Wilful behaviour

Signora Jacobs; the politics that Claudia loathed and her grandfather loved. And then there was the line that was hacked off with a knife.

Standing in front of the guards at the offices of the Justice of Peace, Brunetti pulled out his telefonino and dialled Signorina Elettra's direct number. When she answered, he said, 'I'm interested in anything you can find about Filipetto, professional or personal, and about La Biblioteca della Patria.'

'Officially?'

'Yes, but also what people say.' 'When will you be here, sir?' Twenty minutes at the most.'

‘I’ll make some calls now, sir’ she said and broke the connection.

He didn't hasten his steps but strolled along the bacino, taking the opportunity offered by a day cast in silver to look across to San Giorgio, then turned completely around and looked at the cupolas of the churches that lined the water on the other side of the canal. The Madonna had once saved the city from plague, and now there was a church. The Americans had saved the country from the Germans, and now there was McDonald's.

When he got to the Questura, Brunetti went directly to her office. 'Any luck?' he asked when he went in.

'Yes. I called around a little.' He was curious to discover what this might mean.

'And?'

'A couple of years ago, his younger daughter married a foreigner who was working here in the city’ she said, holding up a page from her notepad. 'She has a considerable fortune from her mother, and she used it to create a job for him, a very well-paid job. He's much younger than she and is said not to allow his marriage vows to interfere with his personal life. In fact, someone told me that they were asked to leave a restaurant a few months ago.'

Though he wasn't particularly interested in any of this, Brunetti still asked, 'Why?'

'The person who told me about it said that the Filipetto woman didn't like the way her husband was looking at a girl at the next table. Apparently she became quite abusive.'

'To her husband?' Brunetti asked, surprised that Eleonora Filipetto would be capable of any emotion at all.

'No, to the girl.'

'What happened?'

The owners had to ask them to leave.' 'But what about Filipetto, and the Biblioteca?' he asked, suddenly irritated at her very Venetian interest in gossip.

He heard her sigh. ‘It might be more useful if you pursued the last subject, sir,' she said. What subject?' 'Her husband.'

Suddenly angry with games, he snapped, 'I don't care about gossip. I want to know about Filipetto.'

She made no attempt to disguise how much his response offended her. Instead of answering, she handed him the sheet of paper. ‘You might be interested in this, sir,' she said with painful courtesy and turned to her computer.

He stepped forward, took the paper, but before he looked at it he said, 'I'm sorry, Elettra. I shouldn't speak to you like that.'

Her smile mingled relief and childlike eagerness. 'Look at her name,' she said, pointing to the paper.

He did. 'Gesu Bambino,' he exclaimed, though that was not the name written on the paper. 'She married Maxwell Ford.' He said it aloud and listened to the racket in his mind as various pieces began to slide, then fall, then thunder into place.

What was he doing when they got married?' 'He was a stringer for one of the English papers. The Biblioteca was set up soon after they married.' With the father's approval?'

'Dottor Filipetto is not known to be an approving sort of man, and this removed from his home the woman who had taken care of him since his wife died twenty-five years ago.'

'But she's still there.'

'Only two afternoons a week, when the usual woman is out.'

Why doesn't he get someone else to come in on those days?'

‘I’ve no idea, sir, but the Filipettos have never been known for spending money easily. And this way, he can keep an eye on her and see she doesn't slip entirely out from his control.'

‘What does she do the rest of the time?' 'She works in the Biblioteca’

It suddenly occurred to Brunetti and he asked, 'How do you know all this?'

‘I asked around,' she said evasively,

‘Who?'

'My Aunt Ippolita, for one. The woman who works for Filipetto goes in to iron for her two afternoons every week.'

'And who else?' Brunetti asked, familiar with her delaying tactics.

‘Your father-in-law,' she said neutrally.

Brunetti stared at her. ‘You asked him?'

'Well, I know he's a patient of my sister's, and I know he knows I work here, and my father once told me that they had been together in the Resistance. So I took the liberty of calling him and explaining what you'd asked me to do.' She paused to allow him time, perhaps to snap at her again, but when he made no comment she went on, 'He seemed very happy to tell me what he knew. I don't think he has any great affection for the Filipettos.'

'What sort of things did he tell you?'

'She was engaged about twenty years ago, the daughter, but the man changed his mind or left Venice. The Count wasn't sure, but he thought the father had something to do with it, perhaps paid him to leave or to leave her alone.'

'I thought you said they don't like to spend money.'

'This was probably a special case because it interfered with his power and his convenience. If she'd married he would have had to hire a servant, and some of them have been known to talk back to their employers, you know, and insist on being paid.'

'But why would she finally disobey him?' he asked, thinking of Sanpaolo's abject submissiveness.

‘L-ove, Commissario. Love.' She said this in a tone that suggested she might be speaking not only about Eleonora Filipetto.

Brunetti chose not to inquire further about this and said, ^‘He told me his wife is the other director of the Library’

'Which is where Claudia worked,' she said, leaving both the sentence and the thought open to speculation.

Those phone calls,' he said. 'Let me look at them again.'

She busied herself over her computer and less than a minute later the list of all of Claudia's calls was there. Responding to Brunetti's unspoken request, she pressed a few keys and the information about all of the calls other than those between Claudia Leonardo and La Biblioteca della Patria disappeared. Together they read it, the early short calls, then the longer and longer ones, and then the thunderbolt of that final call, twenty-two seconds long.

'You think she's capable of it?' Signorina Elettra asked.

‘I think I'll go and ask her husband if she is,' Brunetti said.

25

Signorina Elettra printed out a copy of the phone details, and when he had them he went downstairs and asked Vianello to come with him. On the way to the Biblioteca, Brunetti explained about Eleonora Filipetto's marriage and about the timing and duration of the phone calls, and then the conclusions he had drawn from them.

There could be some other explanation, I suppose,' Vianello asked.

'Of course,' Brunetti conceded, not believing it, either.

'And you say Filipetto's daughter is one of the directors of this Biblioteca?' Vianello asked.

That's what her husband said, yes. Why?'