Dressed for Death (38 page)

Ignoring her question, Brunetti
asked, ‘What’s wrong, Signora?’

She moved back from the banister
and pointed above her. ‘Up there. I heard shouting from Signor Ravanello’s, and
then I saw someone run down the steps. I was afraid to go up.’

Brunetti and Vianello swept past
her, taking the stairs two at a time now, both of them with their pistols in
their hands. At the top, light spilled out of the apartment on to the broad
landing in front of the open door. Brunetti crouched low and moved to the other
side of the door, but he moved too quickly to be able to see anything inside.
He looked back at Vianello, who nodded. Together they burst into the apartment,
both bent low. As soon as they were through the door, they moved to either side
of the room, making of themselves two separate targets.

But Ravanello was not going to
shoot at them: one glance at him was enough to show that. His body lay across a
low chair that had fallen to its side in the fight that must have taken place
in this room. He lay on his side, facing the door, staring with unseeing eyes,
eternally removed from any curiosity about these men who had burst suddenly and
without invitation into his home.

Not for an instant did Brunetti
suspect that Ravanello might still be alive: the marmoreal weight of his body
rendered that impossible. There was very little blood: that was the first thing
Brunetti noticed. Ravanello appeared to have been stabbed twice, for there were
two bold red patches on his jacket, and some blood had spilled to the floor
beneath his arm, but hardly enough to suggest that its passing had taken his
life with it.

‘Oh Dio
,’ he heard the old woman gasp
behind him, turned and found her at the door, one fist clenched in front of her
mouth, staring across at Ravanello. Brunetti moved two steps to his right and
into her line of vision.

She looked up at him with chilled
eyes. Could it be she was angry with him for having blocked her sight of the
body?

‘What did he look like, Signora?’
he asked.

She shifted her eyes to his left,
but couldn’t see around him.

‘What did he look like, Signora?’

Behind him, he heard Vianello
moving around, going off into another room of the apartment, then he heard the
phone being dialled and Vianello’s voice, soft and calm, reporting to the
Questura what had happened, asking for the necessary people.

Brunetti walked directly towards
the woman and, as he had hoped, she retreated before him out into the corridor.
‘Could you tell me exactly what you saw, Signora?’

‘A man, not very tall, running
down the steps. He had a white shirt. Short sleeves.’

‘Would you know him if you saw
him again, Signora?’

‘Yes.’

So would Brunetti.

Behind them, Vianello appeared
from the apartment, leaving the door open. ‘They’ll be here soon.’

‘Stay here,’ Brunetti said,
moving towards the stairs.

‘Santomauro?’ Vianello asked.

Brunetti waved his hand in
acknowledgement and ran down the steps. Outside, he turned left and hurried up
to Campo San Angelo and, beyond it, Campo San Luca and the lawyer’s office.

It was like wading through a
heavy surf, pushing his way through the late-morning crowds of people who
gawked in front of shop windows, paused to talk to one another, or stood in the
momentary relief of a cool breeze escaping from an air-conditioned shop. Down
through the narrow confines of Calle della Mandorla he raced, using his elbows
and his voice, careless of the angry stares and sarcastic remarks created by
his passing.

In the open space of Campo Manin,
he broke into a trot, though every step brought sweat pounding out on to his
body. He cut round the bank and into Campo San Luca, crowded now with people
meeting for a drink before lunch.

The downstairs door that led up
to Santomauro’s office was ajar; Brunetti pushed himself through it and took
the steps two at a time. The door to the office was closed, the light below it
gleaming out into the dim hallway. He took out his gun and pushed the door
open, moving quickly to the side in a protective crouch, just as he had when entering
Ravanello’s office.

The secretary screamed. Like a
character in a comic book, she covered her mouth with both hands and let out a
loud shriek, then pushed herself backwards and toppled from her chair.

Seconds later, the door to
Santomauro’s office opened, and the lawyer came rushing from his office. In a
glance, he took it all in: his secretary cowering behind her desk, butting her
shoulder repeatedly against the top as she tried, vainly, to crawl under it,
and Brunetti, rising to his feet and putting his gun away.

‘It’s all right, Louisa,’
Santomauro said, going to his secretary and kneeling down beside her. ‘It’s all
right, it’s nothing.’

The woman was incapable of
speech, beyond thought or reason. She sobbed, turned towards her employer and
stretched out her hands to him. He put an arm round her shoulder and she
pressed her face against his chest. She sobbed deeply and gasped for breath.
Santomauro bent over her, patting her on the back and speaking softly to her.
Gradually, the woman calmed and after a moment pushed herself back from him. ’
Scusi
,
Avvocato,’ was the first thing she said, her formality restoring full calm to
the room.

Silent now, Santomauro helped her
to her feet and towards a door at the back of the office. When he closed it behind
her, Santomauro turned to face Brunetti. ‘Well?’ he said, voice calm but no
less lethal for that.

‘Ravanello’s been killed,’
Brunetti said. ‘And I thought you’d be next. So I came here to try to stop it.’

If Santomauro was surprised at
the news, he gave no sign of it. ‘Why?’ he asked. When Brunetti didn’t answer,
he repeated the question, ‘Why would I be next?’

Brunetti didn’t answer him.

‘I asked you a question,
Commissario. Why would I be next? Why, in fact, would I be in any danger at
all?’ In the face of Brunetti’s continuing silence, Santomauro continued. ‘Do
you think I’m somehow involved in all of this? Is that why you’re here, playing
cowboy and Indians and terrifying my secretary?’

‘I had reason to believe he would
come here,’ Brunetti finally explained.

‘Who?’ the lawyer demanded.

‘I’m not at liberty to tell you
that.’

Santomauro bent down and picked
up the secretary’s chair. He righted it and pushed it into place behind her
desk. When he looked back at Brunetti, he said, ‘Get out. Get out of this
office. I am going to make a formal complaint to the Minister of the Interior.
And I am going to send a copy of it to your superior. I will not be treated as
a criminal, and I will not have my secretary terrified by your Gestapo
techniques.’

Brunetti had seen enough anger in
his life and in his career to know that this was the real thing. Saying
nothing, he left the office and went down into Campo San Luca. People pushed
past him, rushing home for lunch.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brunetti’s
decision to return to the Questura was an exercise of the power of the will
over that of the flesh. He was closer to home than to the Questura, and he
wanted only to go there, shower, and think about things other than the
inescapable consequences of what had just happened. Unsummoned, he had burst
violently into the office of one of the most powerful men in the city,
terrorizing his secretary and making it clear, by his explanation of his
behaviour, that he assumed Santomauro’s guilty involvement with Malfatti and
the manipulation of the accounts of the Lega. All of the good will he had,
however spuriously, accumulated with Patta during the last weeks would be as of
nothing in the face of a protest from a man of Santomauro’s stature.

And now, with Ravanello dead, all
hope of a case against Santomauro had vanished, for the only person who might
implicate Santomauro was Malfatti; his guilt in Ravanello’s death would render
worthless any accusation he might make against Santomauro. It would come,
Brunetti realized, to a choice between Malfatti’s and Santomauro’s stories; he
needed neither wit nor prescience to know which was stronger.

When Brunetti got there, he found
the Questura in tumult. Three uniformed officers huddled together in the lobby,
and the people on the long line at the Ufficio Stranieri crowded together in a
babble of different languages. ‘They brought him in, sir,’ one of the guards
said when he saw Brunetti.

‘Who?’ he asked, not daring to
hope.

‘Malfatti.’

‘How?’

‘The men waiting at his mother’s.
He showed up at the door about half an hour ago, and they got him even before
she could let him in.’

‘Was there any trouble?’

‘One of the men who was there
said that he tried to run when he saw them, but as soon as he realized there
were four of them, he just gave up and went along quietly.’

‘Four?’

‘Yes, sir. Vianello called and
told us to send more men. They were just arriving when Malfatti showed up. They
didn’t even have time to get inside, just got there and found him at the door.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Vianello had him put in a cell.’

‘I’ll go see him.’

When Brunetti went into the cell,
Malfatti recognized him immediately as the man who had thrown him down the
steps, but he greeted Brunetti with no particular hostility.

Brunetti pulled a chair away from
the wall and sat facing Malfatti, who was lying on the cot, back propped up
against the wall. He was a short, stocky man with thick brown hair, features so
regular as to make him almost immediately forgettable. He looked like an
accountant, not a killer.

‘Well?’ Brunetti began.

‘Well what?’ Malfatti’s voice was
completely matter of fact.

‘Well, do you want to do this the
easy way or the hard way?’ Brunetti asked imperturbably, just the way the cops
on television did.

‘What’s the hard way?’

‘That you say you know nothing
about any of this.’

‘About any of what?’ Malfatti
asked.

Brunetti pressed his lips
together and glanced up at the window for a moment, then back at Malfatti.

‘What’s the easy way?’ Malfatti
asked after a long time.

‘That you tell me what happened.’
Before Malfatti said a word, Brunetti explained, ‘Not about the rents. That’s
not important now, and it will all come out. But about the murders. All of
them. All four.’

Malfatti shifted minimally on the
mattress, and Brunetti had the impression that he was going to question that
number, but then Malfatti thought better of it.

‘He’s a respected man,’ Brunetti
continued, not bothering to explain whom he meant. ‘It’s going to come down to
his word against yours, unless you’ve got something to link him to you and to
the murders.’ He paused here, but Malfatti said nothing. ‘You’ve got a long
criminal record,’ Brunetti continued. ‘Attempted murder and now murder.’ Before
Malfatti could say a word, Brunetti continued in an entirely conversational
voice, ‘There’s not going to be any trouble proving that you killed Ravanello.’
In answer to Malfatti’s surprised glance, he explained, ‘The old woman saw you.’
Malfatti looked away.

‘And judges hate people who kill
police, especially policewomen. So I don’t see it any other way but a
conviction. The judges are bound to ask me what I think,’ he said, pausing to
be sure he had Malfatti’s complete attention. ‘When they do, I’ll suggest Porto
Azzurro.’