Donna Leon: The Golden Egg

To learn this little, he had avoided his professional responsibilities for a week, and had engaged or commandeered the help of other officers of the state, all in pursuit of what was becoming to seem like nothing more than a whim. And now he was about to drag in another member of the public but one who – unlike everyone else he had spoken to – was knowledgeable enough about the law to realize that his questions were not part of an authorized investigation.

He could easily go downstairs when Borsetta came in and tell him that the question he had wanted to discuss with him had been resolved, thank him for his civic-

mindedness, and send him on his way. And he could then decide to forget about those forty and more years of monthly payments to the account of Ana Cavanella and what they might mean. Or he could threaten Beni Borsetta and wring him dry.

‘Commissario?’ someone asked from the door of his office, and he turned to see Avvocato Cresti, today without his briefcase though most decidedly with his paunch and his air of self-satisfaction.

‘Ah, Avvocato,’ Brunetti said with an easy smile. ‘How exemplary a model of civic duty you present. Do come in and have a seat.’

Made nervous by this effulgent goodwill, Cresti crossed the room towards Brunetti, who stood and leaned across his desk to shake hands. He waved towards a chair and Cresti sat. The chair had armrests, and Cresti fitted easily within them, leading Brunetti to realize that the man was larger front to back than side to side. He smiled and took a closer look at the lawyer: his shoulders were actually quite narrow, narrower than his own. A portrait bust or a painting would show a perfectly normal man in late middle age, with a thinning patch of greyish hair, none too clean and perhaps too long, brushed back from a long, thin face.

He must buy his clothing ready-made – always an error on the part of a man with a paunch as vast as Cresti’s, Brunetti thought, for his jacket gaped open at least three hands’ breadths and left his paunch free to pull at the buttons of his shirt.

Brunetti gave Cresti his most benign smile but said nothing. Silence apparently made the lawyer nervous: he wrapped his fingers around the armrests of the chair, released them, then grabbed them again. Brunetti, smile nailed to his face, studied the other man. His face was quite thin and looked out of place above that girth: had Cresti’s neck been a metre long, he would have looked very much like an ostrich, his head disproportionately small in relation to his body.

The silence proved too much for the lawyer, and he launched himself. ‘I’m very glad to be of service to you, Commissario, for whatever’s necessary. Lawyers, as I’m sure you know – you studied law, I believe – have a heightened respect for the law. In fact, I’m sure that this bond between us will aid us in establishing a mutually helpful and productive relationship.’

He paused to breathe and Brunetti forgot his smile and asked, ‘What have you been telling Signora Cavanella?’

‘Who?’ Cresti asked, as stupid a mistake as he could have made, and Brunetti knew he would have no trouble wringing him dry.

Brunetti ignored his question. Cresti must have realized he had made a tactical error, for he asked, ‘Ah, do you mean Ana Cavanella?’ He smiled. It was an automatic smile, utterly humourless, that he could flick on and off, and did, without response to any sort of stimulus.

Brunetti permitted himself a small nod. This conversation was private and could never be introduced as evidence, so he did not have to speak for the tape recorder and could use gestures if he chose.

‘Yes. She’s an old friend of mine,’ Cresti said with another automatic smile.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Before I answer that,’ Cresti said, with one of his flashsmiles, ‘could you tell me what it is you want to know about her?’

‘I want to know when she last saw you.’

Just like Signora Cavanella, though with a great deal more certainty that he could calculate the response to various answers, Cresti prepared an answer. ‘I’m not sure. It’s been some time.’

‘You were seen in the hospital, Avvocato, coming from her room. Only a few hours ago.’ He watched Cresti move some pieces around on the board of his mind and volunteered, ‘Perhaps you were so troubled by seeing her there that all memory of your visit has been driven from your mind?’

Cresti nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it exactly. I saw her this morning.’

‘And were shocked, I assume.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you remember what you talked about, I’m sure. After all, you were there as her lawyer.’

Cresti moved uncomfortably in his chair, as if the arms had begun to contract. ‘Not exactly as her lawyer, you understand, Commissario. More as a friend who might be able to give her some legal advice.’ As if startled by that last word, Cresti jumped a little in his chair and said, too quickly, ‘Legal information, that is.’

Brunetti nodded, and the lawyer went on. ‘I was there as a friend, please understand: only that. It never occurred to either of us that I would work for her in a professional sense.’ Brunetti was suddenly aware that Cresti was speaking for the tape recorder he assumed was running. ‘Only out of my affection for the woman, please understand.’ He flashed a smile that was meant to show his integrity and goodwill.

‘You’re also a neighbour, aren’t you, Avvocato?’ Brunetti asked, having noticed the San Polo address when Signorina Elettra printed out the information he had asked her for.

‘Am I?’ Cresti asked. ‘How very coincidental.’

Now, why should he lie about that? Brunetti asked himself. He remembered the unified silence of her neighbours and began to wonder what information they were all so eager to protect.

‘Shall I look in Calli, Campielli e Canali and remind you of just how close you live to her, or do you perhaps recall having seen her?’ Brunetti’s voice echoed his diminishing patience.

‘Yes, I do remember seeing her, now that you mention it,’ the lawyer said. ‘But only occasionally, the way one does.’ Brunetti saw that Cresti was holding the arms of the chair as tightly as if he were trying to keep himself from being spilled from his seat in the middle of a storm at sea.

‘So you knew her history?’

‘Well, everyone in the neighbourhood does,’ Cresti said, aiming to sound casual, and failing.

‘And if I might inquire into your professional dealings with Signora Cavanella,’ Brunetti began. ‘That is, your work for her as her lawyer . . .’

‘But I’m not her lawyer,’ Cresti said with another strained smile. ‘I’m just trying to help the poor woman. She lost her son, you know.’ Cresti’s voice was rich with an actor’s pathos.

‘I know. Did she come to you about that?’

‘Well,’ Cresti began nervously, ‘yes and no.’ Seeing that Brunetti was not satisfied with this, he continued, ‘That is, she came to me before he died.’

‘Asking you to work as her lawyer?’ Brunetti asked.

‘No.’ Cresti’s lie was adamant. ‘She came to me as a neighbour and asked if I could give her some information, being as I was a lawyer.’

‘But not then working as one,’ Brunetti supplied ruthlessly, to let Cresti understand how much he knew.

‘Right, exactly right. I’d never tell a person I could act for them, not until my suspension is over and I’m taken back into the union of lawyers.’ Avvocato Cresti, exemplar of justice.

‘What did she want to know?’

‘About bastards.’

‘What, specifically, about bastards?’

‘She’d read something in the papers, and she asked me about a new law.’