Alibi: A Novel (32 page)

“What? What do I want?” she said to herself. “I want to be Joyce. The girl in the picture. Make curtains. Wait for the ship. Feed the baby.” She stopped, her voice drifting off. “Think how wonderful, not to know about any of it. Not any of it.”

“And that’s the life you want,” I said, teasing. “Joyce.”

“No.” She turned. “Anyway, I can’t. No babies. So that’s something you should know,” she said, her voice tentative, waiting for a response.

“Oh,” I said finally, trying to sound easy.

“Do you mind about that?”

“No.”

“No?”

Another pause, this time waiting for her.

“I got rid of it myself, in the camp. I knew that if he found out, he’d send me. And there was no one to help, so I did it myself. That’s why.”

I looked at her for a minute, not saying anything. Then she moved to brush off a blade of grass, pushing at her sleeve, and for an instant I saw Rosa’s arm again with its jagged patch of white. Visible scars, reminders. But what about the others, the ones you couldn’t see? Years of them, nobody unblemished now.

I reached over and touched her hand. “I don’t want Joyce.”

“So it’s lucky for me.” She closed her eyes. “But now there’s this. Maybe you enjoy it, being police. But it’s both of us they’ll catch. Why do you have to know?”

“I held him under, Claudia. Me. What if—?”

For a minute she didn’t say anything. Then she took a breath. “When it happened, I thought you did it for me. So they wouldn’t
take me. I thought my heart would stop. Imagine, someone doing that for me. Everyone else wanted me dead, and you—” She moved her hand away and sat up. “But now it has to be something else, I don’t even know what. You can’t change what happened, whatever he was. Say you did it for me. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“But you still want to know.”

I sat up, looking straight at her. “I saw the body. What he looked like after. I can’t explain—it’s different when you see what it really means.” I dropped my head. “It won’t take long. Nobody suspects.” I ran my hand over the grass. “How else are we going to live with this?”

She smiled slightly, giving up, a movement of the lips, not really a smile at all. “Oh, how. You can live with anything. Anything.”

“What was Paolo like?”

“Paolo? A puppy,” Bertie said. “Why Paolo all of a sudden?”

We were having coffee in Santo Stefano, a chance meeting on my way to Ca’ Maglione, where Giulia was waiting with Gianni’s papers. The sun was bright enough for umbrellas at the café tables, but the air was still cool. Bertie was wearing a three-piece oyster-colored suit, perfectly pitched, like the weather, somewhere between winter and summer.

“I don’t know about him. About any of Gianni’s family, for that matter.”

“
Now
you want to know?”

“It might help.”

“Who? Your friends at the Questura? I hear you’re thick as thieves. Is this an official visit?” he said, his voice rising slightly, like an arched eyebrow.

I smiled. “I’m just trying to help. It was Giulia’s idea.”

“Oh, Giulia’s idea. The fair Giulia.” He looked over at me, then tilted his head, his eyes beginning to twinkle. “No, it’s too penny dreadful. Still.”

“Having fun?”

“I admit it’s a little novelettish, but think how suitable.”

“Well, don’t.”

“And Grace the dogaressa after all.” He giggled.

“Bertie.”

“Oh, I know, I know. Very bad. It’s just a
thought
. Anyway, you’re otherwise attached. As we know. There’d be that to contend with, wouldn’t there?” His voice casual, Claudia still an inappropriate affair to him, unaware we were joined by blood now, our hands streaked with it.

“Yes, there would.” I leaned forward, serious. “Bertie, tell me something. What happened at the Accademia?”

“Me? Why ask me?”

“Because you know.”

“I don’t always, you know. Better not to. Venice is a very small town. You don’t want to be telling tales out of school—people don’t like it.”

“Tell this one.”

He looked at me, then nodded. “I don’t want any
reactions
, please. It’s not perfect, the world, not even here.” He glanced around the sunny campo, the terra-cotta planters sprouting bits of white, the first spring flowers. “Some attitudes—not very nice, but they just don’t go away overnight, either. And at first, of course, no one thought to ask. There’d never been any, you know, not in the curatorial department.” He let it hang, awkward, and took a sip of coffee.

“Are you trying to tell me they fired her because she’s Jewish?”

“I didn’t say that,” Bertie said quickly. “And I don’t want you saying it either. I merely said they didn’t think she was—suitable.”

I thought of the Montanaris. Just a look.

“Who didn’t?”

“Oh, what does it matter? All right, old Buccati, if you must know. He’s nearly ninety. At that age, all you’ve got is old ideas, whatever they are. Mostly he just naps away the afternoon, like an old tabby, but this time he pricks up his ears and makes a fuss. And of
course it
is
Buccati, so they can’t very well say no.
What
a tear. Even me, if you please. Because I’d recommended her. Which I only did because Emilio asked. I thought, a cousin. And then not even that. I had no idea—”

“But how did he hear? Buccati?”

“Hear what? About her? Well, who didn’t, after that awful scene?”

“But Gianni didn’t say anything?”

“Gianni? Adam, what are you talking about?”

“I thought Gianni might have had something to do with it.”

“What, at the Accademia? Gianni never looked at a painting in his life. I doubt he’d ever been inside, much less—what? Do you think he was prattling away to old Buccati? What for?”

“To get her fired.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have blamed him—so unpleasant, that business at the party—but no. No. Nobody’s even suggested it. This was Buccati’s own particular nonsense, and what a mess. I’m sorry about the girl, of course, but think of me. And the staff. Nervous as hens now that they see what he’s really like.”

“So you don’t think it was Gianni,” I said, partly to myself.

“No, I don’t,” he said steadily. “And I would have heard.”

I finished the rest of the coffee, thinking. “He showed me some frescoes once,” I said.

“And? Adam, I’m having a little trouble
following
.”

“You said he never looked at pictures. But he knew these.”

“Where?”

“At the hospital.”

“Well, the hospital. And Ca’ Maglione. I’m sure he knew every wall. And I’d still bet he’d never been inside the Accademia. Adam, he was a doctor. They’re all a bit Home Counties, really, aren’t they? He was a very conventional man. He wasn’t really interested in—” He waved his hand to take in the city. “You know, this.”

“But he loved Venice.”

“As property. Not as—this extraordinary thing. No eye, none. He was just a conventional man.” He paused, putting down his cup. “Except
for Grace, I suppose. I’ve been thinking about it since—well, since—and you know, she’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense in his life. He does his work. He cares about his family—oh, that dreary wife, the marriage must have been a
penance
. Everything what it should be. Except for her. Maybe she was this for him,” he said, waving his hand again at the campo. “This whole other side that must have been there. I never saw it, but it must have been, don’t you think? Mad for her, even years later. I think she was the only idea he ever had about—whatever it was that was missing.”

I looked out at the square, the faded red and melon plasterwork warm in the sun. This extraordinary thing.

“You’re a romantic, Bertie.”

He smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just like a good mystery story. It’s the ultimate mystery, isn’t it? People. Not who done it. Who they are. Of course, you’re one of the ‘done it’ people, you and your friends at the Questura. Somebody done him in. Well, yes, but who was he? That’s what I want to know. Here’s a man I’ve known for—well, if I did. Anyway, who wants to know his doctor? And it turns out I didn’t. Sometimes I think we’re all little mysteries, whirling around.” He moved his finger in a circle. “And none of us has the faintest clue about the other. Think of it. Gianni in love. I didn’t know he was capable of it. But I suppose he was. Then murdered. What could he have done to make somebody want to do that?”

“That’s what they’re trying to find out.”

“Are they? Well, good luck. Cavallini couldn’t catch a fly.” He shook his head. “And you. Such nonsense. You’d be better off getting Grace out of here. Mooning about with Mimi and Celia and probably getting sloshed, if I know my Celia. Talk about the bad penny turning up. Oh, I know,” he said, seeing my look, “her heart’s broken, but it so happens I don’t believe in broken hearts.” He peered over his glasses. “I’m not that romantic. What she needs is a change. But here you are, playing Father Brown. What a world.”

“How do you know Cavallini?”

“I had to report during the war—all the neutrals. I’ve told you
this. All present and accounted for, you know. Make-work. Actually, he was nice about it—he’d come to me. Of course, that was right up his street. He’s a policeman who likes a canal view.”

“Maybe he’s better than you think. He’s talked to everybody. I’ve seen the reports.”

“Oh, I’ve heard. The poor servants, over and over. I suppose one conked Gianni on the head in a fit of pique. He can’t be serious.”

“He’s just being thorough. The house, the hospital. He’s doing the patients now. He’ll probably get around to you any day,” I said, teasing.

“As a suspect?”

I smiled. “As someone who knew him.”

“But why should it be anyone who knew him? A thief wouldn’t—”

“Because it wasn’t robbery. He still had his money on him. His watch.”

“Really,” Bertie said, then looked over at me. “What else?”

“All we know is what it wasn’t. And if it wasn’t robbery, then it was about
him
somehow. Who he was.” I fiddled with my coffee cup. “Your little mystery. We need to know more about him.”

“Such as?”

“Anything. Paolo, for instance. Tell me about Paolo.”

“Oh, we’re back to Paolo. But he didn’t count for anything. Awful thing to say, isn’t it? But he didn’t. Simply didn’t matter.”

“But Gianni was upset when he died. Everyone says so,” I said, trying it out.

“Do they?” Bertie looked away, thinking. “I suppose he was. Family, after all. That was important to him, probably more than Paolo was, really. But now that you mention it, he did take it hard. Went all quiet and monkish for a while. But they do that here.”

“So they were close?”

“Only in the sense of Paolo’s being there all the time—we’re talking about the early days now. He was always around. You know, at the beach, parties, whatever.”

“Like a puppy, you said.”

“Yes. Whatever Gianni wanted, he’d
fetch
it. It was like that.”

“But he was the older brother.”

“Well, what’s there to that? I’m an only child and I’ve always been sociable. Anyway, he didn’t seem to mind. He looked up to Gianni.” He reached over to the cigarettes on the café table and took one out. “Is that what you want to know? I can’t think why.”

“So Gianni was distressed when Paolo died?”

“Well, yes,” Bertie said, striking the match and cupping it at the end of the cigarette. “Why wouldn’t he be? Awful way to go, a crash like that. So young. And so typical, I must say, so careless, although of course one
didn’t
say it.”

“You know there are rumors that it wasn’t an accident.”

Bertie looked at me through the smoke, not saying anything.

“That he was killed by partisans.”

“And?”

“And if he was, there might be a political angle to this murder too. Gianni’s murder.”

“Oh,
both
now. Very
Il Gazzettino
of you. Is that the line you’re taking down at the Questura?”

“Did he ever say anything to you about Paolo’s death?”

“No, he didn’t,” Bertie said, tapping the end of his cigarette, his voice prickly. “And if he had, I wouldn’t have listened. I don’t listen to rumors either. Political angle. I don’t listen and I don’t know. All I want is to be left alone. I have
no
politics. None. I’m the most neutral man in Venice. And it’s very wrong of you to go on about it. Badgering people. Even Cavallini didn’t do that. And that was during the
war
.”

“I wasn’t asking about your politics, I was asking about Gianni’s,” I said quietly.

He leaned his head back, reprimanded, or surprised at his own reaction.

“Well, how would I know?” he said.

“Because you do,” I said, looking at him.

He made a face, peevish. “Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t. Oh, Adam,
what
politics? Gianni didn’t have any politics. He just blew
with the wind. We all did. The only party he ever cared about was the Maglione family. That was his politics.”

“His brother worked for the Germans.”

“Do you know that?”

I nodded. “And so did Gianni.”

He looked away, then put out his cigarette and picked up his hat from the table. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said finally. “But it’s got nothing to do with me.” He lifted a finger. “And it’s got nothing to do with you, either. Watch you don’t make a mess of things. All this huffing and puffing. Shall I tell you something? You will never understand this society. This isn’t even Italy. It’s Venice. Nothing has been real here since Napoleon. Nothing.”

“But it happened anyway. He worked for the Germans. He was killed. It happened.”

“Not where I live.” He stood, putting on his hat and looking out onto the square. “You see this? It’s like a jewel box. Beautiful. And nothing gets in.”

“And you’re the jewel, I suppose.”

He smiled. “You could do worse. Anyway, it’s what I like. Just the way it is. As far as I’m concerned, Paolo was a slow-witted boy who drove too fast. Gianni was a perfectly respectable man who gave the most boring Sunday lunches you can imagine. Once would do it. And that’s all. If they weren’t, I don’t want to hear it. Politics. Murk. You want to make everything murky. Well, I don’t. Not here.”