this particular script.
‘So far, among other sales, they’ve sold two apartments to city councillors and two to officers of the Guardia di Finanza. Always at a loss, especially the one that got sold to the colonel.
‘And,’ she continued, flipping over a page and pointing to the top line, ‘it seems they’ve also sold two apartments to a Dottor Fabrizio dal Carlo.’
‘Ah,’ Brunetti sighed. He looked up from the paper and asked, ‘Did you by any chance…?’
Her smile was a benediction. ‘It’s all there: his tax records, a list of the houses he owns, his bank accounts, his wife’s, everything.’
‘And?’ he asked, resisting the impulse to look down at the paper and wanting her to have the pleasure of telling him.
‘Only a miracle could protect him from an audit,’ she said, tapping the papers with the fingers of her left hand.
‘Yet no one’s noticed,’ Brunetti said calmly, ‘all these years: not dal Carlo and not the Volpatos.’
‘That’s not likely to happen, not while prices like these,’ she said, turning back to the front page, ‘are available to city councillors.’ After a pause, she added, ‘And to colonels.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, closing the file with a tired sigh, ‘and to colonels.’ He tucked the folder under his arm. ‘What about their phone?’
She came close to smiling. ‘They don’t have one.’
‘What?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Not that I can discover. Not in either of their names and not at the address where they live.’ Before Brunetti could ask, she supplied possible explanations. ‘Either it’s because they’re too cheap to pay a phone bill, or else they’ve got a
It was hard for Brunetti to imagine that anyone could, today, exist without a telephone, especially people who were involved in the purchase and sale of properties, the lending of money and all the contacts with lawyers, municipal offices, and notaries those things would entail. Besides, no one could be so pathologically frugal as not to have a phone.
Seeing one avenue of possible investigation eliminated, Brunetti turned his attention back to the murdered couple. ‘If you can,’ he said, ‘see what there is to find out about Gino Zecchino, would you?’
She nodded. She already knew the name.
‘We don’t know who the girl is yet,’ he began, and the possibility struck him that they might never know. He refused to give voice to this thought, however, and said only, ‘Let me know if you find anything.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, watching as he left the office.
Upstairs, he decided to add to the scope of the disinformation that was to appear in the newspapers the next morning and spent the next hour and a half on the phone, often consulting the pages of his notebook or occasionally calling a friend for the phone numbers of men and women scattered on both sides of the law. With cajolery, the promise of some future favour, and sometimes with open menace, he convinced a number of people to speak loudly and speak widely of this strange case of the killer who had been doomed to a slow and horrible death by the bite of his victim. Generally there was no hope, usually no therapy, but sometimes, just sometimes, if the bite was treated in time by an experimental technique that was being perfected in the Immunology Laboratory of the Ospedale Civile and dispensed at the Emergency Room, then there was a chance that the infection could be stopped. Otherwise, there was no escape from death, the headline would quickly be proven true, and the victim would indeed Take Vengeance With a Fatal Bite.
He had no idea if this would work, knew only that this was Venice, city of rumour, where an uncritical populace read and believed, listened and believed.
He dialled the central number for the hospital and was about to ask for the office of the Director when he thought better of it and, instead, asked to speak to Dottor Carraro in Pronto Soccorso.
The call was finally put through and Carraro all but barked his name into the receiver; a man too busy to be disturbed, the lives of his patients at risk if he lingered on the phone, kept there by whatever stupidity he was about to be asked.
‘Ah, Dottore,’ Brunetti began, ‘how nice to speak to you again.’
‘Who is this?’ asked the same rude, impulsive voice.
‘Commissario Brunetti,’ he said and waited for the name to register.
‘Ah, yes. Good afternoon, Commissario,’ the doctor said, a sea change audible.
When the doctor seemed disposed to say no more, Brunetti said, ‘Dottore, it seems I might be able to be of some help to you.’ He stopped, giving Carraro the opportunity to enquire. When he failed to, Brunetti went on, ‘It seems we’ve got to decide whether to pass the results of our investigation on to the examining magistrate. Well, that is,’ he corrected himself with an officious little laugh, ‘we’ve got to give our recommendation, whether to continue and begin a criminal investigation. For culpable negligence.’
He heard no more than Carraro’s breathing at the other end. ‘Of course, I’m persuaded that there’s no need of that. Accidents happen. The man would have died anyway. I don’t think there’s any need to cause you any trouble about this, to waste police time in investigating a situation where we’re going to find nothing.’
Still silence. ‘Are you there, Dottore?’ he asked in a hearty voice.
‘Yes, yes, I am,’ Carraro said in his new, softer voice.
‘Good. I knew you’d be happy to hear my news.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘While I have you on the line,’ Brunetti said, managing to make it clear he had not just thought of it, ‘I wonder if I could ask you a favour.’
‘Of course, Commissario.’
‘In the next day or so, a man might come into the Emergency Room with a bite on his hand or his arm. He’ll probably say it’s a dog bite, or he might try to say his girlfriend did it to him.’ Carraro remained silent. ‘Are you listening, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked, voice suddenly much louder.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. The instant this man comes in, I want you to call the Questura, Dottore. The instant,’ he repeated, and gave Carraro the number. ‘If you’re not there, I expect you to leave word for whoever takes your place that he is to do the same thing.’
‘And what are we supposed to do with him while we wait for you to get here?’ Carraro asked with a return to his normal tone.
‘You are to keep him there, Dottore, lying to him and inventing some form of treatment that will take long enough for us to get to the hospital. And you are not to allow him to leave the hospital.’
‘And if we can’t stop him?’ Carraro demanded.
Brunetti had little doubt that Carraro would obey him, but he thought it best to lie. ‘We’ve still got power to examine the hospital records, Dottore, and our investigation of the circumstances surrounding Rossi’s death isn’t over until I say so.’ He allowed steel to penetrate his voice with the last phrase, that hollow lie, paused a moment, and then said, ‘Good, then, I look forward to your cooperation.’
After that, there was nothing for the men to do except exchange pleasantries and say goodbye.
That left Brunetti at a loose end until the papers came out the next morning. But it also left him restless, something he always dreaded because the feeling spurred him to rashness. It was difficult for him to resist the urge to, as it were, put the cat among the pigeons and stir things up. He went downstairs, to Signorina Elettra’s office.
The sight of her, elbows on her desk, chin propped up on her fists, head bent over a book, led him to ask as he came in, ‘Am I interrupting anything?’ She looked up, smiling, and shook away the very idea with a sideways motion of her head.
‘Do you own your apartment, Signorina?’
Accustomed as she was to Brunetti’s sometimes odd behaviour, she displayed no curiosity and answered ‘Yes,’ leaving it to him, if he pleased, to explain the question.
He’d had time to think about it, and so he added, ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter, though.’
‘It does to me, sir, quite a bit,’ she remarked.
‘Ah, yes, I’m sure it does,’ he said, realizing the confusion that would result from his remark. ‘Signorina, if you’re not busy, I’d like you to do something for me.’
