Drawing Conclusions

He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know. This way, the flower seller did not pay taxes on the sale, and someone gave Signorina Elettra a receipt for some private purchase, and the Questura paid for the flowers, magically transformed into colour cartridges. Before he got on to the boat and also made improper use of it, Brunetti decided to stop counting crimes.

Foa appeared from the left and took the flowers from Signorina Elettra. Sure enough, on the other side of the market, a police launch was moored to the riva, motor running, another uniformed officer at the wheel. Foa handed the flowers to his colleague, jumped down into the boat and helped Signorina Elettra take her place, then reached up and accepted the flowers from Brunetti, leaving him to step into the boat himself.

Brunetti held open the door of the cabin, then joined her inside. When they were seated and the boat was heading under the Rialto, he said, ‘Signorina, do you know anything about an organization called Alba Libera?’

Her eyes widened in dawning understanding. ‘Of course, of course. I just didn’t think of them.’

He nodded in response and said, ‘She was a member; well, at least a supporter. And from what her neighbour said, she had women stay with her.’

‘That explains the underwear,’ she said.

Brunetti allowed time to pass before he asked, ‘Do you know anything about them?’

She gave him a level look, then let her eyes drift off to the buildings they were passing. Finally she looked back at him and said, ‘A bit.’

‘Might I ask you what that bit is?’

‘Just as you said, Signore, they provide safe places for women to stay.’

‘Women at risk?’ he asked.

‘Any woman who contacts them and is in need.’

‘Is that all she has to say?’

‘I’m sure they ask for proof.’

‘What would that be?’ he enquired in a level voice.

‘Police reports,’ she said. A long pause, and then, ‘Or hospital reports.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘You sound familiar with them.’ He tried to speak in a judicious, neutral tone.

She smiled. ‘I give them money every year,’ she said. ‘But because I work where I do, I’ve never offered to have one stay with me, and I’m not involved in any way.’

Brunetti nodded and said, ‘That’s probably wise.’ Then he asked, ‘But you know the people who are?’

‘Yes,’ she said, sounding not at all eager to say so.

‘Could you…’ he began, not sure how to phrase his request. ‘Could you introduce me to them?’

‘And vouch for you?’ she asked with a smile.

‘Something like that.’

‘Now?’

‘When we get to the Questura,’ he said. Then he asked, ‘Do they know where you work?’

‘No,’ she said, waving the question away with her hand. ‘Just that I work for the city.’

‘Better that way,’ Brunetti said.

‘Yes.’

14

When they got to the Questura, Foa and his companion seemed happy to help Signorina Elettra with the flowers, so Brunetti went directly to his office. There were some reports and papers on his desk, most of them bureaucratic, and he spent some time looking through them.

The only thing that caught his interest was a request for information about a Romanian woman, one of whose names Brunetti recognized. They had arrested her at least a dozen times, each time under a different pseudonym, with a different place and date of birth. She had, it seemed, now turned up in Ferrara, where she had been arrested in the train station while trying to steal the purse of an off-duty policewoman. She refused to give any information other than her name, but in her pocket there was a receipt for a coffee from a bar in Castello, so the police in Ferrara had thought to contact them, sending the name she was using, photo, and fingerprints.

He called down to the archive, giving the alias she had used in Ferrara and the name he thought was on her file. When he heard the names, the archivist laughed and said, ‘And I thought we were rid of her.’

‘We are, but I’m afraid Ferrara is not,’ Brunetti said. ‘Could you send them a copy of the file?’

‘And so now she’ll get a letter from them, telling her to leave the country within forty-eight hours?’ Tomasini asked. Then, after a moment’s reflection, he said in a completely serious voice, ‘I think what we should do is declare ourselves an art cooperative and ask to be allowed to exhibit at the Biennale. All they have to do is give us the Italian pavilion.’

‘Who’s “us”?’

‘Everyone here, but me especially because I’ve got all the documents and the copies of the letters.’

‘What would you do with them?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Paper the walls of the entire pavilion. Not in any order; not chronological or alphabetical or according to crime. We’d just mix up a few thousand of them and paste them on the walls, all those letters telling the same people, time after time, that they have forty-eight hours to leave the country because of the crime they’ve committed. And we call it something like, “Italia Oggi.”’

All joking fled from the archivist’s voice as he asked, ‘It’s the right title, isn’t it? This is Italy today.’ When Brunetti did not answer, the younger man repeated, ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Fabio,’ Brunetti said in a level voice, ‘send the file to Ferrara, all right?’

‘Si, Dottore,’ he answered and replaced his phone.

The ecologists never tired of saying that the city was going to be under water in a number of years: though the number of years changed, no one questioned the prediction. When, Brunetti wondered, would the entire country be under papers? The walls in the rooms at the back of the ground floor were already lined with metal racks filled with files that reached from the floor to ten centimetres short of the ceiling. The acqua alta of three years ago had destroyed the first two shelves, long before they had been put into the computerized system, and so that part of the record of criminal behaviour had effectively been destroyed. Maybe Tomasini was on to something: surely the walls of a Biennale exhibit could be no less evanescent than the files downstairs.

His phone rang. ‘I’ve spoken to them, Commissario,’ Signorina Elettra said. ‘Shall I come up and tell you?’

‘Yes. Please.’

She arrived preceded by flowers. ‘I’m afraid I went a bit overboard this morning, Dottore,’ she said as she came in. ‘So I’d like to leave some here, if you don’t mind.’ They were tall things that looked like daisies, white and yellow, and they brought some cheer into the room. She set the vase on his desk, stood back and studied them, and then moved the vase over to the windowsill. Satisfied, she came back and sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

‘I got the telefonino number of the woman who runs it,’ she said, placing a piece of paper on his desk. ‘Maddalena Orsoni. She’s very bright.’

‘Bright enough to what?’ Brunetti asked.

‘To wonder why the police are interested in Signora Altavilla. And her death.’

‘If I say it’s only routine?’

‘She won’t believe you,’ Signorina Elettra said quickly. ‘She’s been dealing with the authorities for years, and with the social services, and with the men these women are hiding from. So she can spot a liar at ten metres, and she isn’t likely to believe you.’

‘And if I’m not lying about her death?’

‘Commissario, even I suspect you’re lying.’

Brunetti thought about trying to bluster but abandoned the idea. He waited for her to continue.

‘Remember, Signore, the only habitual liar I have to deal with is Lieutenant Scarpa, so I’ve really not developed the skill. Maddalena has,’ she said. Once again, with her embedded comment on the Lieutenant, she