Wilful behaviour

from a pool it knew to be infested with crocodiles.

Paola did not strike, but she did float to the surface and peer at him with reptilian eyes. 'If you want to buy yourself one, Raffi, go ahead. But you pay for it.' He nodded.

Silence fell. Brunetti had been somewhere else during all of this or at least he had not been paying much attention to the scuffle, though Paola's disapproval of what she considered their children's profligacy had caught his attention. With no preparation, he asked out loud, addressing them all equally, 'Aren't you ashamed that you pay all of your attention to acquiring as much money as you can, without giving any thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?'

Surprised, Paola asked, 'Where'd all that come from?'

'Plato’ Brunetti said and began to eat his cake.

The rest of the meal passed in silence, Chiara and Raffi exchanging inquisitive looks and shrugs, Paola trying to figure out the reason for Brunetti's remark or, more accurately, to understand which particular circumstances or actions had led him to recall the quotation, which she thought she recognized from the Apology.

After lunch he disappeared into the bedroom, where he took off his shoes and lay down on the bed, staring out the window at the clouds which, he realized, were not to be blamed for looking so happy. After a time, Paola came in and sat beside him on the edge of the bed.

'You talked about retiring a while ago. Is this a relapse?'

He turned his head towards her and reached out with his left hand to take hers. 'No. I suppose it was nothing more than a sudden attack of moral tiredness.'

‘Understandable, given your job,' she agreed.

'Maybe it's because we have so much, or I'm becoming allergic to wealth, but I just can't understand how people can do some of the things they do in order to get money.'

'Like kill, do you mean?'

'No, not only that. Even lesser things, like lie and steal and spend their lives doing things they don't like doing. Or, if you'll let me say this, how some women can stay married to horrible men simply because they have money.'

She sensed the deadly earnestness in his voice and so resisted the impulse to joke and ask if he were talking about her. Instead, she asked, ‘Do you like what you do?'

He pulled her hand closer and idly began to turn her wedding band around and around on her finger. ‘I think I must. I know I complain about it a lot, but, in the end, it does do some good.'

'Is that why you do it?'

'No, not entirely. I think part of it is that I'm nosy by nature, and I always want to know how the story will end or how or why it got started. I want to know why people do things.'

It will never make any sense to me, that you don't like Henry James,' she said seriously.

24

It wasn't until a week later that anything other than the routine shuffling of papers occurred in the investigation of the deaths of the two women, and then it came via that most Venetian of methods: the exchange of information resulting from friendship and a sense of mutual obligation. A functionary of the Office of the Registry of Public Documents, recalling that Signorina Elettra, who was the sister of his wife's doctor, had once displayed an interest in Claudia Leonardo and Hedwig Jacobs, called her one morning to tell her that the will of the second woman had been registered in their office two days previously.

Signorina Elettra asked him if it would be possible for him to fax her a copy of the will, and at his response, that it would be 'highly irregular but equally possible', she laughed and thanked him, thus providing him with the unspoken assurance that a certain latitude might be extended to him were he ever to come to the attention of the police. She broke the connection and immediately called Brunetti, suggesting he come down to her office.

He had no idea why she wanted to speak to him, and when he entered her office he heard the noise of the fax machine. Saying nothing, she stood and walked over to the fax, and as a sheet of paper stuck its tongue out, she made a deep bow and waved one hand toward the emerging paper, inviting Brunetti to look. Curious, he bent over it, starting to read even as the machine was giving birth.

I, Hedwig Jacobs, Austrian citizen but resident in Venice, Santa Croce 3456, declare that I have no living relatives who can make a claim on my estate’

He read the first sentence, glanced across to Signorina Elettra, who watched him, her self-satisfaction evident only in a small grin. The paper jolted forward and he bent over it again.

‘I desire, therefore, that all of my possessions, in the event of my death, be given to Claudia Leonardo, also resident in this city, granddaughter of Luca Guzzardi. If for any reason this bequest does not pass to her, I will that it pass irrevocably to her heirs. I further declare that six Tiepolo drawings in my possession, so marked on the back of the frames, be given to the Director of the Biblioteca della Patria in memory of Luca Guzzardi and to be used as he decides in pursuit of the goals of the Biblioteca’

It was signed and dated about ten days before Claudia Leonardo's death. Seeing only whiteness under her signature, he looked back at Signorina Elettra, but then the machine pushed out another few centimetres of paper, and as he watched there emerged the name and signature of the notary with whom the will had' been registered. 'Massimo Sanpaolo.' The signatures of the two witnesses were illegible.

Brunetti took the paper from the machine and handed it to Signorina Elettra. She read it through and, like him, looked up in surprise at the name of the notary. 'Oh, my’ she said in English, then switched to Italian and added, 'What a coincidence.'

'Of all things,' said Brunetti. The Filipetto family seems to be turning up everywhere.'

Even before he could suggest it, she volunteered, moving back to her desk, 'Shall we have a look?'

No family could have been easier to trace through the archives of the various offices and institutions of the city. Gianpaolo, whom Brunetti had come to think of as his Filipetto, was the only son of a notary, and had himself produced only one son, who had died of cancer. One of his daughters had married into the Sanpaolo family, another famous family of notaries, and it was their son, Massimo, who had taken over the Filipetto studio upon the death of his uncle. Massimo was married, already the father of two sons, whom Brunetti had no doubt were already, at six and seven, being schooled in the arcana of notary lore, raised to become transmitters of the family wealth and position. The younger daughter had married a foreigner, but not until she was well into her forties, so there were no children.

The studio of Notaio Sanpaolo was on a small calle near the Teatro Goldoni. Brunetti preferred to show up unannounced, which he did about twenty minutes later. He gave his name to one of the two secretaries in the outer office but was told that the Notary had just begun un rogito, the transfer of title of a house. Brunetti knew that there was likely to be a pause very shortly as buyer and seller exchanged the money paid for the house. The Notary would excuse himself, saying he was going to check on some technicality, and in his absence the buyers would hand over to the sellers the real price of the house, always about twice the declared, and therefore taxed, price. As payment was in cash and as hundreds of millions of lire had usually to be counted, a notary could always depend on a long break before going back to witness the signing of the papers. More importantly, because he was the officer of the state who served as legal witness to this proceeding, his absence from his office during the counting allowed him honestly to say that he had seen no exchange of cash.

As Brunetti had anticipated, Sanpaolo came out of his office about ten minutes later, recognized Brunetti, pretended that he did not, and went over to talk to one of the secretaries. She pointed him back towards Brunetti, saying that this gentleman wanted to speak to him.

Sanpaolo was a tall man with a broad frame, heavily bearded and in need of a haircut. He had probably been