Donna Leon - Fatal Remedies

‘Ah, yes, gladly.’ Dorandi paused for a moment while he thought where to begin. ‘I’ve known him for years, since I first came here to work.’

‘When was that exactly?’ Brunetti asked.

Vianello took a pad from his pocket, opened it on his lap, and began to take notes.

Dorandi turned his chin to the side and stared at the poster on the far wall, looking for the answer in Rio. He turned back to Brunetti and said, ‘It will be exactly six years in January.’

‘And what position did you have when you came?’ Brunetti inquired.

‘The same as I have now: manager.’

‘But aren’t you also the owner?’

Dorandi smiled as he answered, ‘In everything but name, I am. I own the business, but Dottor Mitri still holds the licence.’

‘What exactly does that mean?’

Again, Dorandi consulted the helpful city on the far wall. When he’d found the answer, he turned back to Brunetti. ‘It means that I decide who gets hired and fired, on what advertizing to use, what special offers to make, and I also get to keep the major portion of the earnings.’

‘What portion?’

‘Seventy-five per cent.’

‘And the rest went to Dottor Mitri?’

‘Yes. As well as rent.’

‘Which was?’

‘The rent?’ Dorandi asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Three million lire a month.’

‘And the profits?’

‘Why is it you need to know this?’ Dorandi asked in the same level voice.

‘At this point, Signore, I’ve no idea what I need to know and what not. I am simply trying to accumulate as much information about Dottor Mitri and his affairs as I can.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘To better understand why he was killed.’

Dorandi’s answer was instant. ‘I thought that was made very clear by the note you found.’

Brunetti raised a hand as if in concession to this idea. ‘I think it’s important that we learn as much as we can about him, just the same.’

‘There was a note, wasn’t there?’ Dorandi demanded.

‘Where did you hear that, Signor Dorandi?’

‘It was in the papers, in two of them.’

Brunetti nodded. ‘Yes, there was a note.’

‘Did it say what the papers say it did?’

Brunetti, who had seen the papers, nodded.

‘But that’s absurd.’ Dorandi said, voice raised, as if it were Brunetti who had written the words. ‘There’s no child pornography here. We don’t cater for pederasts. The whole thing’s ridiculous.’

‘Have you any idea why someone might have written that, Signore?’

‘Probably because of that madwoman,’ Dorandi said, making no attempt to disguise his disgust and rage.

‘Which madwoman is that?’ Brunetti asked.

Dorandi paused a long time before he answered this, studying Brunetti’s face carefully, looking for the trick in the question. Finally he said, ‘That woman who threw the stone. She began all this. If she hadn’t started with her insane accusations – all lies, all lies – then nothing would have happened.’

‘Are they lies, Signor Dorandi?’

‘How dare you ask that?’ Dorandi bent towards Brunetti, voice raised. ‘Of course they’re lies. We have nothing to do here with child pornography or with pederasts.’

‘That was the note, Signor Dorandi.’

‘What difference does it make?’

‘They are two different accusations, Signore. I’m trying to understand why the person who wrote the note might have believed that the agency was involved in pederasty and child pornography.’

‘And I’ve told you why,’ Dorandi said on a note of rising exasperation. ‘Because of that woman. She went to all the papers, libelling me, libelling the agency, saying we arranged sex-tours…’

‘But nothing about pederasty or child pornography?’ Brunetti interrupted.

‘What’s the difference to a madwoman? Everything’s the same to them, anything that has to do with sex.’

‘Then do the tours the agency arranged have something to do with sex?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Dorandi shouted. Then, hearing how loud his voice was, he closed his eyes for a moment, unfolded and carefully refolded his hands, and said in an entirely normal voice, ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘I must have got it wrong.’ Brunetti shrugged, then asked, ‘But why would this madwoman, as you call her, say those things? Why would anyone, indeed, say those things?’

‘Misunderstanding.’ Dorandi’s smile was back. ‘You know how it is with people: they see what they want to see, make things mean what they want them to mean.’

‘Specifically?’ Brunetti asked with a pleasant expression.

‘Specifically I mean what this woman has done. She sees our posters for tours to exotic places – Thailand, Cuba, Sri Lanka – then she reads some hysterical article in some feminist magazine that claims there is child prostitution in those places and that travel agencies arrange tours there, sex-tours, and she puts the two things together in some crazy way, and comes here at night and destroys my window.’

‘Doesn’t that seem an excessive response? Without proof, I mean.’ Brunetti’s voice was all sweet reason.

Dorandi answered with more than a touch of sarcasm, ‘That’s why they’re called crazy people: because they do crazy things. Of course it’s an excessive reaction. And utterly without cause.’

Brunetti allowed a long pause to spread out between them, and then said, ‘In the Gazzettino you were quoted as saying that just as many women go to Bangkok as do men. That is, that most of the men who buy tickets to Bangkok take women along with them.’

Dorandi looked down at his joined hands, but didn’t answer. Brunetti reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out the sheets of paper Signorina Elettra had given him. ‘Would you be willing to be a bit more precise about that, Signor Dorandi?’ Brunetti asked, looking down at the papers.

‘About what?’

‘The number of men who took women with them when they went to Bangkok. Say in the last year.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Brunetti didn’t waste a smile on him. ‘Signor Dorandi, I’ll remind you that this is a murder investigation, which means that we have the right to request, or demand, if we are forced to do so, certain information from the people involved.’

‘What do you mean, “involved”?’ Dorandi spluttered.

‘That should be clear to you,’ Brunetti answered in a level voice. ‘This is a travel agency, which sells a certain number of tickets and arranges tours to what you call “exotic” locations. An accusation has been made that these are for the purposes of sex-tourism, which I hardly need remind you is now illegal in this country. A man, the owner of this agency, has been murdered and a note left suggesting that these tours might be the motive for that crime. You yourself seem to believe that there is a connection. So it would appear that the agency is involved and so are you as its manager.’ Brunetti paused for a moment, before asking, ‘Have I made myself clear?’

‘Yes.’ Dorandi’s voice was sullen.

‘Then would you mind telling me how accurate your statement – or, if I might speak more plainly – how true your statement was that most of the men who went to Bangkok took women along with them?’

‘Of course it’s true,’ Dorandi insisted, shifting to the left side of his chair, one hand still on the desk in front of him.

‘Not according to your ticket sales, Signor Dorandi.’

‘My what?’

‘The sales of plane tickets made by your agency, all of which, I’m sure you must know, are kept in a centralized computer system.’ Brunetti saw this register and went on, ‘Most of the tickets to Bangkok that your agency sold, during the last six months at least, were to men travelling alone.’