Donna Leon - Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

‘Will someone tell my mother?’ Malfatti asked.

‘I’ll see that someone calls her.’

Malfatti shrugged his acknowledgement, moved himself lower on the pillow, and closed his eyes.

Brunetti left the cell and went up two flights of stairs to Signorina Elettra’s alcove. Today she was dressed in a shade of red seldom seen beyond the confines of the Vatican, but Brunetti found it strident and out of tune with his mood. She smiled, and his mood lightened a bit.

‘Is he in?’ Brunetti asked.

He got here about an hour ago, but he’s on the phone and he told me not to interrupt him, not for anything.’

Brunetti preferred it this way, didn’t want to be with Patta when he read Malfatti’s confession. He placed a copy of the confession on her desk and said, ‘Would you give him this as soon as he’s finished with the call?’

‘Malfatti?’ she asked, looking at it with open curiosity.

‘Yes.’

‘Where will you be?’

When she asked that, Brunetti suddenly realized that he was completely displaced, had no idea what time it was. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was five, but the hour meant nothing to him. He didn’t feel hungry, only thirsty and miserably tired. He began to consider how Patta was likely to respond; that increased his thirst.

‘I’ll go and get something to drink and then I’ll be in my office.’

He turned and left; he didn’t care if she read the confession or not, found that he didn’t care about anything except his thirst and the heat and the faint grainy texture of his skin, where salt had been evaporating all day. He raised the back of his hand to his mouth and licked it, almost glad to taste the bitterness.

An hour later, he went into Patta’s office in response to his summons, and at the desk Brunetti found the old Patta: he looked like he had shed five years and gained five kilos overnight.

‘Have a seat, Brunetti,’ Patta said. Patta picked up the confession and tapped the six pages on his desk, aligning them neatly.

‘I’ve just read this,’ Patta said. He glanced across at Brunetti and laid the papers flat on his desk. ‘I believe him.’

Brunetti concentrated on demonstrating no emotion. Patta’s wife was somehow involved with the Lega. Santomauro was a figure of some political importance in a city where Patta hoped to rise to power. Brunetti realized that justice and the law were not going to play any part in whatever conversation he was about to have with Patta. He said nothing.

‘But I doubt that anyone else will,’ Patta added, beginning to lead Brunetti towards illumination. When it became clear that Brunetti was going to say nothing, Patta continued, ‘I’ve had a number of phone calls this afternoon.’

It was too cheap a shot to ask if one of them had been from Santomauro, and so Brunetti did not ask.

‘Not only did Avvocato Santomauro call me, but I also had long conversations with two members of the city council, both of whom are friends and political associates of the Avvocato.’ Patta pushed himself back in his chair and crossed his legs. Brunetti could see the tip of one gleaming shoe and a narrow expanse of thin blue sock. He looked up at Patta’s face. ‘As I said, no one is going to believe this man.’

‘Even if he is telling the truth?’ Brunetti finally asked.

‘Especially if he’s telling the truth. No one in this city is going to believe that Santomauro is capable of what this man accuses him of doing.’

‘You seem to have no trouble believing it, Vice-Questore.’

‘I am hardly to be considered an objective witness when it comes to Signor Santomauro,’ Patta said, dropping in front of Brunetti, as casually as he had placed the papers on his desk, the first bit of self-knowledge he had ever demonstrated.

‘What did Santomauro tell you?’ Brunetti asked, though he had already worked out what that would have to be.

‘I’m sure you’ve realized what he would say,’ Patta said, again surprising Brunetti. ‘That this is merely an attempt on Malfatti’s part to divide the blame and minimize his responsibility in all of this. That a close examination of the records at the bank will surely show that it was all Ravanello’s doing. That there is no evidence whatsoever that he, Santomauro, was involved in any of this, not the double rents and not the death of Mascari.’

‘Did he say anything about the other deaths?’

‘Crespo?’

‘Yes, and Maria Nardi.’

‘No, not a word. And there’s nothing that links him to Ravanello’s bank.’

‘We have a woman who saw Malfatti running down the stairs at Ravanello’s.’

‘I see,’ Patta said, uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. He placed his right hand on Malfatti’s confession. ‘It’s worthless,’ he finally said, just as Brunetti knew he would.

‘He can try to use it at his trial, but I doubt that the judges would believe him. He’d be better off presenting himself as Ravanello’s ignorant tool.’ Yes, that was probably true. The judge didn’t exist who could see Malfatti as the person behind this. And the judge who would see Santomauro as having any part in this couldn’t even be imagined.

‘Does that mean you’re going to do nothing about that?’ Brunetti asked, nodding his chin at the papers that lay on Patta’s desk.

‘Not unless you can think of something to do,’ Patta said, and Brunetti listened in vain for sarcasm in his voice.

‘No, I can’t,’ Brunetti said.

‘We can’t touch him,’ Patta said. ‘I know the man. He’s too cautious ever to have been seen by any of the people involved in this.’

‘Not even the boys in Via Cappuccina?’

Patta’s mouth tightened in distaste. ‘His involvement with those creatures is entirely circumstantial. No judge would listen to evidence presented about that. However distasteful his behaviour is, it’s his private business.’

Brunetti began considering possibilities: if enough of the prostitutes, those who rented apartments from the Lega, could be found to testify that Santomauro had used their services; if he could find the man who was in Crespo’s apartment when he went to see him; if evidence could be found that Santomauro had interviewed any of the people who were paying the double rent.

Patta cut all this short. ‘There’s no proof, Brunetti. Everything rests on the word of a confessed murderer.’ Patta tapped the papers. ‘He talks about these murders as though he were going out to get a pack of cigarettes. No one is going to believe him when he accuses Santomauro, no one.’

Brunetti suddenly felt himself swept by exhaustion. His eyes watered, and he had to fight to keep them open. He brought one hand to his right eye and made as if to remove a speck of dust, closed them for a few seconds, and then rubbed them both with one hand. When he opened them again, he saw that Patta was looking at him strangely. ‘I think you ought to go home, Brunetti. There’s nothing more to be done about this.’

Brunetti pushed himself to his feet, nodded to Patta, and left the office. From there, he went directly home, bypassing his own office. Inside the apartment, he pulled the phone jack from the wall, took a long hot shower, ate a kilo of peaches, and went to bed.

Brunetti slept twelve hours, a deep and dreamless sleep that left him refreshed and alert when he woke. The sheets were sodden, though he had not been aware of sweating through the night. In the kitchen, as he filled the coffee pot, he noticed that three of the peaches he had left in the bowl the night before were covered with soft green fuzz. He tossed them into the garbage under the sink, washed his hands, and put the coffee on to the stove.

Whenever he found his mind turning to Santomauro or to Malfatti’s confession, he pulled away and thought, instead, of the approaching weekend, vowing to go up to the mountains to join Paola. He wondered why she hadn’t called last night, and with that thought struck a resonant chord of self-pity: he sweltered in this fetid heat while she romped in the hills like that moron in The Sound of Music. But then he remembered disconnecting the phone and was jabbed by shame. He missed her. He missed them all. He’d go up Saturday. Friday night, if there was a late train.