It was reflections such as these, he realized, that made it sometimes difficult for him to listen to Paola's criticism of the police. He knew that the justification for the judicial system under which he worked was that the endless appeal process guaranteed the safety of the accused from false conviction, but as years passed and those guarantees became broader and stronger and more encompassing, Brunetti began to wonder just whose safety the law was guaranteeing.
He shook himself free of these thoughts and went downstairs in search of Vianello. The inspector was at his desk, talking on the phone. When he saw Brunetti come in, he held up an outspread palm to indicate he would be at least five minutes and then raised his index finger in the general direction of Brunetti's office to show he would come up when he was finished.
Upstairs Brunetti found his office somewhat cooler than when he had first arrived. To pass the time until Vianello came up, he pulled some papers from his in-tray and began to read through them.
It was fifteen, not five, minutes before Vianello came up. He sat and, without preamble, said, 'She was a vicious old cow, and I couldn't find anyone who cared in the slightest that she's dead.' He paused, as if hearing what he had just said, and added, 'I wonder what's on her headstone – 'Beloved wife'? 'Beloved mother'?'
‘I think the inscriptions are usually longer,' Brunetti observed. 'The carvers get paid by the letter’ Then, more to the point, he asked, 'Whom did you speak to and what else did you learn?'
'We stopped in two of the bars and had a drink. Nadia said she used to live over there. She didn't, but a cousin of hers did, and she used to visit her when they were kids, so she knew some names and could talk about a few of the stores that have gone out of business, so people believed her.
'In fact, she didn't even have to ask about the murder: people were eager to tell her. Biggest thing that's happened over there since the floods in '66.' Reading Brunetti's expression, he became less discursive. 'There was general agreement that she was greedy, troublesome and stupid, but invariably someone would remind everyone that she was a widow whose only son had died, and people would pull themselves up short and say that she really wasn't that bad. Though I suspect she was. We talked about her in the bars and then with the waitress at the restaurant, who lives around the corner from her, and there wasn't one person who had a good word to say about her. In fact, enough time has passed for there even to be a little bit of sympathy for the Romanian woman: one woman said she was surprised it took so long for one of the women to kill her.' Vianello considered this, then added, 'It's almost as if the residual sympathy she earned for the death of her son, well, a small part of it, has passed to Signora Ghiorghiu.'
'And the son? What did they say about him?' Brunetti asked.
'No one had much of anything to say. He was quiet, lived with her, went to work, minded his own business, never caused anyone any trouble. It's almost as if he didn't have a real existence and was only a means to enable people to feel sorry for her. His dying, that is.'
'And the husband?'
'The usual stuff;
'Did anyone say anything about the other women who worked for her in the past?'
'No, not much. They came and cleaned or bought her food and cooked, but the Romanian was the first one who lived there with her.' Vianello paused, then added, 'My guess is that the others didn't have papers and didn't want to become known in the neighbourhood for fear that someone would report them.'
'Did she have much contact with her neighbours? The old woman, that is’ Brunetti asked.
'Not for the last few years, especially since her son died. She could still get up and down the steps until about three years ago, when she had a fall and did something to her knee. After that, it looks like she didn't go out again. And by then any friends she'd had in the neighbourhood were gone, either died or moved away, and she'd caused so much trouble that no one wanted anything to do with her.'
'What sort of trouble?'
'Leaving bars without paying, complaining that the fruit wasn't good enough or fresh enough, buying something and using it and then trying to take it back to the store: all the things that make people refuse to serve you. I'm told there was a period when she threw her garbage out the window, but then someone called the police, and they went in and talked to her, and she stopped. But the main complaint was the television.'
'Did anyone say they'd ever met her lawyer?'
Vianello thought about this for a moment, then shook his head and said, 'No, no one ever met her, but a few people said that they'd written to her, especially about the television.'
'And?'
'No one ever received an answer.'
That didn't surprise Brunetti: until a case was brought against the old woman, the lawyer would not be legally involved in the private behaviour of her client. But her refusal to respond to these complaints seemed at odds with Awocatessa Marieschi's assertions of regard and concern for Signora Battestini. Then again, a lawyer did not write a letter and then not charge for doing it.
'And the day she was killed?'
'Nothing. One man thinks he remembers seeing the Romanian come out of the house, but he wouldn't swear to it.'
'What was he uncertain about, that it was the Romanian or that she was coming out of that house?'
‘I don't know. As soon as I showed any interest in what he was saying, he clammed up.' Throwing up his hands, Vianello admitted, ‘I know it's not a lot, but I don't think there's much else to be got by asking around.'
'That's nothing new, is it?' Brunetti asked, making no attempt to disguise his disappointment.
Vianello shrugged. 'You know what it's like. No one seems to remember much about the son; they all disliked her, and since the husband's been dead for a decade, all anyone can say is that he was
Would people say the same things about him after he died? Brunetti wondered.
'What about you?' Vianello asked.
Brunetti told him about his conversation with the lawyer, not omitting mention of the dog.
'Did you ask her about the bank accounts?' Vianello asked.
'No. She said that Signora Battestini had about five thousand Euros at the Uni Credit. I didn't want to ask about the other accounts until we know something more about them.'
As if the thought were mother to the deed, Signorina Elettra chose that moment to appear in the doorway. She wore a green skirt and a white blouse, and at her neck she had a necklace of large cylindrical amber beads. As she came towards them, the sun fell on the necklace, turning the beads a flaming red and in the process bedecking her in the colours of the flag, as if she were a walking personification of civic virtue. Coming closer, she passed out of the sunlight and turned again into herself. She held out a folder and put it on his desk.
Pointing to it, she said with appealing self-effacement, 'It turned out to be easier than I thought, sir.'
'And Deutsche Bank?' Vianello asked.
She shook her head in stern disapproval. 'It was so easy you could have done it, Ispettore,' she said by way of explanation and then added with even greater asperity, 'I think it's all this Europeanization: in the past, German banks were reliable; now it's as if they go home in the afternoon and leave the door open. I tremble at the thought of what will happen to the Swiss if they join Europe.'
Brunetti, unimpressed by her concern for the financial security of the continent, asked, 'And?'
'They were all opened the year before the husband died’ she explained, 'over a period of three days, each with an initial deposit of half a million lire. Ever since then, deposits of a hundred thousand lire were made every month into each account, except for the period right after the son died, when no deposits were made.' She smiled at their response to this and went on. 'But that was made up for when they began again after two months.' She left them to consider all this for a moment before adding, 'The last deposits – normal deposits, I suppose one could call them – were made at the beginning of July, bringing the total in the accounts, with interest, to almost thirty thousand Euros. But no deposits were made this month.'
All three of them considered the meaning of this, but it was Brunetti who gave voice to it. 'So the need for the payments died with her.'
'So it would seem’ agreed Signorina Elettra, and then added, 'But the strange thing is that the money was never touched: it sat there, just gathering interest.' She opened the file and, holding it so that both men could see
