Donna Leon - Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

Ignoring her question, Brunetti asked, ‘What’s wrong, Signora?’

She moved back from the banister and pointed above her. ‘Up there. I heard shouting from Signor Ravanello’s, and then I saw someone run down the steps. I was afraid to go up.’

Brunetti and Vianello swept past her, taking the stairs two at a time now, both of them with their pistols in their hands. At the top, light spilled out of the apartment on to the broad landing in front of the open door. Brunetti crouched low and moved to the other side of the door, but he moved too quickly to be able to see anything inside. He looked back at Vianello, who nodded. Together they burst into the apartment, both bent low. As soon as they were through the door, they moved to either side of the room, making of themselves two separate targets.

But Ravanello was not going to shoot at them: one glance at him was enough to show that. His body lay across a low chair that had fallen to its side in the fight that must have taken place in this room. He lay on his side, facing the door, staring with unseeing eyes, eternally removed from any curiosity about these men who had burst suddenly and without invitation into his home.

Not for an instant did Brunetti suspect that Ravanello might still be alive: the marmoreal weight of his body rendered that impossible. There was very little blood: that was the first thing Brunetti noticed. Ravanello appeared to have been stabbed twice, for there were two bold red patches on his jacket, and some blood had spilled to the floor beneath his arm, but hardly enough to suggest that its passing had taken his life with it.

‘Oh Dio ,’ he heard the old woman gasp behind him, turned and found her at the door, one fist clenched in front of her mouth, staring across at Ravanello. Brunetti moved two steps to his right and into her line of vision.

She looked up at him with chilled eyes. Could it be she was angry with him for having blocked her sight of the body?

‘What did he look like, Signora?’ he asked.

She shifted her eyes to his left, but couldn’t see around him.

‘What did he look like, Signora?’

Behind him, he heard Vianello moving around, going off into another room of the apartment, then he heard the phone being dialled and Vianello’s voice, soft and calm, reporting to the Questura what had happened, asking for the necessary people.

Brunetti walked directly towards the woman and, as he had hoped, she retreated before him out into the corridor. ‘Could you tell me exactly what you saw, Signora?’

‘A man, not very tall, running down the steps. He had a white shirt. Short sleeves.’

‘Would you know him if you saw him again, Signora?’

‘Yes.’

So would Brunetti.

Behind them, Vianello appeared from the apartment, leaving the door open. ‘They’ll be here soon.’

‘Stay here,’ Brunetti said, moving towards the stairs.

‘Santomauro?’ Vianello asked.

Brunetti waved his hand in acknowledgement and ran down the steps. Outside, he turned left and hurried up to Campo San Angelo and, beyond it, Campo San Luca and the lawyer’s office.

It was like wading through a heavy surf, pushing his way through the late-morning crowds of people who gawked in front of shop windows, paused to talk to one another, or stood in the momentary relief of a cool breeze escaping from an air-conditioned shop. Down through the narrow confines of Calle della Mandorla he raced, using his elbows and his voice, careless of the angry stares and sarcastic remarks created by his passing.

In the open space of Campo Manin, he broke into a trot, though every step brought sweat pounding out on to his body. He cut round the bank and into Campo San Luca, crowded now with people meeting for a drink before lunch.

The downstairs door that led up to Santomauro’s office was ajar; Brunetti pushed himself through it and took the steps two at a time. The door to the office was closed, the light below it gleaming out into the dim hallway. He took out his gun and pushed the door open, moving quickly to the side in a protective crouch, just as he had when entering Ravanello’s office.

The secretary screamed. Like a character in a comic book, she covered her mouth with both hands and let out a loud shriek, then pushed herself backwards and toppled from her chair.

Seconds later, the door to Santomauro’s office opened, and the lawyer came rushing from his office. In a glance, he took it all in: his secretary cowering behind her desk, butting her shoulder repeatedly against the top as she tried, vainly, to crawl under it, and Brunetti, rising to his feet and putting his gun away.

‘It’s all right, Louisa,’ Santomauro said, going to his secretary and kneeling down beside her. ‘It’s all right, it’s nothing.’

The woman was incapable of speech, beyond thought or reason. She sobbed, turned towards her employer and stretched out her hands to him. He put an arm round her shoulder and she pressed her face against his chest. She sobbed deeply and gasped for breath. Santomauro bent over her, patting her on the back and speaking softly to her. Gradually, the woman calmed and after a moment pushed herself back from him. ’ Scusi , Avvocato,’ was the first thing she said, her formality restoring full calm to the room.

Silent now, Santomauro helped her to her feet and towards a door at the back of the office. When he closed it behind her, Santomauro turned to face Brunetti. ‘Well?’ he said, voice calm but no less lethal for that.

‘Ravanello’s been killed,’ Brunetti said. ‘And I thought you’d be next. So I came here to try to stop it.’

If Santomauro was surprised at the news, he gave no sign of it. ‘Why?’ he asked. When Brunetti didn’t answer, he repeated the question, ‘Why would I be next?’

Brunetti didn’t answer him.

‘I asked you a question, Commissario. Why would I be next? Why, in fact, would I be in any danger at all?’ In the face of Brunetti’s continuing silence, Santomauro continued. ‘Do you think I’m somehow involved in all of this? Is that why you’re here, playing cowboy and Indians and terrifying my secretary?’

‘I had reason to believe he would come here,’ Brunetti finally explained.

‘Who?’ the lawyer demanded.

‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that.’

Santomauro bent down and picked up the secretary’s chair. He righted it and pushed it into place behind her desk. When he looked back at Brunetti, he said, ‘Get out. Get out of this office. I am going to make a formal complaint to the Minister of the Interior. And I am going to send a copy of it to your superior. I will not be treated as a criminal, and I will not have my secretary terrified by your Gestapo techniques.’

Brunetti had seen enough anger in his life and in his career to know that this was the real thing. Saying nothing, he left the office and went down into Campo San Luca. People pushed past him, rushing home for lunch.

Brunetti’s decision to return to the Questura was an exercise of the power of the will over that of the flesh. He was closer to home than to the Questura, and he wanted only to go there, shower, and think about things other than the inescapable consequences of what had just happened. Unsummoned, he had burst violently into the office of one of the most powerful men in the city, terrorizing his secretary and making it clear, by his explanation of his behaviour, that he assumed Santomauro’s guilty involvement with Malfatti and the manipulation of the accounts of the Lega. All of the good will he had, however spuriously, accumulated with Patta during the last weeks would be as of nothing in the face of a protest from a man of Santomauro’s stature.

And now, with Ravanello dead, all hope of a case against Santomauro had vanished, for the only person who might implicate Santomauro was Malfatti; his guilt in Ravanello’s death would render worthless any accusation he might make against Santomauro. It would come, Brunetti realized, to a choice between Malfatti’s and Santomauro’s stories; he needed neither wit nor prescience to know which was stronger.