Donna Leon - Fatal Remedies

Vianello nodded and got to his feet. He didn’t say anything further and left the office.

When he was gone, Brunetti pushed himself up and began to pace back and forth between the wardrobe and the window. Signorina Elettra was checking out the bank records of two men who had done nothing more than report a crime and suggest it be settled in a way that would give least trouble to the person who all but boasted of having committed it. They had gone to the trouble of coming to the Questura, where they had offered a compromise, which would save the culprit from the legal consequences of her behaviour. And Brunetti was going to sit idly by as their finances were investigated in a manner that was probably as illegal as was the original crime of which one of them was the victim.

He had no doubts whatsoever about the illegality of what Paola had done. He stopped walking and considered that she had never denied it was illegal. She simply didn’t care. He spent his days and his life in defence of the concept of the law, and she could spit on it as though it were some stupid convention that was in no way binding on her, just because she didn’t agree. He felt the pulse of his heart increase as his indignation mounted towards the anger that had lurked in his chest for days now. She answered a whim, following some self-constructed definition of right behaviour, and he was simply supposed to stand idly by, mouth agape at the nobility of her actions, while his career was destroyed.

Brunetti caught himself sinking into this mood and stopped himself before he began to lament the effect all this would have on his position among his peers at the Questura, the cost to his self-respect. So he was forced, here, to give himself much the same answer he had given Mitri: he was not responsible for his wife’s behaviour.

The explanation, however, did little to calm his anger. He resumed pacing, but when that proved fruitless, he went downstairs to Signorina Elettra’s office.

She smiled when he came in. ‘The Vice-Questore has gone to lunch,’ she offered but said nothing else, waiting to catch Brunetti’s mood.

‘Did they go with him?’

She nodded.

‘Signorina,’ he began, then paused as he thought how to phrase it. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary that you ask any further questions about those men.’

He saw her begin to protest, and he spoke before she could make any sort of objection. ‘There’s no suspicion that either one of them has committed a crime, and I think it would be impolitic to begin investigations about them. Especially in these circumstances.’ He left it to her imagination to supply just what those circumstances were.

She nodded. ‘I understand, sir.’

‘I didn’t ask if you understood, Signorina. I’m saying that you are not to initiate an investigation of their finances.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, turning from him and flipping on the screen of her computer.

‘Signorina,’ he repeated, his voice level. When she looked up from the screen, he said, ‘I’m serious about this, Signorina. I don’t want any questions asked about them.’

‘Then none will be asked, sir,’ she said and smiled with radiant falseness. Like a soubrette in a cheap film comedy, she put her elbows on the table, laced her fingers together and propped her chin on their linked surface. ‘Will that be all, Commissario, or do you have something you do want me to do?’

He turned away from her without answering, started towards the stairs, but instead turned and left the Questura. He walked up the embankment towards the Greek church, crossed the bridge, and went into the bar that stood facing him.

‘Buon giorno, Commissario,’ the barman greeted him. ‘Cosa desidera?’

Before knowing what to order, Brunetti looked down at his watch. He’d lost all sense of time and was surprised to see that it was almost noon. ‘Un’ombra,’ he answered and, when it came, drank the small glass of white wine without bothering to sip or taste it. It didn’t help at all, and he had sense enough to know that another would help even less. He dropped a thousand lire on the counter and went back to the Questura. He spoke to no one, merely went up to his office and got his coat, then left again and went home.

At lunch, it was clear that Paola had told the children about what had happened. Chiara looked at her mother with obvious confusion, but it seemed that Raffi looked at her with interest, perhaps even curiosity. No one brought up the subject, so the meal passed in relative calm. Ordinarily, Brunetti would have rejoiced in the fresh tagliatelle and porcini, but today he barely tasted them. Nor did he much enjoy the spezzatini and fried melanzane which followed. When they had finished, Chiara went to her piano lesson and Raffi to a friend’s to study maths.

Alone, the table still littered with plates and serving bowls, Paola and Brunetti drank their coffee, his laced with grappa, hers black and sweet. ‘You going to get a lawyer?’ he asked.

‘I spoke to my father this morning,’ she said.

‘What did he say?’

‘Do you mean before or after he yelled at me?’

Brunetti was forced to smile. ‘Yell’ was not a verb he ever would, even in his wildest flights of imagination, have associated with his father-in-law. The incongruity amused him.

‘After, I think.’

‘He told me I was a fool.’

Brunetti recalled that this had been the Count’s response to Paola’s declaration, twenty years ago, that she was going to marry him. ‘And after that?’

‘He told me to hire Senno.’

Brunetti nodded at the name of the best criminal lawyer in the city. ‘Perhaps a bit excessive.’

‘Why?’

‘Senno’s good at defending rapists and murderers, rich kids who beat up their girlfriends, those same girlfriends caught selling heroin to pay for their habit. I hardly think you’re in that class.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.’

Brunetti shrugged. Neither was he.

When Paola volunteered nothing more, he asked, ‘Are you?’

‘I won’t hire a man like him.’

Brunetti pulled the grappa bottle towards him and poured a bit more into his empty coffee cup. He swirled it around and drank it down in a single mouthful. Leaving her last remark to hang between them, he asked, ‘Who are you going to hire?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll wait to see what the charge is. Then I’ll decide.’

He thought for a moment about drinking another grappa, but realized he didn’t want it. Making no offer to help with the washing up or even with clearing the table, Brunetti stood and pushed his chair under the table. He glanced down at his watch, this time surprised to see that it was still so early, not yet two. ‘I think I’ll lie down for a while before I go back,’ he said.

She nodded, stood, and began stacking the plates one on top of the other.

He went down the corridor to their room, removed his shoes and sat on the side of the bed, aware of how tired he was. He lay back, latched his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. From the kitchen came the sound of running water, plates clicking against one another, the clang of a pan. He pulled one arm out from under his head and covered his eyes with his forearm. He thought about his schooldays, hiding in his room whenever he brought home a report card with bad marks, lying on his bed in fear of his father’s anger, his mother’s disappointment.

Memory sank its teeth into his spirit and took him away with it. At some point, at the same time that he became aware of motion beside him on the bed, he sensed pressure, then warmth across his chest. He smelled, then felt, her hair against his face, smelled that combination of soap and health that decades had seared into his memory. He lifted his arm from his eyes without bothering to open them. Moving it down across her shoulders, he brought the other arm out from under his head and latched his hands across her back.