale greedily, into what empty spaces in her lungs all of that smoke could possibly disappear.
He thought she would ask him something, but she remained silent until the cigarette was reduced to a tiny
