Donna Leon - Friends in High Places

Brunetti made a little noise, one that could be interpreted as a sigh of mingled understanding and agreement.

‘On the other hand,’ Righetto continued, ‘there’s his partner.’

‘Gavini,’ Brunetti supplied unnecessarily.

‘Yes, Gavini,’ Righetto said with a dismissive laugh. ‘He’s well known in the area, has the reputation as quite a ladies’ man. Unfortunately, he has the habit of getting himself involved with married women.’

‘Ah,’ Brunetti said with a worldly sigh which he managed to infuse with the appropriate level of manly tolerance. ‘So that was it?’ he asked with bland acceptance.

‘It would seem so. In the last few years, he’s been involved with four different women, all of them married.’

Brunetti said, ‘Poor devil.’ He waited long enough to allow himself to consider the comic implications of what he’d just said and then added with a quick laugh, ‘Maybe he should have limited himself to only one of them.’

‘Yes, but how’s a man to decide?’ the magistrate shot back, and Brunetti rewarded his wit with another hearty laugh.

‘Do you have any idea which one it was?’ Brunetti asked, interested in how Righetto would handle the question, which in its turn would suggest how he was going to handle the investigation.

Righetto allowed himself a pause, no doubt he wanted it to seem like a thoughtful pause, and then said, ‘No. We’ve questioned the women, and their husbands, but all of them can prove they were somewhere else when it happened.’

‘I thought the papers said it was a professional hit,’ Brunetti said, sounding confused.

The temperature of Righetto’s voice dropped. ‘If you’re a policeman, you should know better than to believe what you read in the papers.’

‘Of course,’ Brunetti said, making himself laugh genially, as at a well-earned reproach from a colleague with greater experience and wisdom. ‘You think maybe there was still another woman?’

‘That’s the trail we’re following,’ Righetto said.

‘It happened at their offices, didn’t it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes,’ Righetto answered, willing now, after Brunetti’s hint at another woman, to give further information. ‘The two men look alike: they’re both short and have dark hair. It happened on a rainy day; the killer was on the roof of a building across the street. So there’s little question he mistook Cappelli for Gavini.’

‘But what about all this talk that Cappelli was killed because of his investigation of moneylenders?’ Brunetti asked, putting enough scepticism into his voice to make it clear to Righetto that he wouldn’t believe such nonsense for a minute but perhaps wanted to have the right answer in case someone else, more innocent than he and thus willing to believe everything he read in the papers, should ask him about it.

‘We started by examining that possibility, but there’s nothing there, just nothing. So we’ve excluded it from our investigation.’

‘Cherchez la femme,’ Brunetti said, intentionally mispronouncing the French and adding another laugh.

Righetto rewarded him with his own broad laugh and then asked, quite casually, ‘You said you had another death there. A murder?’

‘No, no, after what you’ve told me, Magistrato,’ Brunetti said, attempting to sound as dull and ploddish as he could, ‘I’m sure there’s no connection. What we’re dealing with here has got to be an accident.’

Like most Italians, Brunetti believed that records were kept of all phone calls made anywhere in the country and copies made of all faxes; like very few Italians, he had reason to know this was true. Belief or certainty, however, made little difference to behaviour: nothing of substance and nothing that could in any way be incriminating to either of the speakers or interesting to any of the agencies of government which chose to eavesdrop was ever discussed on the phone. People spoke in code where ‘money’ became ‘vases’ or ‘flowers’ and investments or bank accounts were referred to as ‘friends’ in foreign countries. Brunetti had no idea of how widespread the belief and the resultant caution were, but he knew enough when he called his friend at the Banca di Modena to suggest they meet for a coffee rather than attempt to make his request directly.

Because the bank was on the other side of Rialto, they agreed to have a drink before lunch in Campo San Luca and thus meet halfway. It was a long way for Brunetti to go just to ask a few questions, but a meeting was the only way he could get Franca to talk openly. Explaining nothing, telling no one, he left his office and walked out to the bacino and up towards San Marco.

As he walked along the Riva degli Schiavoni, he looked off to his left, expecting to see the tugboats, only to be caught up short by their absence and then by the immediate realization that they’d been gone for years but that he’d forgotten about it. How could he have forgotten something he knew so well? It was rather like not remembering his own phone number or the face of the baker. He didn’t know where the tugs had been sent, nor could he recall how many years it was since they’d disappeared, leaving the space along the riva clear for other boats, no doubt boats more useful to the tourist industry.

What wonderful Latin names they’d had, floating there red and proud and ready at an instant to chug off to help the ships up the Canale della Giudecca. The boats that sailed into the city now were probably too big for those brave little tugs to be of any help: monsters taller than the Basilica, filled with thousands of ant-like forms crowded to the railings, they sailed in and docked, hurled down their gangplanks and set free their passengers to wander into the city.

Brunetti turned his mind from this and headed up to the Piazza, then cut through it and to the right, back into the centre of the city, toward Campo San Luca. Franca was there when he arrived, talking to a man Brunetti recognized but didn’t know. As he approached, he saw them shake hands. The man turned toward Campo Manin, and Franca to look in the window of the bookstore.

‘Ciao, Franca,’ Brunetti said, coming to stand beside her. They’d been friends in high school, had for a time been more than friends, but then she had met her Mario, and Brunetti had gone off to university, where he met his Paola. She still had the same burnished blonde hair, a few shades lighter than Paola’s, and Brunetti knew enough about such things now to know that she had had assistance in maintaining that colour. But the rest was the same: the full figure she had been so awkward about twenty years ago was now graced by her maturity; she had the unwrinkled skin common to robust women, though there was no evidence of assistance there. The soft brown eyes were the same; so was the warmth in them at the sound of his voice.

‘Ciao, Guido,’ she said, and put back her head to receive his two quick kisses.

‘Let me offer you a drink,’ he said, taking her arm out of decades-old habit and leading her toward the bar.

Inside, they decided to have uno spritz and watched the barman mix the wine and mineral water and then tip in the merest suggestion of Campari before sticking a slice of lemon on the rim and sliding the glasses across the counter toward them.

‘Cin cin,’ they said together and took their first sips.

The barman placed a small dish of potato chips in front of them, but they ignored it. The press at the bar gradually drove them back until they were crushed up against the front windows, through which they could see the city passing by.

Franca knew that this was a business meeting. Had Brunetti wanted to chat about her family, he would have done it on the phone, not asked her to meet him in a bar guaranteed to be so crowded that no one could overhear what they said.