At the Questura, he almost bumped into Signorina Elettra
emerging from the front door. 'Are you going somewhere?' he asked.
She glanced at her watch. 'Do you need something, sir?' she asked,
not really an answer, though he didn't notice.
'Yes, I'd like you to make a phone call for me.'
She stepped back inside the door and asked, To whom?'
The San Martino Academy.'
With no attempt to disguise the curiosity in her voice, she asked, 'And
what would you like me to tell them?' She started to walk back towards
the stairs that led to her office.
'I want to know if it's obligatory for the boys to sleep in the
dormitory or if they're allowed to spend the night at home if their
parents live in the city. I'd like to get an idea of just how
inflexible the rules are there. Perhaps you could say you're a parent
and want to know something about the Academy. You can say your son is
just finishing school and has always wanted to be a soldier, and as
you're Venetian, you'd like him to have the opportunity to attend the
San Martino because of its high reputation.'
'And is my voice to be filled with pride and patriotism as I ask these
questions?'
'Choking with them he said.
She could not have done it better. Though Signorina Elettra spoke an
Italian as elegant and pure as any he had heard, as well as a very
old-fashioned Venetian dialect, she managed to mingle the two perfectly
on the phone and succeeded in sounding exactly like what she said she
was: the Venetian wife of a Roman banker who had just been sent north
to head the Venice branch of a bank she carelessly avoided naming.
After making the secretary at the Academy wait while she found a pen
and pencil and then apologizing for not having them next to the phone
the way her husband insisted she do, Signorina Elettra asked for
particulars of the date of the beginning of the next school term, their
policy on late admission, and where to have letters of recommendation
and
academic records sent. When the school secretary offered to provide
details about school fees and the cost of uniforms, the banker's wife
dismissed the very idea, insisting that their accountant dealt with
things like that.
Listening to the conversation on the speaker phone, Brunetti was amazed
at the way Signorina Elettra threw herself into the role, could all but
see her returning home that evening after a hard day's shopping to
check if the cook had found real basilica genovese for the pesto. Just
as the secretary said she hoped that young Filiberto and his parents
would find the school satisfactory, Signorina Elettra gasped, 'Ah, yes,
one last question. It will be all right if he sleeps at home at night,
won't it?'
'I beg your pardon, Signora/ the secretary said. The boys are expected
to live here at the school. It's included in the fees. Where else
would your son live?'
'Here with us in the palazzo, of course. You can't expect him to live
with those other boys, can you? He's only sixteen.' Had the secretary
asked her to give her life-blood, the banker's wife could have sounded
no less horrified. 'Of course we'll pay the full fees, but it's
unthinkable that a child that young should be taken from his mother.'
'Ah,' the secretary answered upon hearing the first part of Signorina
Elettra's last sentence, managing not to register the second, 'in a few
cases, with the approval of the Comandante some exceptions can perhaps
be made, though the boys have to be at their first class at eight.'
That's why we have the launch was Signorina Elettra's opening shot in
her last volley, which drew to a close with her promise to send the
signed papers and the necessary deposit off by the end of the week,
followed by a polite goodbye.
Brunetti found himself filled with unwonted sympathy for Vice-Questore
Patta: the man simply didn't have a chance. 'Filiberto?' he asked.
'It was his father's choice Signorina Elettra replied. 'And yours?
Eustasio?' 'No, Eriprando.'
The information that exceptions to the school rules could be made at
the discretion of the Comandante did not tell Brunetti anything he had
not already suspected: where the children of the wealthy and powerful
congregated, rules were often bent to follow the whim of their parents.
What he did not know was the extent of the Comandante's subservience.
Nor, he had to admit, did he have a clear idea of how this might be
related to Ernesto's death.
Deciding not to speculate further, Brunetti dialled Signora Moro's
phone again, and again the phone rang on unanswered. Spurred by some
impulse he registered but did not question, he decided to pass by her
apartment and see if any of her neighbours could give him an idea of
where she was.
