Fatal Remedies (26 page)

‘Where did they happen?’

‘One in Palermo, one in Reggio Calabria and the most recent in Padova.’

‘Ah.’ Patta sighed audibly. After a moment he explained, ‘If they are related, that would make it likely it’s not ours, wouldn’t it? That it’s really the police in those other cities who should be looking at our crime as part of the series?’

‘That’s entirely possible, sir.’ Brunetti did not bother to mention that the same would hold true for the Venetian police: that they also should look into the series.

‘Well, then alert them, all of them, to what’s happened and let me know when you get an answer from them.’

Brunetti had to admit the genius of the solution. The investigation of the crime had been farmed out, tossed back to the police of those other cities, so Patta had done the officially correct, the bureaucratically efficient, thing: he had passed it on to the next desk and in so doing had fulfilled his own duty or, more important, would be perceived to have done, should his decision ever be questioned. Brunetti got to his feet. ‘Of course, sir. I’ll contact them immediately.’

Patta bowed his head in polite dismissal. It was seldom that Brunetti, a headstrong, difficult man, would prove so amenable to reason.

* * * *

21

When Brunetti emerged from Patta’s office, he found Signorina Elettra just slipping into her jacket. Her purse and a shopping bag stood side by side on the top of her desk, and her coat lay beside them. ‘And the budget?’ Brunetti asked when he saw her.

‘That,’ she said with what sounded like a snort of amusement. ‘It’s the same every month. Takes me five minutes to print it out. All I do is change the name of the month.’

‘Doesn’t anyone ever question it?’ Brunetti asked, thinking of what the fresh flowers alone must cost them.

‘The Vice-Questore did, a while ago,’ she said, reaching for her coat.

Brunetti picked it up and held it for her as she slipped it on. Neither of them saw fit to remark that the office in which she worked would be open for another three hours. ‘What did he say?’

‘He wanted to know why we were spending more money every month on flowers than on office supplies.’

‘And what did you tell him?’

‘I apologized and told him I must have exchanged the amounts in each column and that it wouldn’t happen again.’

She reached down and picked up her handbag, slipping the long leather strap over her shoulder.

‘And?’ Brunetti couldn’t stop himself from asking.

‘It hasn’t happened again. That’s the first thing I do when I make out the report every month. I switch the amounts spent on flowers and office supplies. He’s much happier now.’ She picked up the shopping bag - Bottega Veneta, he observed - and started towards the door of her office.

‘Signorina,’ he began, awkward about asking. ‘Those names?’

‘In the morning, Commissario. It’s being taken care of.’ So saying, she pointed to her computer with her chin, one hand occupied with the shopping bag and the other busy pushing back a lock of hair.

‘But it’s off,’ Brunetti said.

She closed her eyes for the barest fraction of a second, but he saw her do it. ‘Believe me, Commissario. In the morning.’ His acquiescence was not immediate, so she added, ‘Remember: I’m your eyes and nose, Commissario. Anything that can be found will be here tomorrow first thing.’

Though the door to the office was open, Brunetti went to stand by it, as if to see her safely through.
’Arrivederci, Signorina. E grazie.’

With a smile she was gone.

* * * *

For a while, Brunetti stood there and wondered what he should do with the rest of the day. He lacked Signorina Elettra’s offhand courage, so he went back up to his office. On his desk he found a scribbled note saying that Conte Orazio Falier wanted him to get in touch.

‘It’s Guido,’ he said when he heard the Count answer with his name.

‘I’m glad you called. Can we talk?’

‘Is it about Paola?’ Brunetti asked.

‘No, it’s about that other matter you asked me to look into. I spoke to someone with whom I do a certain amount of banking, and he said a large amount of cash flowed into and out of one of Mitri’s foreign accounts until about a year ago.’ Before Brunetti could respond, the Count said, ‘He spoke of a total of five million francs.’

‘Francs?’ Brunetti enquired. ‘As in Switzerland?’

‘Not France,’ the Count said in a tone that put the French franc on a par with the Latvian lat.

Brunetti knew better than to ask where or how his father-in-law had obtained this information and was wise enough to trust it absolutely. ‘Is this the only account?’

‘It’s the only one I’ve found out about,’ the Count answered. ‘But I’ve asked a few more people and might have something else to tell you later in the week.’

‘Did he say where this money came from?’

‘He said the deposits came in from a number of countries. Wait a minute and I’ll tell you; I’ve got it written down somewhere.’ The phone was put down and Brunetti pulled a piece of paper towards him. He heard footsteps walk away, then return. ‘Here it is,’ the Count began. ‘Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Ivory Coast.’ There was a long pause after which he said, ‘I tried fitting various things into it: drugs, weapons, women. But there’s always something wrong, one of them doesn’t fit.’

‘They’re too poor, for one thing,’ Brunetti mused.

‘Exactly. But that’s where the money came from. There were other amounts, much smaller, from European countries and some from Brazil, but the bulk of it came from those places. That is, it always came in from those countries in local currencies, then some was sent back there, but in dollars, always dollars.’

‘But to the same countries?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much went back?’

‘I don’t know.’ Before Brunetti could ask, the Count said, ‘That’s all the information he was willing to give. It’s all he owed me.’

Brunetti understood. There would be nothing more; no sense going on about it. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘What do you suppose it means?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.’ He decided to ask the Count for more help. ‘And there’s someone I have to find.’

‘Who?’

‘A man called Palmieri, a professional killer, or as close to one as is possible.’

‘What has this got to do with Paola?’ the Count wanted to know.

‘He might have had something to do with Mitri’s murder.’

‘Palmieri?’

‘Yes, Ruggiero. I think he’s originally from Portogruaro. But the last we heard was that he might be in Padova. Why do you ask?’

‘I know a lot of people, Guido. I’ll see what I can find out.’

For a moment Brunetti wanted to tell the Count to be careful, but a man didn’t get to be where he was without having made caution the habit of a lifetime.

‘I spoke to Paola yesterday,’ Falier said. ‘She seems fine.’

‘Yes.’ Brunetti, suddenly conscious of how miserly that sounded, added, ‘If what I’m beginning to suspect is true, she didn’t have anything to do with Mitri’s death.’

‘Of course she didn’t have anything to do with his death,’ came the instant answer. ‘She was with you that night.’

Brunetti quelled his first reaction and spoke calmly: ‘I mean in the sense she’d intend, not the way we would - that her actions spurred someone on to kill him.’

‘Even if that were true...’ the Count began, but suddenly lost interest in arguing the hypothetical case and said in his normal tone, I’d see what I could find out about what he had to do with those countries.’

‘I will.’ Brunetti made a polite farewell and put down the phone.

Kenya, Egypt and Sri Lanka all had problems with outbursts of murderous violence, but nothing Brunetti had read suggested there was any common cause there, for all the accused groups seemed to have entirely different goals. Raw materials? Brunetti didn’t know enough about them to be able to guess what they had that a voracious West would want.

He looked down at his watch and saw that it was after six; certainly a full commissario, particularly one who was still officially on something called administrative leave, could go home.

On the way, he continued to mull it over, once even stopping to pull out the list of countries and study it again. He went into Antico Dolo and had a glass of white wine and two cuttlefish, but he was so preoccupied that he barely tasted them.

He returned before seven to an empty house. He went into Paola’s study and pulled down their atlas of the world, then sat on the shabby old sofa with the book open on his knees, contemplating the multicoloured maps of the various regions. He shifted lower in the sofa and rested his head against the back.

Paola found him like that half an hour later, deeply asleep. She called his name once, then again, but it wasn’t until she went and sat beside him that he woke.

Sleeping during the day always left him dull and stupid, with a strange taste in his mouth.

‘What’s this?’ she said, kissing his ear and pointing down at the book.

‘Sri Lanka. And here’s Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria,’ he said, turning the pages quietly.

‘Let me guess - the itinerary for our second honeymoon tour through the poverty capitals of the world?’ she asked with a laugh. Then, seeing his smile, she went on, ‘And I get to play Lady Bountiful, bringing along pockets full of small coins to toss to the local population as we visit the sights?’

‘That’s interesting,’ Brunetti said, closing the book but leaving it on his knees. ‘That the first thing you think of, too, is poverty.’

‘It’s either that or civil unrest in most of those places.’ She paused for a moment, then added, ‘Or cheap Imodium.’

‘Huh?’

‘Remember when we were in Egypt and had to get Imodium?’

Brunetti remembered the trip to Egypt, a decade ago, when both of them had come down with fierce diarrhoea and had lived for two days on yoghurt, rice, and Imodium. ‘Yes,’ he answered. He thought he remembered, but he wasn’t sure.

‘No prescription, no questions and cheap, cheap, cheap. If I’d had a list of the things my neurotic friends take, I could have done my Christmas shopping for the next five years.’ She saw that he didn’t share the joke, so she returned her attention to the atlas. ‘But what about those countries?’

‘Mitri received money from them, large amounts. Or his companies did. I don’t know which because it all went to Switzerland.’

‘Doesn’t all money, in the end?’ she asked with a tired sigh.

He shook himself free of the thought of those countries and placed the atlas beside him on the sofa. ‘Where are the kids?’ he asked.

‘They’re having dinner with my parents.’

‘Should we go out, then?’ he asked.

‘You’re willing to take me out again, be seen with me?’ she asked lightly.

Brunetti wasn’t sure how much she was joking so he answered, ‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere you like.’

She sprawled against him, pushing her legs out in front of her, beside his longer ones. ‘I don’t want to go far. How about a pizza at Due Colonne?’