‘Yes.’
‘And was any of this on your mind when she called you at midnight and said she had to see you?’
Papetti shrugged. ‘I suppose it was. But I never thought she’d do something like that.’
‘Like what, Signor Papetti?’ Brunetti demanded.
All Papetti could do was shrug.
32
WELL, THOUGHT BRUNETTI, here we are. Two of us and two of them, and everything is clear, at least clear to anyone who wants to understand. He looked across at Torinese: the lawyer had returned to the contemplation of his hands, sufficient sign that he now had a more comprehensive idea of his client’s involvement in the story of Dottor Andrea Nava. Brunetti leaned forward and switched off both tape recorders: neither Papetti nor Torinese objected.
The silence expanded, each moment making it more difficult to break. Brunetti decided to see where it led. Vianello, he noticed, kept his head down, eyes on his notes. Torinese continued the study of his hands, while Papetti looked at his lawyer and then, it appeared, at the feet of Brunetti’s desk.
After an eternity, Papetti said, clearing his throat before he spoke, ‘Commissario, you mentioned your concern for my father-in-law.’ Did his voice grow less steady as he pronounced that title?
Brunetti met his eyes but said nothing, waiting.
‘Could you be clearer about what you mean? Specifically, that is.’
‘I mean that your father-in-law, when the information about Signorina Borelli reaches the press, might come to the hasty conclusion that there was something other than a common economic interest between the two of you.’ He gave a smile, the sort men use when it’s just men talking together, and about women. ‘She’s a very attractive young woman, and she certainly sounds available.’ That word, which would usually, in a conversation among men, sound like a promise, now fell upon Papetti’s ears like the threat it was.
Papetti cleared his throat again. ‘But I never…’ He smiled, as if he remembered that he was in a room with other guys and there was a way they had to talk to one another. ‘I mean, it’s not that I didn’t want to. You know that. As you said, she’s an attractive woman. But she’s not my type.’ No sooner had Papetti spoken, and in that manner, than Brunetti saw the shadow of his father-in-law fall across his face. Quickly, Papetti added, ‘Besides, it’s obvious that she’s more trouble than she’s worth.’
Well, Brunetti thought, Nava certainly discovered that, didn’t he? But he said, ‘My concern, Dottore, is not so much our understanding in this room,’ and he waved his hand at the other two men, neither of whom looked up, ‘as that your father-in-law should not draw the wrong conclusion.’
‘That can’t happen,’ Papetti declared, but it came out as a plea rather than a statement.
‘I certainly share your concern, Dottore,’ Brunetti said in an expression of male fellow feeling. ‘But the press, as we all know, prints what it wants and insinuates what it will.’ Then he gave in to the temptation to provoke Papetti. ‘Your father-in-law would probably be able to prevent these reports from appearing,’ Brunetti began and paused before adding, ‘though it might be better to keep even the hint of suspicion from occurring to him.’ The expression on Papetti’s face made Brunetti ashamed of what he was doing. What’s next, you put him in a cage and poke him with a stick?
Papetti shook his head and kept on shaking it as he considered the possible consequences of his father-in-law’s misunderstanding. Finally, like a man who confesses to stop the pain, he asked, ‘What do I have to do?’
If this was the taste of victory, Brunetti did not like it, but still he said, ‘In the presence of your lawyer, you confirm and sign the transcript of what you’ve just told me about the way you and Signorina Borelli paid the veterinarians at the slaughterhouse to approve as healthy animals that were not. And about how she began an affair with Dottor Andrea Nava in hopes of being able to persuade him to do the same.’ He gave Papetti a chance to acknowledge understanding or compliance, but the man remained motionless, his face blank.
‘You’ve also explained Signorina Borelli’s decision to threaten him by revealing the affair to his wife, and Dottor Nava’s response to that.’ He waited for Papetti’s nod, and at that he said, ‘I also want you to sign the transcript of what you told me about her call to you and the help you gave her in disposing of the body of Dottor Nava.’
Brunetti stopped and looked at Papetti’s lawyer, who might as well not have been in the room for all the attention he seemed to be paying to what was going on around him. ‘You will sign this account, and your lawyer will sign it as a witness.’ That, to Brunetti, seemed clear enough.
‘And if she claims we were having an affair?’ Papetti asked in a tight voice.
‘I’ve a statement that confirms what you’ve said about what was going on at the slaughterhouse, and Signorina Borelli’s lack of sexual interest in you,’ Brunetti said and saw the shock on both men’s faces.
‘Thus the newspapers could report that the police have excluded that possibility,’ Brunetti offered. ‘For we do.’
As if someone had walked over his grave, Torinese raised his head and asked, ‘Could report or will report?’
‘Will report,’ Brunetti guaranteed.
‘What else?’ Torinese asked.
‘Do I want or do I give?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Want.’
All Brunetti wanted was enough to convict Borelli of having killed Dottor Nava. The rest – the diseased meat, the corrupted veterinarians, the farmers and their contaminated earnings – he would gladly hand over to the Carabinieri, who had the NAS for such things: they could handle it better than he. And the boys in Finance could be given a chance to pick the bones of their illegal earnings.
‘I want her,’ he said.
Torinese turned to his client and asked, ‘Well?’
Papetti nodded. ‘I’ll tell them anything they want.’
Brunetti would not allow the ambiguity of this and said instantly, ‘If you lie, in your own favour, or against her, I’ll toss you to your father-in-law so fast you won’t have time to raise your hands to protect yourself.’
Vianello’s head snapped up at Brunetti’s tone, the other two at his words.
Torinese got to his feet. ‘Is that all?’ he asked. Brunetti nodded. He looked at Brunetti and, after some time, the lawyer nodded in return, a gesture Brunetti could not interpret.
‘If you’ll go downstairs with Inspector Vianello,’ Brunetti said, ‘he’ll bring you the printed statement as soon as it’s ready. When you sign it, you can both go.’
There was much shuffling of feet, then chairs scraped against the floor. But no one spoke and no one shook hands. Torinese put his tape recorder in his briefcase. The three men left the office; Brunetti walked over and closed the door, then went to his desk and called Signorina Elettra and told her he wanted Patta to have a magistrate issue an order for the arrest of Signorina Giulia Borelli.
In the afternoon, Bocchese called to say that the crime squad had spent most of the morning at the apartment on the Rio del Malpaga. There was no sign of anything suspicious in the apartment itself, which Bocchese said looked like the sort of place that would be rented to tourists by the week, but in the ground floor entranceway, which had a wooden door opening on the canal, they had found traces of blood and, on one of the steps leading down to the water, twin furrows in the algae covering it. Yes, the technician answered, the marks might have been left by the feet of a body being dragged down the steps. The furrows were being tested for traces of what might be leather; he had already retrieved Dottor Nava’s shoe from the evidence room and, if they did find traces of leather that had survived the rise and fall of repeated tides, he would check to see if the marks on the shoe and on the steps matched.
They were dredging the canal just in front of the door, and a diver was on the way to have a look farther out in the water. Anything else?
Brunetti thanked him and hung up.
Not for an instant did it occur to Brunetti that she would attempt to flee: she might want to run from the legal risk, but a woman like her would never leave her property behind. She owned three apartments, had bank accounts, probably had more money stashed somewhere else: a woman ruled by greed would not take the chance of losing all
