A Venetian Reckoning (33 page)

'And lied and lied and done nothing
but lie to me,' Brunetti said, letting his anger rise. 'No more lies, or I'll
have you and your lover down at the Questura and the Guardia di Finanza going
over every bank transaction you've made for the last ten years.' He took a step
towards her, and she backed away from him, putting one hand out in front of her
to push back his rage.

'I still don't know...' she began,
but Brunetti cut her off with a hand thrust up so savagely that it succeeded
in scaring even himself.

'Don't even think about lying to me,
signora. My daughter's seen the tape, the one from Bosnia.' He raised his voice
above whatever protest it was she started to make. 'My daughter's fourteen, and
she's seen that tape.' Relendessly, as she backed away from him, he followed
her down the hall. 'You will tell me everything you know about this, no lies,
none, or you will regret it every one of your living days.'

She looked at him, eyes as terrified,
he realized, as the woman in the tape's had been, but even that resemblance
left him cold.

Not the jaws, nothing more sinister
than a door, opened behind her, and her daughter's head popped out. 'What is
it, Mamma?' Francesca asked and men looked at Brunetti. She recognized him
instantly but said nothing.

'Go back in your room, Francesca,'
her mother said, amazing Brunetti by the coolness of her voice. 'Commissario
Brunetti has to ask a few more questions.'

'About Papi and Zio Ubaldo?' she
asked, making no attempt to disguise her interest.

'I said I'd talk to him, Francesca.'

'I'm sure you will,' the girl said
and went back into her room, closing her door quietly.

In the same calm voice, Signora
Trevisan said, 'All right,' and turned towards the room in which their previous
interviews had taken place.

Inside, she sat, but Brunetti
remained standing, moving uneasily from foot to foot while she spoke or taking
short steps back and forth, too torn by emotion to remain still.

'What do you want to know?' she asked
as soon as she was seated.

"The films.'

"They're made in Bosnia.
Sarajevo, I think.' 'I know that.'

"Then what do you want to know?'
she asked, feigning ignorance, but doing it badly.

'Signora,' he said, standing still
for a moment, 'I am warning you that I will destroy you if you don't tell me
what I want to know.' He watched the tone register. "The tapes. Tell me.'

She adjusted her voice and managed to
sound, now, like a hostess who has been much put upon by a particularly
fractious guest, "They're made there, and then some are sent to France,
where they're reproduced. Others go to the United States, and the same thing
happens there. Then they're sold.'

‘Where?'

'In shops. Or through the mails.
There are lists.' 'Who has these lists?' 'The distributors.’ 'And who are
they?'

'I don't know their names. The master
films get sent to postboxes in Marseilles and Los Angeles.'

'Who makes the originals?'

'Someone in Sarajevo. I think he
works for the Serbian army, but I'm not sure.’

'Did your husband know who he is?' He
saw her begin to answer and added, 'I want the truth, signora.’

'Yes, he knew.'

'Whose idea was it to make these
films?'

‘I don't know. I think Carlo might
have seen one. He liked things like that. And then I think the idea came to him
to distribute them. He was already distributing other things through the mail
and in shops in Germany.'

"What things?'

'Magazines.'

'What sort of magazines?'
'Pornographic'

'Signora, pornographic magazines are
available on every news-stand in this city. What sort of pornography?'

Her voice was so low that he had to
lean forward to hear it 'Children.' She said nothing else, only the one word.

Brunetti said nothing, waiting for
her to continue. 'Carlo said that there was nothing illegal about it' It took
Brunetti a moment to realize that she was serious.

'How did your daughter come by this
film?'

'Carlo kept the master tapes in his
study. He liked to watch the new ones before he had them sent off? Her voice
grew sharp with disapproval as she said, ‘I suppose she got in there and took
one. It never would have happened if Carlo were still here.'

Brunetti did not presume to interfere
with a widow's grief and so asked, instead, 'How many tapes have there been?'

'Oh, I don't know. A dozen or so,
perhaps twenty.' 'All the same?'

‘I don't know. I have no idea what
you mean by "the same".'

'Tapes in which women are raped and
murdered'

She gave him a look rich with disgust
at his daring to speak of such ug’y things, ‘I think so’

'You think so or you know so?'

‘I suppose I know so.'

'Who else was involved in this?'

Her answer was immediate, ‘I wasn't
involved.'

'Aside from your husband and your
brother, who else was involved?'

'I think that man in Padua.'

'Favero?'

'Yes.'

'Who else?'

'With the tapes, no one else that I
know of? 'And with the other thing, with the prostitutes, who else?'

‘I think there was a woman. I don't
know who she was, but I know Carlo used her to help transfer new girls.'
Brunetti heard how naturally she answered his questions about 'the girls', so
casually admitting to full knowledge of her husband's traffic in prostitutes.

'From where?’

'All over. I don't know.'

‘Who was she?'

‘I don't know. They said very little
about her,'

'What did they say?’

'Nothing, nothing.'

'What did they say about her?’

‘I don't remember. Ubaldo said
something once, I think, but I really don't remember.' 'What did he say?'

'He called her "The Slav",
but I don't know what he meant'

‘To Brunetti, it seemed clear what he
had meant. 'Was she a Slav?'

She lowered her voice and looked away
from him before she answered, ‘I think so.'

'Who is she? Where does she live?'

He watched her weigh this question
before she answered, watched her try to predict how much trouble an honest
answer would cost her. He wheeled away from her and took two steps, then as
suddenly wheeled again and came to stand in front of her. 'Where is she?'

‘I think she lives here.'

‘In Venice?'

'Yes.'

'What else do you know?' 'She has a
job.'

'Signora, most people have jobs. What
is hers?'

'She arranges, that is, she arranged
Ubaldo's and Carlo's flights’

'Signora Ceroni?' Brunetti asked,
surprising Signora Trevisan by his question.

‘I think so.'

'What else did she do for them?'

‘I don't know,' she said, but before
he could move any closer to her, she said, ‘I really don't know. I heard them
talk to her on the phone a few times.'

'About plane tickets?' he asked,
making no attempt to disguise his sarcasm.

'No, about other things. Girls.
Money.' 'Do you know her?’ 'No, I've never met her.'

'Did you ever hear her name used when
they talked about the tapes?'

'They never talked about the tapes.
Not really. They just said things, and I understood what they meant'

He didn't bother to contradict her,
certain as he was that this was going to become the truth around which her future
would be constructed — to suspect is not to know, and if you don't know, men
you aren't responsible, not in any real way, for what happens. His certainty
grew so strong that Brunetti's soul sickened with it, and he knew he could no
longer stay in the same room with this woman. With no explanation, he turned
and left her, dosing the door behind him. He could not bear the thought of
speaking to the girl, and so he left the apartment, left them bom there to
begin constructing a convenient future.

The darkness and cold into which
Brunetti emerged served to quiet him. He looked down at his watch and saw that
it was after nine. He should be both hungry and thirsty, he knew, but his rage
had driven both from him.

He couldn't remember the home address
that they had got for Signora Ceroid beyond that it was in San Vio and that,
when he had seen it he had wondered how close it would be to the Church of La
Salute. He checked it in a phone book in a bar and took the No. 1 boat across
the Grand Canal to the Salute stop. He round the house not only near the
church, but looking out at it from the other side of the small canal that ran
along the side of the church. Her name was on the bell. He rang it and, after a
minute or so, heard a woman's voice asking who it was. He gave his name and,
with no further questions, she buzzed him in.

He paid no attention to the hallway,
to the stairs, or to what sort of greeting she gave him at the door. She led
him into a large living room, one wall of which was covered with books. Soft
lighting glowed down from lights that must have been concealed behind the beams
that ran across the ceiling. None of this interested him. Nor her loveliness
nor the soft elegance of her clothing.

'You didn't tell me you knew Carlo
Trevisan,' he said when they were seated facing one another.

‘I told you he was a client of mine.’
As he forced himself to calm down, he began to take notice of her, of the beige
dress, the carefully combed hair, the silver buckles on her shoes.

'Signora,' Brunetti said with a weary
shake of his head, 'I'm not talking about his being a client of yours. I'm
talking about your being in business with him or working for him.'

She tilted her chin up and, mouth
slightly ajar, stared off to one side of the room, as if he'd asked her to make
a difficult decision. After what seemed a long time, she spoke, ‘I told you,
the last time we spoke, that I do not want to become involve
d
with the
authorities.'

'And I told you that you already
are.'

'So it seems,’ she said without
humour. 'What did you do for Signor Trevisan?' if you know that I worked for
him, then you probably have no need to ask me that.'

'Answer the question, Signora
Ceroni.' ‘I collected money for him.' 'What money?'

'The money that was given to him by
various men.'

'Money from prostitutes?'

'Yes.'

'You know this is illegal, living off
the earnings of a prostitute?'

'Of course I know it,’ she said
angrily.

'Yet you did it?’

‘I just told you that I did.'

'What else did you do for him?'

‘I see no reason I should make your
job any easier for you, commissario.'

'Did you have anything to do with the
tapes?’ he asked.

If he had struck her, her response
could have been no stronger. She got halfway up from her seat and then,
remembering where she was and who he was, sat down again. Brunetti sat and
looked at her, making a list of the things that had to be done: find her doctor
and see if she had ever been prescribed Roipnol; show her photo to the people
who had been on the train with Trevisan and see if they recognized her; check
the phone records from her office and home; send her name, photo, and
fingerprints to Interpol; check credit-card receipts to see if she had ever
rented a car and thence knew how to drive. In short, do all the things he
should have done the instant he found out whose glasses they were.

'Did you have anything to do with the
tapes?' he asked again.