Donna Leon - Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

‘Yes. I’m glad you reminded me.’

He heard noises on Chiara’s end of the phone, then she said, ‘Papa, I’ve got to give you back to Mamma. You tell her, will you, to come for a walk with me? She just sits here on the terrace all day and reads. What sort of vacation is that?’ With that complaint, she was gone, replaced by Paola.

‘Guido, if you’d like me to come back, I can.’

He heard Chiara’s howl of protest at the suggestion and answered, ‘No, Paola, it’s not necessary. Really. I’ll try to get up there this weekend.’

She had heard similar promises many times before, so she didn’t ask him to swear to it. ‘Can you tell me more about it, Guido?’

‘No, Paola, I’ll tell you when I see you.’

‘Here?’

‘I hope so. If not, then I’ll call you. Look, I’ll call you either way, whether I’m coming or not. All right?’

‘All right, Guido. For God’s sake, please be careful.’

‘I will, Paola. I will. You be careful, too?’

‘Careful? Careful of what, up here in the middle of paradise?’

‘Careful you don’t finish your book, the way you did in Cortina that time.’ Both laughed at the memory. She had taken The Golden Bowl with her but finished it in the first week, leaving her with nothing to read and, consequently, nothing to do for the second week except walk in the mountains, swim, loaf in the sun, and chat with her husband. She had loathed every minute of it.

‘Oh, that’s all right. I’m already eager to finish it so that I can begin it all over again immediately.’ For a moment, Brunetti pondered the possibility that his failure to be promoted to vice-questore might be accountable to the fact that it was common knowledge he was married to a madwoman. No, probably not.

With mutual abjurations towards caution, they took their leave of one another.

He called down to Signorina Elettra, but she was not at her desk, and her phone rang unanswered. He dialled Vianello’s extension and asked him to come up to his office. After a few minutes, the sergeant came in, looking much as he had two mornings ago, when he walked away from Brunetti in front of the Questura.

‘Buon di , Dottore,’ he said as he took his usual place in the chair facing Brunetti’s desk.

‘Good morning, Vianello.’ To avoid a return to their discussion of the other morning, Brunetti asked, ‘How many men have we got free today?’

Vianello gave this a moment’s thought, then answered, ‘Four, if we count Riverre and Alvise.’

Nor did Brunetti want to discuss them, so he said, passing Vianello the first list from the file on the Lega, ‘This is a list of names of people who rent apartments from the Lega della Moralità. I’d like you to select the addresses here in Venice and divide it up among the four of them.’

Vianello, glancing down the names and addresses on the list, asked, ‘What for, sir?’

‘I want to find out who they pay their rent to, and how.’ Vianello gave him a glance replete with curiosity, and Brunetti explained what Canale had told him about paying the rent in cash and about his friends who did the same. ‘I’d like to know how many of the people on this list pay their rent in the same way and how much they pay. More importantly, I want to know if any of them know the person or persons to whom they actually give the money.’

‘So that’s it?’ Vianello asked, understanding at once. He paged through the list. ‘How many are there, sir? Far more than a hundred, I’d say.’

‘One hundred and sixty-two.’

Vianello whistled. ‘And you say this Canale’s paying a million and a half a month?’

‘Yes.’

Brunetti watched Vianello repeat the same calculation he had made when he first saw the list. ‘Even if it’s only a third of them, it would be well over half a billion a year, wouldn’t it?’ Vianello asked, shaking his head, and again Brunetti couldn’t tell if his response was astonishment or admiration for the enormity of the thing.

‘Do you recognize any of the names on the list?’ Brunetti asked.

‘One of them sounds like the man who owns the bar on the corner near my mother’s house: same name, but I’m not sure if it’s the right address.’

‘If it is, then perhaps you could talk to him casually.’

‘Not wearing my uniform, you mean?’ Vianello asked with a smile that seemed more like his old self.

‘Or send Nadia,’ Brunetti joked, but as soon as he said it, he realized this might not be a bad idea. The appearance of uniformed policemen to question people who were, in some degree, in illegal possession of apartments was sure to affect any answers they gave. Brunetti was certain that all of the accounts would be in order, sure that proof would exist that the rents had been paid into the proper bank account each month, and he had no doubt that proper receipts would exist. If Italy was nothing else, it was a place where documented evidence always existed, and that in abundance; what was often illusory was the reality it was meant to reflect.

Vianello saw it as quickly as he did, and said, ‘I think there might be a more casual way to do this.’

‘Asking neighbours, you mean?’

‘Yes, sir. I think people would be reluctant to tell us if they were involved in anything like this. It could mean they’d lose their apartments, and anyone would lie to avoid that.’ Vianello, he had no doubt, would lie to save his apartment. After sober reflection, Brunetti realized he would, too, as any Venetian would.

‘Then I suppose it’s better to ask around in the neighbourhoods. Send women officers to do it, Vianello.’

Vianello’s smile was one of pure delight.

‘And take this. It should be easier to check,’ Brunetti said, pulling the second list from the file and handing it to him. ‘These are people who are receiving monthly payments from the Lega. See if you can find out how many of them live at the addresses listed for them, and then see if you can find out if they’re among what used to be called the deserving poor.’

‘If I were a betting man,’ Vianello, who was, said, ‘I’d bet ten thousand lire that most of them don’t live at the addresses given here.’ He paused a moment, flipped at the list with the tips of his fingers, and added, ‘And I’d make another one that many of them are neither deserving nor poor.’

‘No bet, Vianello.’

‘I didn’t think there would be. What about Santomauro?’

‘According to everything Signorina Elettra could find, he’s clean.’

‘No one’s clean,’ Vianello shot back.

‘Careful, then.’

‘That’s better.’

‘There’s something else. Gallo spoke to the manufacturer of the shoes that were found with Mascari, and he gave him a list of the stores in the area where the shoes were sold. I’d like you to get someone going round the stores on the list and see if they can find anyone who remembers selling them. They’re size forty-one, so it’s possible that whoever sold them might remember who they sold them to.’

‘What about the dress?’ Vianello asked.

Brunetti had received the report two days ago, and the results were just as he had feared. ‘It’s one of those cheap things you can buy at the open-air markets anywhere. Red, some sort of cheap synthetic material. Couldn’t have cost more than forty thousand lire. The tag’s been ripped out of it, but Gallo’s trying to trace it back to the manufacturer.’

‘Any chance of that?’

Brunetti shrugged. ‘There’s a much better chance with the shoes. At least we know the manufacturer and the stores where they were sold.’

Vianello nodded. ‘Anything else, sir?’

‘Yes. Call the Finance Police and tell them we’re going to need one of their best people, more than that if they’ll let us have them, to take a look at whatever papers we get from the Banca di Verona and from the Lega.’