Fatal Remedies (19 page)

Slowly, the boat reversed itself in the water and headed the half-metre back to the
embarcadero.
The sailor slid the gate open, and Vianello and Brunetti stepped across to the wooden platform of the landing dock. With a wave, Vianello thanked him; the engines surged and the boat pulled forward.

‘But why did you get off?’ Brunetti asked. It was his stop, but Vianello should have stayed on until he got down to Castello.

‘I’ll take the next one. What about Zambino?’

‘Tomorrow morning,’ Brunetti answered. ‘But late. I’d like to have Signorina Elettra see if she can find out anything she might have missed so far.’

Vianello nodded in approval of this. ‘She’s a miracle,’ he said. ‘If I knew him well, I’d say Lieutenant Scarpa is afraid of her.’

‘I do know him well,’ Brunetti answered, ‘and he is afraid of her. Because she isn’t, not in the least, frightened of him. And that makes her one of very few people at the Questura who aren’t.’ Since he and Vianello were two more among those very few, he could speak like this. ‘It also makes him very dangerous. I’ve tried to say something to her, but she discounts him.’

‘She shouldn’t,’ Vianello said.

Another boat appeared under the bridge and started towards the landing. When all the passengers had got off, Vianello stepped across the open space on to the deck.
‘A domani, capo,’
he said. Brunetti waved in acknowledgement and turned away even before the other passengers started to board the boat.

He stopped at one of the public phones in front of the landing and, from memory, dialled the number of Rizzardi’s office at the hospital. Rizzardi had gone for the day but had left a message with his assistant for Commissario Brunetti if he called. Everything was as the doctor had assumed it would be. It was a single cord, plastic-covered and about six millimetres thick. Nothing more. Brunetti thanked the assistant and headed home.

* * * *

The day had taken all warmth with it. He wished he’d thought to bring his scarf with him that morning but contented himself with pulling up the collar of his coat and hunching his neck down inside it. He walked quickly over the bridge, turning left at the bottom and choosing to walk along the water, drawn to the lights that streamed out from the many restaurants along the
riva.
He ducked right and hurried through the underpass into Campo San Silvestro, then left and up towards his apartment. At Biancat he was tempted by the irises in the window but remembered his anger with Paola and continued past. But then he recalled only Paola, turned back, went into the florist and bought a dozen of the purple ones.

She was in the kitchen when he got home, stuck her head out to see whether it was he or one of the kids, and saw the package in his arms. She came down the corridor, a damp towel clutched in her hands. ‘What’s in the paper, Guido?’ she asked in real confusion.

‘Open it and see,’ he said, handing her the flowers.

She flicked the towel across her shoulder and took them. He turned and removed his coat, hung it in the closet and heard the sound of paper rustling. Suddenly there was silence, dead silence, so he turned to look at her, worried he’d done something wrong. ‘What is it?’ he asked, seeing her stricken look.

She wrapped both arms round the bouquet and pulled it to her breast. Whatever she said was lost in the noise from the crinkling wrapping.

‘What?’ he asked, bending down a little, for she had lowered her head and pressed her face into the petals.

‘I can’t stand the thought that something I did led to the death of that man.’ A sob choked off her voice, but she continued, ‘I’m sorry, Guido. I’m sorry for all the mess I’ve caused you. I do that to you and you can bring me flowers.’ She began to sob, face pressed into the soft petals of the irises, shoulders shaken by the power of her feelings.

He took them from her and looked for a place to put them. There was none, so he lowered them to the floor and put his arms round her. She sobbed against his chest with an abandon his daughter had never shown, even as a small child. He held her protectively, as if afraid she would break apart from the force of her sobs. He bent and kissed the top of her head, drank in her smell, saw the short bits where her hair fell apart into two waves at the base of her skull. He held her and rocked a bit from side to side, saying her name time and again. He had never loved her as much as at this moment. He felt a flash of vindication, then as quickly sensed his face suffuse with a shame stronger than he had ever known. By force of will he pushed back all sense of right, all sense of victory, and found himself in a clean space where there was nothing but pain that his wife, the other half of his spirit, could be in such agony. He bent again and kissed her hair, then, realizing that her sobs were coming to an end, he pushed her away but still held her by the shoulders. ‘Are you all right, Paola?’

She nodded, unable to speak, keeping her face turned down so that he couldn’t see her.

He reached into the pocket of his trousers and took out his handkerchief. It wasn’t freshly laundered, but that hardly seemed to matter. He dabbed her face with it, under each eye, below her nose, then planted it firmly in her hand. She took it and wiped the rest of her face, then blew her nose with a resounding snort. She pressed it against her eyes, hiding from him.

‘Paola,’ he said in something that came close to his normal voice, though it wasn’t, ‘what you did is entirely honourable. I don’t like the fact that you did it, but you acted with honour.’

For a moment, he thought that was going to set her off again, but it didn’t. She took the handkerchief away from her face and looked at him through reddened eyes. ‘If I had known…’ she began.

But he cut her off with a raised palm. ‘Not now, Paola. Maybe later, when we both can talk about it. Now let’s go into the kitchen and see if we can find something to drink.’

It took her no time at all to add, ‘And eat.’ She smiled, glad of the reprieve.

* * * *

16

The next morning Brunetti got to the Questura at his regular time, stopping to buy three newspapers on the way.
Il Gazzettino
continued to devote whole pages to the Mitri murder, lamenting a loss to the city it never made clear, but the national papers appeared to have lost interest in it, only one of them bothering to mention it and then only in a two-paragraph article.

Rizzardi’s final report was on his desk. The double mark on Mitri’s neck was, he had determined, a ‘hesitation mark’ on the part of the murderer, who had probably loosened the cord momentarily to tighten his grip, shifting it and thus leaving a second indentation in Mitri’s flesh. The material under the nails of Mitri’s left hand was indeed human skin, as well as a few fibres of dark-brown wool, probably from a jacket or overcoat and in all likelihood the result of Mitri’s wild, and futile, attempt to fight off his attacker. ‘Find me a suspect and I’ll give you a match,’ Rizzardi had pencilled in the margin.

At nine o’clock Brunetti decided it was not too early to call his father-in-law, Count Orazio Falier. He dialled the number of the Count’s office, gave his name, and was immediately connected.

‘Buon di,
Guido,’ the Count said.
‘Che pasticcio, eh?’

Yes, it was a mess and more than that. ‘That’s what I’m calling about.’ Brunetti paused, but the Count said nothing, so he went on. ‘Have you heard anything or has your lawyer heard anything?’ He broke off here for a moment, then continued. ‘I don’t even know if your lawyer is involved in this.’

‘No, not yet,’ the Count answered. ‘I’m waiting to see what the judge does. Also, I don’t know what Paola will want to do. Do you have any idea?’

‘We talked about it last night,’ Brunetti began and heard his father-in-law’s whispered, ‘Good.’

Brunetti continued, ‘She said she’d pay the fine and whatever it costs to replace the window.’

‘What about any other charges?’

‘I didn’t ask her about that. I thought it was enough to get her to agree to pay the fine and the damages, at least in principle. That way, if it’s more than just the window, she might go along and pay that, too.’

‘Yes, good. Good. That might work.’

Brunetti was irritated by the Count’s assumption that he and Brunetti were united in some plan to outwit or manipulate Paola. However good their motives might be and however strongly both of them might believe they were doing what was best for her, Brunetti didn’t like the Count’s casual assumption that Brunetti was willing to deceive his wife.

He didn’t want to continue with this. ‘That’s not why I called. I’d like you to tell me anything you might know about Mitri or about Awocato Zambino.’

‘Giuliano?’

‘Yes.’

‘Zambino’s straight as a die.’

‘He represented Manolo,’ Brunetti shot back, naming a Mafia killer Zambino had successfully defended three years before.

‘Manolo was kidnapped in France and brought back illegally for trial.’

Interpretations differed: Manolo had been in a small town just across the French border, living in a hotel, driving each night to Monaco to gamble in the Casino. A young woman he met at the baccarat table had suggested they drive back into Italy to her place for a drink. Manolo had been arrested as they crossed the border, by the woman herself, who was a colonel of the
Carabinieri.
Zambino had argued, successfully, that his client had been the victim of police entrapment and kidnapping.

Brunetti let it drop. ‘Has he ever worked for you?’ he asked the Count.

‘Once or twice. So I know. And I know from friends of mine for whom he’s handled things. He’s good. He’ll work like a ferret on a case to defend his client. But he’s straight.’ The Count paused for a long time, as if debating whether to trust Brunetti with the next piece of information, then added, ‘There was a rumour going around last year that he didn’t cheat on his taxes. I heard from someone that he declared an income of five hundred million lire or something like that.’

‘You think that’s what he earned?’

‘Yes, I do,’ the Count answered in a voice usually reserved for the recounting of miracles.

‘What do the other lawyers think of this?’

‘Well, you can figure that out, Guido. It makes things hard for all of them, if someone like Zambino declares such an income and the rest of them are saying they earned two hundred million, or even less. It can only cause suspicion about their tax declarations.’

‘That must be hard for them.’

‘Yes. He’s ...’ the Count began, but then his mind registered the tone as well as the words and he stopped. ‘About Mitri,’ he said with no preamble. ‘I think you might take a closer look at him. There could be something there.’

‘About what, the travel agencies?’

‘I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know anything at all about him except what a few people have said since he died. You know, the sort of things that get talked about when someone’s the victim of a violent crime.’

Brunetti did know. He’d heard rumours of that kind about people killed in the cross-fire during bank robberies and about the victims of kidnap murders. Always, there was someone to raise the question of why they were there at precisely that moment, to ask why it was they died instead of someone else and just what their involvement was with the criminals. Nothing could ever be, here in Italy, simply what it appeared. Always, no matter how innocent the circumstances, how blameless the victim, there was someone to raise the spectre of
dietrologia
and insist that there must be something behind it all, that everyone had his price or got his part and nothing was what it seemed. ‘What have you heard?’ he asked.

‘Nothing outright or specific. Everyone’s been very careful to express surprise at what happened. But there’s an undertone in what some of them say that suggests they feel differently about it or about him.’

‘Who?’

‘Guido,’ the Count said, his voice going a few degrees cooler, ‘if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. But it so happens I don’t remember. It was really nothing any one person said, not so much that as an unspoken suggestion that what happened to him wasn’t a complete surprise. I can’t be any clearer than that.’