Donna Leon - The Girl of his Dreams

He thought she might remark that this was a rather vague category, but all she did was ask, 'What are the parents' full names?'

'Giorgio Fornari and Orsola Vivarini.' 'Oh my, oh my,' she said when she heard the second name.

'Do you know her?' Brunetti asked.

'No, I don't. But I'd certainly like to meet the woman who got stuck with a name like Orsola but still named her daughter Ludovica.'

'My mother had a friend named Italia,' he said. 'And lots of Benitos, a Vittoria, even an Addis Ababa.'

'Different times,' she said. 'Or a different idea, to give a child a name that's really more a boast than a name.'

'Yes,' he said, thinking of the people with names like Tiffany and Denis and Sharon he'd arrested. 'My wife once said that if an American soap opera had a main character named Pig Shit, we'd have to prepare ourselves for an entire generation of them.'

'I think the Brazilians are more popular, sir,' she said.

'Excuse me?'

"The soap operas.'

'Of course,' he said and found he had nothing further to say.

'I'll see what I can find out about them,' she said. 'And I'll call this Dottoressa Pitteri.'

"Thank you, Signorina,' he said.

Brunetti knew he could run some sort of computer check on the name Giorgio Fornari, but the part of his memory in which the name was lodged was the same part where gossip and rumour found their home; so he knew that what he was looking for was the sort of information that was not to be found in newspapers or magazines or government reports. He tried to reconstruct the situation in which he had first heard Fornari's name. Something to do with money, and something to do with the Guardia di Finanza, for it was when reading a reference to the tax police in the paper some days ago that Fornari's name had sounded in the back of his memory.

A former classmate of his was now a captain in the Guardia di Finanza, and Brunetti still recalled with delight the afternoon – it must be three years ago – they had spent together in the laguna. The patrol boat, with what looked like action film turbines on both sides, had astonished Brunetti, accustomed as he was to the boats of the police and Carabinieri. He had spent the afternoon redefining the term, 'high speed', as the pilot took them through the Canale di San Nicolo and then straight ahead, as if he would not stop until they saw the islands off the coast of Croatia. Brunetti's friend had justified the trip as what he called 'liaison with other forces of order', but in the end, with the full complicity of the pilot, it had turned into a schoolboy outing – complete with hoots of glee and much back-slapping – and would not have stopped had the radio not received a call, asking their location.

Ignoring the call, the pilot had swooped the boat around and shot back towards the city, passing fishing boats as though they were tiny islands and then deliberately slamming and bumping across the wake of one of the cruise ships that was heading towards the city.

Struck by memory, Brunetti spoke the words aloud, 'The cruise ships.' Still looking at the wall, he allowed the story to trickle back into his memory. Giorgio Fornari was also a friend of Brunetti's captain friend and had once called to tell him about something he had heard from the owner of a shop on Via XXII Marzo who found himself caught in the middle of yet another inventive method of growing rich off the city.

It seemed, according to what Fornari had been told, that the passengers of these cruise ships were routinely warned that Venice was a city where it was not safe to shop or eat. Since most of the passengers were Americans, who knew themselves to be safe only when at home in front of their own television sets, they believed this and were relieved when the boat provided them with a list of 'safe' shops and restaurants where they were sure not to be cheated. Not only were the places guaranteed not to cheat them – and here the Captain had not been able to keep himself from laughing as he told Brunetti -but these same establishments would provide a 10 per cent discount to ship's passengers: all they had to do was provide their passenger identification and ask.

With mounting glee, the Captain had gone on to explain that, always eager to cause more joy, the staff of the ships offered some sort of lottery to the passengers returning to the ships: if they submitted the receipts of their purchases or for their lunch, the number of chances they got in the lottery would be calculated in relation to how much they had spent.

'Everyone happy, everyone content with their discounts,' Brunetti remembered the Captain saying with a wolfish smile. And the next day members of the ship's crew made the rounds of the 'safe' shops and restaurants and collected their 10 per cent, a small enough consideration for the businesses to see that their names appeared on the safe list. If the shops tried to understate what the passengers had spent, why, did they not have the receipts that proved a higher total sum? Safe, indeed.

And Giorgio Fornari had asked the Captain if there were any way this could be stopped. The Captain, in the spirit of true friendship, had warned Fornari to keep his mouth shut and had told him to warn the owners of the shop to do the same. Brunetti recalled what the Captain had said, ‘I think he was offended because he thought it was wrong. Imagine that’

Brunetti knew this incident could hardly be used as a portrait of Fornari, but perhaps it could serve as a snapshot. Caught in a particular situation, he had reacted as an honest man. His friend had told him about Fornari's indignation that the city could be used like this by people – the owners of the ships being foreigners – who were neither Venetians nor Italians. It was then that the Captain had had to remind Fornari that a scam such as this could not continue, perhaps could not even be organized, without the tacit consent, perhaps even the involvement, of 'certain interests' in the city.

But by then they were pulling up to the dock at the end of the Giudecca, the boys' outing at an end, and the story of Giorgio Fornari's indignation at dishonesty had been filed in Brunetti's memory.

'Imagine that,' he said aloud.

Brunetti was distracted from further contemplation of this marvel by a call from Signorina Eletrra, who began by saying, 'I've found a number of things about that Mutti person.'

Her pronunciation of the name was as good as a shriek. 'Found what?' he enquired.

'As I told you, sir, he's never been a member of any religious order.'

'Yes, I remember’ Brunetti said, then added, for her tone demanded he do so, 'But?'

'But Padre Antonin was right when he mentioned Umbria. Mutti was there for two years, in Assisi. He wore a Franciscan habit then.'

In response to her careful phrasing, Brunetti asked, 'What was he doing?'

'Running a sort of wellness retreat centre.'

'Wellness retreat centre?' Brunetti repeated, feeling himself taking yet another step forward into the time in which he was living.

'A place where wealthy people could go for a weekend of… well, of purification.'

'Physical?' he asked, thinking of Abano, where she had so recently been, though not forgetting the mention of the Franciscan habit.

'And spiritual.'

'Ah,' Brunetti allowed himself to say, then, 'And?'

'And both the health authorities and the Guardia di Finanza were obliged to step in and close it down.'

'And Mutti?' Brunetti enquired, omitting the clerical title.

'He knew nothing about the finances of the place, of course. He was there as a spiritual consultant.' 'And the financial records?' 'There were none.' 'What happened?'

'He was convicted of fraud, given a fine, and released.' 'And?'

'And apparently he transferred himself to Venice’ 'Indeed’ Brunetti said and then, deciding, 'I'd like you to call the Guardia di Finanza. Ask for Capitano Zeccardi.