Donna Leon - Fatal Remedies

‘Of course, sir.’

He waved a hand in her direction and went back upstairs.

He called Rizzardi immediately and found the pathologist in his office at the hospital. ‘You had time yet?’ Brunetti asked as soon as he’d identified himself to the other man.

‘No, I’ll start in about an hour. I’ve got a suicide first. Young girl, only sixteen. Her boyfriend left her, so she took all her mother’s sleeping pills.’

Brunetti remembered that Rizzardi had married late and had teenaged children. Two daughters, he thought. ‘Poor girl,’ Brunetti said.

‘Yes.’ Rizzardi allowed a pause to establish itself, then went on, ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt. It could have been a thin wire, probably plastic-covered.’

‘Like electrical cord?’

‘That’s the most likely. I’ll know once I take a closer look. It might even have been that double wire they use to hook up stereo speakers. There were faint traces of a second impression, parallel to the other, but it might just be that the killer loosened it for a moment to get a better grip. I’ll know more once I take a look under the microscope.’

‘Man or woman?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Either, I’d say. That is, either could have done it. If you come from behind with a cord, they don’t have a chance; your strength doesn’t matter. But it’s usually men who strangle: I don’t think women are sure they’re strong enough.’

‘Thank God for that at least,’ Brunetti said.

‘And it looks like there might be something under the nails of his left hand.’

‘Something?’

‘If we’re lucky, skin. Or material from what the killer was wearing. I’ll know after I have a closer look.’

‘Would that be enough to identify someone?’

‘If you find the someone, yes.’

Brunetti considered that, then asked, ‘Time?’

‘I won’t know until I have a look inside. But his wife saw him at seven thirty when she went out and found him a little after ten when she got back. So there’s little doubt and there’s nothing I could find that would make it any more certain than that.’ Rizzardi stopped for a moment, covered the phone with his hand and spoke to someone in the room with him. ‘I’ve got to go now. They’ve got her on the table.’ Even before Brunetti could thank him, Rizzardi said, ‘I’ll send it over to you tomorrow,’ and hung up.

Though impatient to go and speak to Signora Mitri, Brunetti forced himself to stay at his desk until Signorina Elettra brought him the information about Mitri and Zambino, which she did after about five minutes.

She came in after knocking and placed two folders on his desk, saying nothing. ‘How much of this is common knowledge?’ Brunetti asked, glancing down at the files.

‘Most of it comes from the newspapers,’ she answered. ‘But some comes from their banks and from incorporation papers held by the various companies.’

Brunetti couldn’t contain himself. ‘How do you know this?’

Hearing only curiosity, not praise, in his voice she didn’t smile. ‘I have a number of friends who work in city offices and in banks. I can occasionally ask them to answer queries for me.’

‘And what do you do for them in return?’ Brunetti asked, finally voicing the question that had teased at him for years.

‘Most of the information we have here, Commissario, soon becomes common knowledge or, at least, public knowledge.’

‘That’s not an answer, Signorina.’

‘I’ve never given police information to anyone without a right to know it.’

‘Legal or moral?’ Brunetti asked.

She studied his face for a long time, then answered, ‘Legal.’

Brunetti knew that the only price high enough for certain information was other information, so he persisted, ‘Then how do you get all of this?’

She considered that for a moment. ‘I also advise my friends on more efficient methods of information retrieval.’

‘What does that mean in real language?’

‘I teach them how to snoop and where to look.’ Before Brunetti could respond, she continued, ‘But I have never, sir, never given any unauthorized information of any sort, not to my friends, not to people who are not my friends but with whom I exchange information. I’d like you to believe that.’

He nodded to show that he did, resisting the temptation to ask if she had ever explained to anyone how to get information from the police. Instead, he tapped the folders again. ‘Will there be more?’

‘Perhaps a longer client list for Zambino, but I don’t think there’s anything more to learn about Mitri.’

Of course there was, Brunetti told himself: there was the reason someone would put a wire round his throat and pull it tight until he or she choked the life out of him. ‘I’ll have a look, then,’ he said.

‘I think it’s all clear, but if you have questions, please ask me.’

‘Does anyone else know you’ve given me this?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said and left the office.

He chose the thinner file first: Zambino. From Modena originally, the lawyer had studied at Cà Foscari and begun to practise in Venice about twenty years ago. He specialized in corporate law and had built a reputation for himself in the city. Signorina Elettra had attached a list of some of his better-known clients; Brunetti recognized more than a few of them. There was no apparent pattern, and certainly Zambino did not work only for the wealthy: the list held as many waiters and salesmen as it did doctors and bankers. Though he accepted a certain number of criminal cases, his chief source of income was the corporate work Vianello had told Brunetti about. Married for twenty-five years to a teacher, he had four children, none of whom had ever been in trouble with the police. Nor, Brunetti observed, was he a wealthy man; at least whatever wealth he might have was not held in Italy.

The fatal travel agency in Campo Manin had belonged to Mitri for six years, though, ironically, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the day-to-day running of the business. A manager who rented the agency licence from him took care of all practical matters; apparently it was he who had decided to handle the tours that had provoked Paola’s action and appeared to have led to Mini’s murder. Brunetti made a note of the manager’s name and read on.

Mitri’s wife was also Venetian, two years younger than he. Though there had been only one child, she had never had a career, and Brunetti did not recognize her name as being involved in any of the charitable institutions of the city. Mitri was survived by a brother, a sister and a cousin. The brother, also a chemist, lived near Padova, the sister in Verona, and the cousin in Argentina.

There followed the numbers of three accounts in different banks in the city, a list of government bonds, and stock holdings, all for a total of more than a billion lire. And that was all. Mitri had never been accused of a crime and had never, not once in more than half a century, come to the attention of the police in any way.

Instead, Brunetti reflected, he had probably come to the attention of a person who thought – though he tried to shy away from this, Brunetti could not – as Paola did and who had, like her, decided to use violent means to express his opposition to the tours conducted by the travel agency. Brunetti knew that history was filled with examples of the wrong people dying. Kaiser Wilhelm’s good son, Friedrich, had survived his father by only a few months, leaving the path of succession open to his own son, Wilhelm II, and thus leaving the same path open to the first truly global war. And Germanicus’s death had put the succession at risk and, ultimately, had led to Nero. But those were cases where fate, or history, had intervened; there had been no figure with a wire to drag the victim down to death; there had been no deliberate selection.