The Waters of Eternal Youth (22 page)

‘He's a bad man,' Manuela said. ‘He hurt me.'

Griffoni flashed a glance at Brunetti, who was looking away, seeing not the stout Sandro Vittori-Ricciardi but ­suddenly remembering the younger, slimmer version in the photo on the wall of Enrichetta degli Specchi's place: the long-haired and clean-shaven young man who had reminded him of someone.

‘Do you have a plastic bag?' he asked Griffoni.

She started to answer but thought better of it, opened her purse and pulled out one of the distinctive yellow bags from Mascari.

Not bothering to thank her, Brunetti went back and used his still-dry handkerchief to pick up the broken umbrella that Vittori-Ricciardi had abandoned. He carefully wrapped the handkerchief around the handle and stuffed the umbrella, handle first, inside the plastic bag then closed his hand over the top of the bag in order to keep more water from touching it. He went back to Griffoni, who was now talking to a calmer Manuela. ‘We'll just go and see your grandmother now,' he heard her say.

‘And the bad man?' Manuela asked her.

Griffoni looked at Brunetti, who said, ‘Don't worry, Manuela. He won't bother you any more.'

When they reached the Contessa's home, they gave their coats to the maid, who disappeared with them, then returned to lead them into the warmth of the sitting room, where the Contessa was shocked to see how soaked they were. All three of them had left damp footprints behind them on the floor. She held up her hands when Manuela tried to speak and told her and Griffoni to go and quickly find Gala and ask her to find dry clothing and warm slippers. She insisted that Brunetti remove his jacket, soaked through at the shoulders, and suggested he hang it on the back of a chair. He set the bag holding the umbrella beneath the chair and draped his jacket over the back. She stepped up beside him and moved the chair until the back of the jacket was close to the radiator.

Before she could ask him anything, he told the Contessa he had to make a phone call. Surprised by his brusqueness, she pointed to a door to a smaller room: Brunetti went in and closed the door. He retrieved his
telefonino
from his back pocket and called Bocchese, told him where he was, and asked him to send a man on a boat to pick up a piece of evidence in the Cavanis murder.

‘It can't be the murder weapon,' Bocchese observed drily.

‘It might have the same fingerprints,' Brunetti said. ‘And the same
DNA
.'

‘My, my, my,' said Bocchese, his admiration audible. ‘And just where did you find this piece of evidence?'

‘Lying in a puddle on Calle del Tintor.'

‘Of course,' Bocchese exclaimed. ‘How silly of us not to have thought of going over to look for it there.'

‘It's the handle of an umbrella that was lying in the rain,' Brunetti said. ‘But I picked it up with my handkerchief – a fresh one – and put it in a plastic bag.'

‘When Patta finally fires you, Guido, you can come and work in the lab for me.'

‘Thanks,' Brunetti said, then asked, ‘How long?'

‘Fingerprints by tomorrow: they're easy.
DNA
not for some time. You know that.'

‘Fingerprints should be enough,' Brunetti said.

‘I know lawyers,' Bocchese said, ‘and his will say the rain changed them.'

‘Can it?'

Bocchese laughed, then said, ‘If they call me as an expert witness, I'll eat them alive.'

‘Send the boat, all right?'

‘As soon as we're off the phone.'

Brunetti hung up. When he returned to the other room, he found the Contessa sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs, her head resting against the back. She glanced at him without speaking, and in the dim light he saw how grey with tiredness she looked.

‘Someone's coming to pick that up,' he said, pointing to the destroyed umbrella in its yellow plastic bag.

‘If you give it to Gala, she'll see that it's handed over,' she said. He picked up the bag, went out to the corridor and found the maid, small and ­friendly-­looking. When she reached out to take the bag from him, he told her it was police evidence and should be touched only by the man who came to fetch it.

She gave Brunetti a strange look, the bag an even stranger one, then told him he could place it on the floor next to the door. She'd show the man who came for it where it was, she said, and told Brunetti not to worry. Then, from a small table next to her, she took a thick sweater and handed it to him, saying he might want to put it over his shoulders. Brunetti wanted.

He returned to the sitting room, where Griffoni and Manuela were now sitting at a large round table, each wearing an enormous woollen sweater instead of those they had been wearing when they arrived. Griffoni shot him a quick look. Manuela sat quietly, her eyes on her hands, which were clasped tightly together in her lap. She paid no attention to the people around the table or to what sat upon it.

This time, it was covered with mounds of crustless sandwiches, plum cake, biscuits, ­crème-­filled eclairs, and an entire cream cake dappled with fresh strawberries.

The Contessa was sitting behind the cake, and so Brunetti took the last seat, beside her, where, he saw to his relief, there was a short crystal glass and, not far from it, an unopened bottle of the whisky he recalled.

Griffoni poured tea for the Contessa and herself, looked at Brunetti and, in response to his nod, for him as well. Something hot, something hot.

Brunetti turned to the Contessa and noticed how much shorter she seemed, sitting there next to him. Although little more than a month had passed, and her face looked the same, she had grown shorter, and smaller.

‘What may I give you, Contessa?' he asked, indicating the food that lay before them.

Before she answered, the old woman looked to her left, where she saw Griffoni speaking to an unresponsive Manuela. ‘The truth,' she said softly.

‘Let's have something to eat and drink first,' he said.

She reached for the bottle and removed the tax stamp and top.

They ate in relative silence, Griffoni making occasional remarks to the Contessa about the food, then encouraging Manuela to try the cream cake. When they were finished, Griffoni stood and reached to take Manuela's hand. ‘Come on,
Stella
, let's go and tell Gala how good everything was. It will make her happy.' This idea seemed to please Manuela, and she got to her feet, leaving her ­Coca-­Cola and part of her cake unfinished.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Brunetti said, ‘On the way here, Manuela met a man on the street and lost control of herself. She was terrified of him.'

‘What?' the Contessa asked, voice sharp.

‘She screamed at him not to hurt her and backed away from him.' Before the Contessa could question him, Brunetti said, ‘You know the man.'

‘Who is it?'

‘Alessandro ­Vittori-­Ricciardi.'

She set her teacup back in the saucer with such force that a wave of tea spilled over the side and flooded the saucer. ‘That's impossible. Manuela's never met him.'

‘She was terrified of him,' Brunetti repeated, ignoring her last remark, and then asked, ‘How did he come to work for you?'

‘A mutual friend recommended him.'

‘Who?'

‘Roberto Severino.'

Brunetti knew him. An architect. An honest man.

‘Alessandro has done very good work for us,' she said. ‘He's got style and imagination.'

And something to worry about, Brunetti thought.

The Contessa waited to see if he would continue. When he did not, she demanded, ‘How could she be terrified of someone she doesn't know?'

‘Did Vittori submit a curriculum vitae when he applied for work with you?'

‘Of course.'

‘Did it say anything about riding?'

‘Riding?'

‘Horse riding.'

‘I don't think so. I would have remembered.'

‘Do you still have the curriculum
?'

‘We must have. In the foundation's office,' she said. Then she asked, ‘Why do you ask such a thing?'

‘A man looking very much like him appears in a photo at the stable where Manuela's horse was kept.'

‘And who saw this photo?' she asked, making no attempt to disguise her scepticism.

‘I did. When I went to the stable with Claudia.'

‘Are you sure it was he?'

‘I haven't had time to speak to the woman who runs the stables.'

The Contessa said nothing.

‘Could you tell me how well you know him?' Brunetti asked. When she failed to answer, he rephrased the question. ‘How often have you seen him?' He thought of how familiar ­Vittori-­Ricciardi had seemed with the Contessa.

‘I see him three or four times a year.'

‘That's all?'

‘Why should I see more of him?' she asked.

‘The way he spoke at dinner made it seem as though you did.'

‘That was flattery. I hear it all the time,' she said, as though speaking of the weather report. ‘We're in the process of deciding who should get the contract to restore eight new apartments.' She broke off as Claudia and Manuela came back into the room.

‘
Nonna
,' Manuela said, ‘Gala told me you gave her the recipe for the cake with strawberries.' All her anxiety had been smoothed away, or forgotten, while they were in the kitchen.

The Contessa smiled and held out her hand to Manuela, who came dutifully to her and took it. ‘That's an exaggeration,
cara
. A friend served it for dessert, and so I asked her to write down the recipe because I thought you'd like it. I'm happy you do.' When Manuela said nothing, the Contessa tried a direct question. ‘Do you like it?'

‘Yes, it was very good,
Nonna
. Claudia thinks so, too,' she added, glancing across at her friend, ‘don't you, Claudia?'

‘Yes, it's wonderful.'

‘But you didn't want a second piece,' Manuela said, sounding confused by this.

‘I'm invited to dinner tonight, so I have to save a little room,' Griffoni explained, apparently to Manuela's satisfaction. Then, glancing at her watch, she said, ‘Come on, Manuela; it's stopped raining and it's time to go home.'

Brunetti got to his feet, leaving half his whisky in the glass, folded the sweater over the arm of his chair, and put on his jacket. As though summoned by telepathy, Gala appeared at the door with their damp coats over her arm. There were kisses and handshakes, and soon they were walking back towards Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini. The rain had stopped, yet the day seemed colder, although that might have been the result of their damp clothing.

Manuela broke free of Griffoni's arm and hurried from side to side in the
calli,
looking into windows or avoiding puddles, always only a few steps ahead of them.

‘Did she say anything about what happened?' Brunetti asked in a low voice.

Griffoni shook her head. ‘By the time we got to the Contessa's, she'd quietened down. She was happy – you saw her – when we had cake, and she was perfectly natural in the kitchen with Gala.' Manuela came back and took Griffoni's arm for a few steps, and then detached herself and walked ahead again.

‘You think he was the man who attacked her?' Griffoni asked.

Brunetti raised his eyebrows in an expression that could have meant just about anything. ‘I think he worked at the stables, perhaps when she was there. There's a picture on the wall in the office of a man who looks like him. When I first met him, he had a beard, so I didn't recognise him from the photograph. But now he's shaved off his beard I'm sure it's he.' Brunetti slowed his steps and turned to face her when he added, ‘You've seen him.'

Griffoni stopped walking. ‘What? When?'

‘He was in one of those programmes we watched on tele­vision, talking about a project he's working on, something about plaques on buildings, historic things.'

When he saw that she understood, he added, ‘Cavanis had only one channel working on his television; that's the channel he appeared on.'

Before he could say anything further, Griffoni cut him short. ‘That's the Belle Arti.' She grabbed his arm for emphasis. ‘They'd be in charge of anything like that.'

‘Belle Arti,' Brunetti whispered, thinking of the phone number on the scrap of paper in Cavanis' apartment and that he'd told Griffoni about it.

‘What's his name?' she asked in a voice she struggled to keep calm.

‘Alessandro ­Vittori-­Ricciardi.'

She shook her head to show she did not recognize it. Then the two of them stood silent, working it out. Manuela came back, and on seeing them still as statues, thought it was a game, and so raised one arm in the air and put the other hand on her hip. She stood motionless like that for a moment until she tired of it and went back to look in another shop window.

‘Cavanis recognized him,' Brunetti said slowly, his mind already far ahead of his words.

‘And tried to call them because he was drunk and didn't know what time it was,' Griffoni added, a Christe to his Kyrie.

‘And then finally did call him,' Brunetti said, closing the litany.

Griffoni's voice suddenly changed and grew sombre. ‘It's all circumstantial, Guido. A good defence attorney would hang us out to dry in fifteen minutes.'

‘That was his umbrella I picked up,' Brunetti said. ‘Bocchese's got it now.'

She said nothing. Manuela hurried back to ask if they were close to home and seemed pleased to be told they were. When she was off again, Griffoni asked, ‘Until he's done with it and has or doesn't have a match, what are you going to do?'

Brunetti took out his phone and said, ‘Call Enrichetta degli Specchi and see if she has a list of the people who worked at the stables fifteen years ago.'

Sandro Vittori, yet to become ­Vittori-­Ricciardi, had indeed worked at the stables during the time Manuela had kept her horse there. His job had been to clean the stables and hold the bridles of the horses ridden by the youngest students as they circled the ring. Enrichetta degli Specchi managed to find his letter of application and the records of his salary for the six months he was there. Then she called Brunetti back to tell him she had also found a copy of a letter her late husband had sent to Vittori, firing him and forbidding him to return to the stables. At Brunetti's request, she promised to fax it to the Questura but read him a few phrases over the phone. ‘ “ . . . will not have a student of mine treated in such a disrespectful manner . . . young girls placed in my trust . . . actions not to be tolerated”.'

After reading this to Brunetti, she said, ‘My husband was a . . . a private person. That is, he was very good at keeping secrets. If he knew which girl this man was bothering, he wouldn't have told anyone.'

‘Thank you, Signora,' Brunetti said and asked her to fax the letter.

It had arrived by the time they got back to the Questura. It was dated two weeks before Manuela fell into the canal, a description that Brunetti was tired of using. Though the phrases read to him were strong, they left open the exact nature of Vittori's actions. ‘Disrespectful manner', ‘actions not to be tolerated'. They could mean almost anything, from suggestive speech to attempted rape.

Gottardi, the magistrate, when Brunetti insisted on speaking to him, was both sceptical about and interested in Brunetti's description of Manuela's panicked response when they'd met Vittori on the street, but he insisted that they could do nothing unless the fingerprints or
DNA
matched.

Brunetti used the skills taught to him by Signorina Elettra – perfectly legal skills – and checked to see if Vittori or ­Vittori-­Ricciardi had a criminal record. Neither name appeared in any city, provincial, or national list of convicted criminals, information he gave to Gottardi.

‘This delay gives Vittori time to think of excuses, construct an alibi if he has to,' Brunetti told the magistrate in a last effort to persuade him to action.

‘It gives us time to acquire physical evidence,' Gottardi countered, and that was the end of their conversation. After it, Brunetti paused only long enough to call Griffoni and tell her of Gottardi's decision before he took his dejected and ­still-­damp self home.

The next day, to keep himself busy while waiting for news from Bocchese, he decided to occupy himself with his Chinese prostitutes, only to discover that they seemed to have disappeared, as if swept from the Veneto by some force of nature. It turned out that the women, none of whom had produced identification when arrested, had been released and told to return the following day with their documents. None had done so, and when the police eventually got around to checking the addresses, no one at those addresses – one of which was a vegetable stand, another a tobacco shop – knew what the police were talking about.

The Italian owners of the apartments where the women had been installed were duly shocked to learn that the Chinese gentleman who had rented all three apartments had provided false information and could not be traced. By this time, all of the women and the man who had signed the rental contracts had vanished.

His reflections were interrupted by a call from Bocchese, who said directly, ‘Everything – prints,
DNA
 – was compromised by the rain, and there are traces of at least three different people there. I could try to argue that they match the traces on the knife, but a good defence attorney would make a fool of me.'

‘Thanks,' Brunetti said, unable to think of anything else to say. More ambiguity. More inconclusive evidence.

He'd lost track of time while reading the files and now saw that the daylight had faded while he was reading, though it was still too early to think of going home.

Perhaps a conversation with Signor Vittori of the added surname might resolve the ambiguity of some of the information they had. He removed the phone directory from his bottom drawer, thinking how such a simple, common action as consulting its pages had become an archaic ritual.

He found the Vs and then, with no trouble at all, an Alessandro ­Vittori-­Ricciardi – there could not be two in the city – at an address in San Marco. He dialled the number and heard a recorded voice asking the caller to leave a message or try calling a second number, which the voice provided.

He dialled that and was answered by, ‘­Vittori-­Ricciardi.'

‘Ah, Signore,' Brunetti said at his most pleasant. ‘This is Commissario Guido Brunetti. We met yesterday.'

‘I beg your pardon,' the man said.

‘We met in the rain, in Calle del Tintor. You were with your friend, Signor Bembo. Surely you remember.'

‘Ah, of course,' he said in a far more cordial voice. ‘In what way can I be useful to you, Commissario?'

‘By finding time to have a word with me,' Brunetti said with mirrored cordiality. ‘There are a few things I'd like to clarify.'

‘I'm afraid I don't understand,' ­Vittori-­Ricciardi said.

Brunetti forged ahead, as if the other man had not spoken. ‘It's only a formality, Signore, but I'd like to discuss the reaction of that woman when she saw you.'

‘You know there's something wrong with her,' Vittori-­Ricciardi said heatedly. ‘Certainly you can't treat seriously anything she says.'

‘You know her, then?' Brunetti asked mildly.

It took ­Vittori-­Ricciardi a few moments to respond, but when he did, he came back strongly. ‘Of course I know her. She's my employer's granddaughter.'

‘Ah,' Brunetti sighed, and then, as though he'd forgotten, ‘Of course.' He waited to see if the other man would say anything more.

‘That is, I know about her,' ­Vittori-­Ricciardi corrected himself.

‘And recognized her?' Brunetti asked innocently.

There followed another pause, this one longer than the last. ‘She's been pointed out to me in the past.'

‘I see,' Brunetti said calmly. ‘Would it be convenient for you to come and have a few words with me, Signor Vittori?' he asked.

‘Where?'

‘At the Questura. It's where I work,' Brunetti said in his mildest tone.

‘When?'

‘Perhaps tomorrow morning,' Brunetti suggested amiably.

‘What time?'

‘Any time that's convenient for you,' Brunetti replied.

‘Er,' he began and Brunetti realized he was dealing with a man who, however clever he might be, was not very brave: he could easily have refused Brunetti's request but did not. ‘Eleven?'

‘Perfect, I'll expect you then,' Brunetti said in his friendliest voice and replaced the phone.

Immediately he called Griffoni, whom he thought should be present at the interview. ‘­Vittori-­Ricciardi's coming in tomorrow morning at eleven,' he said in place of a greeting. ‘I'd like you to be here when I talk to him.'

‘In what capacity?' she asked, forcing Brunetti to laugh.

‘As the attractive woman he can try to impress with his charm and grace.'

‘A woman not as intelligent as he is, who will have eyes only for him and think everything he says is wonderful?' she asked.

‘Exactly.'

‘And whose interest in him will keep him distracted from what he's saying when you question him because he'll be so busy trying to impress this woman?'

‘Yes,' Brunetti said.

‘And should this woman dress in a particular way?' she asked.

‘I leave that entirely to you, Claudia,' he said and told her he'd see her the next morning.