Donna Leon - About Face

When she was gone, Brunetti realized how the day, spent listening to people tell him things while he actually did very little, had tired him. He told Vianello that it was late and suggested they go home. Vianello, though he looked at his watch first, got to his feet and said it sounded like an excellent idea. When the Ispettore was gone, Brunetti decided to stop in the officers’ squad room to use the computer before he went home, just to see how much he could find on his own about Cataldo. The men were accustomed to these visits and saw to it that one of the younger officers stayed in the room while the Commissario was there. This time, however, things proved easy enough, and he soon had a number of links to newspaper and magazine articles.

Few of them told him more than had the Conte. In an old issue of Chi , he found a photo of Cataldo arm in arm with Franca Marinello before their marriage. They appeared to be on a terrace or balcony, posed with their backs to the sea: Cataldo was broad and serious in a light grey linen suit. She wore white slacks and a short-sleeved black T-shirt and looked very happy. The definition of the screen was enough to show Brunetti how lovely she had been: perhaps in her late-twenties, blonde, taller than her future husband. Her face looked — Brunetti had to think a moment before the right word came to him — it looked uncomplicated. Her smile was modest, her features regular, her eyes blue as the sea behind them. ‘Pretty girl,’ he said under his breath. He touched a key to move the article down to read further, and the screen went blank.

That did it: he had to have his own computer. He got up, told the nearest man that something was wrong with the machine, and went home.

The next morning, Brunetti used his office phone to call the Carabinieri in Marghera, only to be told that Maggior Guarino was not there and was not expected until the end of the week. Brunetti pushed aside the thought of Guarino and returned to the idea of getting his own computer. If he did get it, could he continue to expect Signorina Elettra to find the unfindable? Would she then expect him to do basic things, like. . like find telephone numbers and check vaporetto timetables? Once he could do that, she would probably assume he could easily find the health records of suspects or trace bank transfers into and out of numbered accounts. Still, once he had it, as well as begin to search for information, he would be able more easily to read newspapers on line: current issues, back issues, any issues he chose. But then what of the feel of the Gazzettino in his hand, that dry smell, the black streaks it left against the right-hand pocket of all of his jackets?

And what, his conscience forced him to confess, of that gentle surge of pride when he opened his copy on the vaporetto and thus declared his citizenship in this quiet city world? Who in their right mind but a Venetian would read the Gazzettino ?‘ I l Giornale delle Serve ’. All right, so it was the newspaper of the servant girls. So what? The national papers were often just as badly written, filled with inaccuracies and sentence fragments and wrongly captioned photos.

Signorina Elettra chose this moment to appear at the door of his office. He looked across at her and said, ‘I love the Gazzettino .’

‘There’s always Palazzo Boldù, Dottore,’ she said, naming the local psychiatric centre. ‘And perhaps some rest, and certainly no reading.’

‘Thank you, Signorina,’ he said politely, and then to business, having had the night to think about it — ‘I would like to have a computer here in the office.’

This time she made no attempt to disguise her reaction. ‘You?’ she asked. ‘Sir,’ she thought to add.

‘Yes. One of those flat ones like the one you have.’

This explanation gave her some time to consider the request. ‘I’m afraid they’re terribly expensive, sir,’ she protested.

‘I’m sure they are,’ he answered. ‘But I’m sure there is some way it could be paid for out of the budget for office supplies.’ The more he talked and thought about it, the more he wanted a computer, and one like hers, not that decrepit thing that the officers downstairs had to make do with.

‘If you don’t mind, Commissario, I’d like to have a few days to consider this. And see if I can find a way to arrange it.’

Brunetti sensed victory in her accommodating tone.

‘Of course,’ he said, smiling, expansive now. ‘What was it you wanted?’

‘It’s about Signor Cataldo,’ she said, holding up a blue manila folder.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, waving her forward and half rising in his chair. ‘What have you found?’ He said nothing about his own attempts at research.

‘Well, sir,’ she said, approaching the chair. With a practised gesture, she swept her skirt to one side as she sat. She placed the unopened file on his desk and said, ‘He’s very wealthy, but you must know that already.’ Brunetti suspected everyone in the city knew it, but he nodded to encourage her to continue. ‘He inherited a fortune from his father, who died before Cataldo was forty. That’s more than thirty years ago, just in the middle of the boom. He used it to invest and expand.’

‘In what?’ he asked.

She slid the file back towards her and opened it. ‘He has a factory up near Longarone that makes wooden panels. There are only two in Europe, apparently, that make these things. And a cement factory in the same area. They’re gradually chipping away at a mountain and turning it into cement. In Trieste he’s got a fleet of cargo ships; and a trucking line that does national and international shipping. An agency that sells bulldozers and heavy moving equipment, also dredges. Cranes.’ When Brunetti said nothing, she added, ‘All I’ve got, really, is a list of the companies he owns: I haven’t begun to take a closer look at their finances.’

Brunetti held up his right hand. ‘Only if its not too difficult, Signorina.’ When she grinned at the unlikelyhood of this, he went on, ‘And here in the city?‘

She turned over a page, then said, ‘He owns four shops in Calle dei Fabbri and two buildings on Strada Nuova. Those are rented to two restaurants, and there are four apartments above them.’

‘Is everything rented?’

‘Indeed. One of the shops changed hands a year ago, and the rumour is that the new owner had to pay a buonuscita of a quarter of a million Euros.’

‘Just to get the keys?’

‘Yes. And the rent is ten thousand.’

‘A month ?’ Brunetti demanded.

‘It’s in the Calle dei Fabbri, sir, and it’s on two floors,’ she said, managing to sound faintly offended that he should question the price — or her accuracy. She closed the file and sat back in her chair.

If he read her expression correctly, she had something else to tell him, and so he asked, ‘And?’

‘There are voices, sir.’

‘Voices?’

‘About her.’

‘His wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘What kind of voices?’

She crossed her legs. ‘Perhaps I’ve exaggerated, sir, and it’s more that there are certain suggestions or silences when her name is mentioned.’

‘I dare say that’s true for many people in the city,’ Brunetti said, trying not to sound prim.

‘I’m sure it is, sir,’ she said.

Brunetti decided to rise above mere gossip, so he pulled the file towards him and hefted it, asking, ‘Have you had enough time to get any idea of what his total worth is?’

Instead of answering, she sat back in her chair, studying his face as though he had just presented her with an interesting conundrum.

‘Yes, Signorina?’ Brunetti prodded. When she failed to answer, he asked, ‘What is it?’