very handsome in his youth, but good living had thickened his features and his body and so he looked more like an athlete run to fat than he did a notary. Brunetti thought that the younger man would probably be a bad liar: men with children often were, though Brunetti didn't know why this was so. Perhaps giving hostages to fortune made men nervous.
‘Yes?' he asked as he came toward Brunetti, his hands at his sides, making no attempt at civility.
'I've come about the will of Signora Hedwig Jacobs’ Brunetti said, keeping his voice level and not bothering to identify himself.
'What about it?' Sanpaolo asked, not asking Brunetti to repeat the name.
'I'd like to know how it came into your possession.'
'My possession?' Sanpaolo demanded with singular lack of grace.
'How it is that you came to prepare it for her and submit it for probate’ Brunetti clarified.
'Signora Jacobs was a client of mine, and I prepared the will for her and witnessed her signature and the signatures of the two witnesses.'
'And who are they?'
'What right do you have to ask these questions?' Sanpaolo's nervousness was turning into anger and he began to bluster. This was more than enough to push Brunetti to new heights of calm dispassion.
'I'm investigating a murder, and Signora Jacobs's will is of importance in that investigation.'
How can that be?'
‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that, sir, but I assure you that I have every right to inquire about her will.'
We'll see about that,' Sanpaolo said and wheeled away, heading back to the counter. He said something to one of the women and went through a door that stood to the left of the one to his office. The woman opened a large black address book, checked a number, and then dialled the phone. She listened for a moment, said a few words, pushed a button on the phone, then set it back in the receiver. At no time in any of this did either secretary glance in Brunetti's direction. Very casually, looking as bored and impatient as he could, Brunetti glanced at his watch and made a note of the time: it would make it that much easier when he asked Signorina Elettra to check Sanpaolo's outgoing phone calls.
A few minutes later the door to Sanpaolo's office opened slowly and a man stuck his head out, saying that the Notary could come back into his office now. The secretary who had made the call said the Notary had just received a call from South America and would be with him in a minute. The man went back into the office and closed the door.
Minutes passed, then a few more. The man in the office opened the door again and asked what was going on; the secretary asked if she could bring them something to drink. Saying nothing to her offer, the man went back into the office and closed the door, this time loudly.
Finally, after more than ten minutes, Sanpaolo came out of the second office, looking less tall than when he went inside. The secretary said something, but he waved at her with the back of his hand, as at a bothersome insect.
He approached Brunetti. ‘I went to her home on the day the will was signed. I took the will and my two secretaries with me, and they witnessed her signature.' He spoke loud enough for the women to hear him, and both of them, looking first at Sanpaolo and then at Brunetti, nodded.
'And how was it that you were asked to go to her home?' Brunetti asked.
'She called and asked me’ Sanpaolo said, his face flushing as he answered.
'Had you worked for Signora Jacobs before?' Brunetti asked, and at that moment the door to Sanpaolo's office opened again, and this time a different man put his head out.
'Well?' he demanded of Sanpaolo.
Two minutes, Carlo’ Sanpaolo said with a broad smile that didn't reach his eyes. This time the door slammed.
Sanpaolo turned back to Brunetti, who calmly repeated the question, quite as if there had been no interruption, 'Had you worked for Signora Jacobs before?'
The answer was a long time in coming. Brunetti watched the Notary consider the possibility of falsifying notes or entries in an appointment book, then abandon the idea. 'No.'
Then how was it that she selected you of all of the notaries in the city, Dottor Sanpaolo?'
‘I don't know.'
'Could it have been that someone recommended you?' 'Perhaps.'
‘Your grandfather?'
Sanpaolo's eyes closed. 'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps or yes, Dottore?' Brunetti demanded.
‘Yes.'
Brunetti fought down the contempt he felt for Sanpaolo for so easily having given in. Nothing, he realized, could be more perverse than to wish for better opponents. This was not a game, some sort of male competition for territory, but an attempt to find out who had driven that knife into Claudia Leonardo's chest and left her to bleed to death.
‘You said you took the will with you.'
Sanpaolo nodded.
'Whose words are used in it?'
‘I don't understand what you mean’ he said and Brunetti believed him, suspected the man was so terrified of the consequence of his original evasions that he could no longer accurately process what he heard.
'Who gave you the words to use in the will?'
Again, he watched Sanpaolo chase through the maze of consequences, should he lie. The Notary slid a sideways glance at the two women, both of them now conspicuously busy at their computers, and Brunetti watched him weigh how much he could trust them to cover him should he lie and what they'd have to do in order to do so. And Brunetti watched him abandon the idea.
'My grandfather.'
'How?'
‘He called me the day before and told me when she'd be expecting me, and then he dictated it to Cinzia on the phone, and she prepared a copy. Thaf s what I took when I went to see her’
‘Did you know anything about this before your grandfather called you?' 'No.'
'Did she sign it of her free will?' Brunetti asked.
Sanpaolo was indignant that his original behaviour could have suggested to Brunetti that he would violate the rules of his profession. 'Of course’ he insisted. He turned and indicated the two women, both of them still busy with heads bowed over their computers. ‘You can ask them.'
Brunetti did, surprising them both and surprising Sanpaolo, perhaps because his word had never been so obviously called into question. 'Is that true, ladies?' Brunetti called across the room.
They looked up from their keyboards, one of them pretending to be shocked.
‘Yes, sir’
‘Yes, sir.'
Brunetti turned his attention back to Sanpaolo. 'Did your grandfather give you any explanation of this?'
Sanpaolo shook his head. 'No, he just called and dictated the will and told me to take it to her the next day, have it witnessed, and enter it in my register.'
'No explanation at all?'
Again Sanpaolo shook his head.
'Didn't you ask for one?'
This time Sanpaolo couldn't disguise his surprise. 'No one questions my grandfather,' he said, as though this were catechism class and he called upon to recite one of the Commandments. The childlike simplicity of his next words turned any remaining contempt Brunetti might have had for him into pity. 'We're not allowed to question Nonno.'
Brunetti left him then and started back to the Questura, leaving it to his feet to navigate for him as he mused on Filipetto's guile and legendary rapacity. He would hardly risk having his grandson name himself as heir in a will he prepared, but why the Biblioteca della Patria? As he approached San Marco, he found his thoughts flailing about for the point where the lines converged. Too many of the lines crossed: Claudia and Signora Jacobs; Filipetto and
