Wilful behaviour

awakened at the name Guzzardi.

When she was gone, Brunetti pulled the pile of papers that remained on his desk towards him, scribbled his initials on each of them without bothering to read a word, and moved them to his left, whence they would continue to meander through the offices of the Questura. It bothered him not at all to dismiss them thus; he thought it might be an intelligent policy to adopt from now on, or perhaps he could make a deal with one of the other commissari to trade off weeks reading them. He contemplated for a moment the possibility of making the same deal with all of the colleagues he trusted, to diminish this stupid waste of time, but was brought up short by how few names he could put on any such list: Vianello, Signorina Elettra, Pucetti, and one of the new commissari, Sara Marino.

The fact that Marino was Sicilian had at first made Brunetti wary of her, and then the revelation that her father, a judge, had been murdered by the Mafia had made him fear she might be a zealot. But then he had seen her honesty and enthusiasm for work; moreover, Patta and Lieutenant Scarpa both disapproved of her and so Brunetti had come to trust her. Aside from those four - and Sara's name was there only because his gut impulse told him she was an honourable person - there was no one else at the Questura in whom he could place blind trust. Rather than put his security in the hands of colleagues, all sworn to protect and uphold the law, how much sooner would he trust his life, career and fortunes to someone like Marco Erizzo, a man he had just advised to commit a crime.

He decided not to waste any more time sitting and making stupid lists. Instead he would go and talk to his father-in-law, another man he had come to trust, though it was a trust that never failed to make him uneasy. He sometimes thought of Count Orazio Falier as Orazio the Oracle, for he was certain that the myriad connections the Count had spent a lifetime forming could lead to the answer to any question Brunetti might ask about the people or workings of the city. In the past, the Count had passed on to Brunetti intimate secrets about the great and good, information which more often than not called into question both of those adjectives. The one thing he had never revealed, however, was a source, though Brunetti had come to believe implicitly in whatever the Count told him.

He called the Count in his office and asked if he could have a word with him. Explaining that he had an appointment for lunch and was leaving the city immediately afterwards, the Count suggested that Brunetti come over to Campo San Barnaba right then, where they could talk undisturbed about whatever it was Brunetti wanted to know. When he set the phone down, Brunetti realized that the Count's intuition made him nervous. He had assumed that Brunetti would have no other reason to ask to see him than to extract information, though he had mentioned it so casually as to make it impossible for Brunetti to take legitimate offence.

Brunetti left a note on his door, saying he had gone to question someone and would be back after lunch. The day had grown darker and colder, so he decided to take the vaporetto rather than walk. The Number One from San Zaccaria was jammed with an immense tourist group surrounded by a rampart of luggage, no doubt headed for the train station or Piazzale Roma and the airport. He stepped on board and made for the doors of the cabin, only to find his way blocked by an enormous backpack suspended from the shoulders of an even more enormous woman. It seemed to him that in the last few years American tourists had doubled in size. They had always been big, but big in the way the Scandinavians were big: tall and muscular. But now they were lumpish and soft as well as big, agglomerations of sausage-like limbs that left him with the sensation that his hand would come away slick if he touched them.

He knew it was impossible for human physiology to change at less than glacial speed, but he suspected that some shocking transformation had nevertheless taken place in what was required to sustain human life: these people seemed incapable of survival without frequent infusions of water or carbonated drinks, for they all clutched at their litre-and-a-half-bottles as though they alone offered the possibility of continued life.

A recidivist, he opened his Gazzettino and turned his attention to the second section, dedicating himself to its many delights until the vaporetto pulled up at the Ca' Rezzonico stop.

At the end of the long calk, he turned right in front of the church, then down into an ever narrower calle until he found himself at the immense portone of Palazzo Falier. He rang the bell and stepped to the right, placing himself in front of the speaker to announce himself, but the door was opened almost instantly by Luciana, the oldest of the servants who staffed the palazzo and who had, by virtue of devotion and the passage of time, become an ancillary member of the family.

'Ah, Dottor Guido’ she said, smiling and putting her hand on his arm to lead him through the doorway. Her instinctive gesture expressed happiness to see him, concern for his well-being, and something close to love. 'Paola? The children?'

Brunetti recalled that it was only a few years ago, when both children already towered over this tiny woman, that she had stopped referring to them as 'the babies'.

'Everyone's fine, Luciana. And we're all waiting for this .year's honey.' Luciana's son had a dairy farm up near Bolzano, and every year, for Christmas, she gave the family four one-kilo bottles of the different kinds of honey he produced.

'Is it all gone?' she asked, voice quick with worry. 'Would you like some more?'

He pictured her, if he said yes, catching the first train to Bolzano the next morning. 'No, Luciana, we still have the acacia. We haven't opened it yet. And there's still half of the castagno, so we should make it until Christmas. So long as we keep it hidden from Chiara.'

She smiled, long familiar with Chiara's wolfish appetite. Unpersuaded by his answer, she said, 'If you run out, let me know, and Giovanni can send some down. It's no trouble.'

With another pat on his arm, she said, ‘Il Signor Conte is in his office.' Brunetti nodded, and Luciana turned back toward the steps that led up to the first floor and the kitchen, where she reigned supreme; no one could recall a time when she had not done so.

The door to the Count's office was open when Brunetti arrived, so he entered with only a perfunctory tap on the jamb. The Count looked up and greeted him with a smile so warm Brunetti began to wonder if there was some information the Count wanted in exchange for whatever he could supply.

Brunetti had no idea how old the Count was, nor was it easy to gauge it from the man's appearance. Though his close-cropped hair was white, in combination with his sun-darkened skin, it gave an impression of vibrant, active contrast and removed any suggestion that the colour of his hair was an indication of age. Brunetti had once asked Paola how old her father was, and she had answered only that he'd have to find that out by having a look at the Count's passport; she'd gone on gleefully to explain that he had four of them, from four different countries, all with different dates and places of birth.

The piercing blue eyes and the beaked nose would, Brunetti was certain, appear on all of them; Paola had never said whether the names on the passports were all the same, and he had never had the courage to ask.

The Count crossed the room to meet his son-in-law with a firm handshake and a smile. 'How nice of you to come. Have a seat and something to drink. Coffee? Un'ombra?’

'No, thank you,' Brunetti said, taking a seat. 'I know you've got an appointment, so I'll just ask you what I've come for and try to be quick about it.'

Without looking at his watch, the Count said, 'I've got half an hour, so there's plenty of time for a drink.'

'No, really,' Brunetti insisted. 'Maybe after we've talked, if there's time.'

The Count went back around his desk and sat. 'Who is it?' he asked, showing his familiarity with Brunetti.

'An Italian named Luca Guzzardi who was convicted after the war, though I don't know for what crimes, and who, instead of going to prison, was sent to San Servolo, where he died.' Brunetti chose to say nothing about Claudia Leonardo nor to explain the reason for his questions. In any case, the Count usually didn't care why Brunetti wanted to know something; the fact that Brunetti was married to his daughter was sufficient reason to offer him any help he could.

The Count's face remained impassive as Brunetti spoke. When he stopped, the Count pursed his lips and tilted his head to one side, as if listening to a sound from one of the palazzi on the other side of the Grand Canal. When he looked back at Brunetti, he said, 'Ah, life really is long’

Brunetti knew that, like his daughter, the Count would not resist the temptation to elucidate. After a moment, he did so. ‘Luca Guzzardi was the son of a business associate of my father. He called himself an artist’ Seeing Brunetti's confusion, he explained, The son, not the father’