Death and Judgement (20 page)

'Yes, it seems that the bar was used by some of the people involved in the bombing of
the
museum in Florence
’
Brunetti said, inventing as he went along,
‘I
suppose I shouldn't tell you this, but as you seem to be caught up in it, I don't see why we shouldn't speak of it'

'Florence?' Silvestri could do no more than repeat what he heard.

'Yes, from what
little
I've been told, the phone in
the
bar has been used to pass on messages. Those boys have had a tap on it for a month or so. Everything according to the rules - orders from a judge.' Brunetti waved the folder in the air. 'When my men arrested you last night I tried to tell those others that you were just a
little
fish, one of ours, but they won't listen to me.'

'What does that mean?' Silvestri asked in a voice from which all anger had disappeared.

'It means they're going to hold you under the antiterrorism law.' Brunetti closed the file and got to his feet 'It's just a misunderstanding between services, you understand, Signor Silvestri. They'll hold you for forty-eight hours.'

'But my lawyer?'

'You can call him then, Signor Silvestri. It'll only be forty-eight hours and-you've already passed', Brunetti began, pushing back his cuff to look at his watch, 'ten of
them
. So you just have to wait a day and a half, and you'll be free to call your lawyer, and I'm sure he
’
ll have you out of here in no time at all.' Brunetti smiled.

'Why are you here?' Silvestri asked, suspicious.

'Since it was one of my men who arrested you, I felt that, well, I frit that I was the one, you might say, to get you into this, so I thought the least I could do was come by and explain it to you. I've dealt with the fellows from SISMI before,' Brunetti said wearily, 'and there's no talking sense to them. The law says they can keep you for forty-eight hours without notifying anyone, and I guess we'll just have to live with it.' He looked down at his watch again. 'It'll pass like nothing, Signor Silvestri, I'm sure. If you'd like any magazines, just let my man outside know, all right?' Saying that, Brunetti got to his feet and started towards the door.

'Please,' Silvestri said, certainly the first time in his life he'd addressed that word to a policeman. 'Please don't go.'

Brunetti turned round and tilted his head to one side in open curiosity. 'Have you thought of some magazines you'd like?
Panorama?
Architectural
Digest? Famiglia
Christiana?

'What do you want?' Silvestri said, voice harsh but not with anger. The film of sweat on his brow stood out in thick beads.

Brunetti saw that there was no further necessity to play with him. So much for tough Franco, hard as nails.

Voice severe and level, Brunetti demanded, 'Who calls you on the phone in that bar and who do you call?'

Silvestri ran both hands up across his face and through his thick hair, plastering his forelock to his skull. He rubbed his mouth with one hand, pulling repeatedly at the edge, as if attempting to remove a stain. "There's a man who calls and tells me when new girls will arrive.'

Brunetti said nothing.

‘I
don't know who he is or where he calls from. But he calls me every month or so and tells me where to pick them up. They're already broken in. I just have to get them and set them to work.'

'And the money?'

Sil
vestri said nothing. Brunetti turned and headed towards the door.

'I give it to a woman. Every month. When he calls me, he tells me where to meet the woman, and when, and I give her the money.'

'How much?
’

‘All
of it.'

'All
of what?'

'Everything that's left after I pay for the rooms and pay the girls.'

'How much is that?'

'It depends,' he said evasively.

'You're wasting my time, Silvestri,' Brunetti said,
unle
ashing his anger.

'Some months it's 40 or 50 million. Some months it's less.' Which, to Brunetti, meant that some months it was more.

'Who's the woman?'

‘I
don't know. I've never seen her.'

'What do you mean?'

'He tells me where her car will be parked. It's a white Mercedes. I have to come at it from behind, open the back door, and put the money on the back seat. Then she drives away.'

'And you've never seen her?'

'She wears a scarf. And sunglasses.'

is she tall? Thin? White? Black?-Blonde? Old? Come on, Silvestri, you don't have to see a woman's face to know this.'

'She's not short, but I don't know what colour hair she has. I've never seen her face, but I don't think she's old.'

'What licence plates does the car have?'
‘I
don't know.' 'Didn't you see it?'

'No. I always do it at night, and the lights in the car are off.' He was sure Silvestri was lying, but Brunetti could also sense that he was near the end of what he would tell.

'Where do you meet her?'

'On the street. Mestre. Once in Treviso. Different places. He tells me where to go when he calls.'

'And the girls. How do you pick them up?'

'Same way. He tells me a street corner and how many there'll be, and I meet them with my car.'

'Who brings them?'

'No one. I get there, and they're waiting.' 'Just like that? Like sheep?'

'They know better than to try anything,' Silvestri said, voice suddenly savage. 'Where do they come from?'

‘
All over.
’

'What does that
them
?' 'Lots of cities. Different countries.' 'How do they get here?' 'What do you mean?'

'How do they come to be part of your
...
part of your delivery?'

'They're just whores. How do you expect me to know? For Christ's sake, I don't talk to them.' Suddenly Silvestri jammed his hands into his pockets and demanded, 'When are you going to get me out of here?'

'How many have there been?'

'No more,' Silvestri shouted, getting up from the chair and moving towards Brunetti. 'No more. Get me out of here.
’

Brunetti didn't move and Silvestri backed off a few steps. Brunetti tapped on the door, which was quickly opened by Gravini. Stepping out in the hall, Brunetti waited while
the
officer closed the door, then said, '"wait an hour and a half, men let him go.'

'Yes, sir,' Gravini said and saluted the back of his superior as Brunetti walked away.

22

His session with Mara and her pimp hadn't put Brunetti in the most favourable of moods for dealing with Signora Trevisan and her late husband's business partner, to call Martucci by but one of the offices he filled, but he made the necessary phone call to the widow, insisting that it was imperative to the progress of his investigation that he have a few words with her and, if possible, with Signor Martucci. Their separate accounts of where they had been the night Trevisan was murdered had been checked: Signora Trevisan s maid confirmed that her mistress had not gone out that evening, and a friend of Martucci s had phoned him at 9.30 and found him at home.

Long experience had told Brunetti that it was always best to allow people to select the place in which they were to be interviewed: they invariably selected the place in which they felt most comfortable, and thus they enjoyed the erroneous belief that control of location equalled contr
ol of content. Predictably, Sig
nora Trevisan selected her home, where Brunetti arrived at the precise hour, 5.30. His spirit still roughened from his encounter with Franco Silvestri, Brunetti was predisposed to disapprove of whatever hospitality
might be offered him: a cocktail would be too cosmopolitan, tea too pretentious.

But after Signora Trevisan, today dressed in sober navy blue, led him into a sitting room that contained too few chairs and too much taste, Brunetti realized he had presumed too much upon his sense of his own importance and that he was to be treated as an intruder, not a representative of the state. The widow offered him her hand, and Martucci stood when she led Brunetti into the room, but neither bothered to rise above the bare requirement of civility. Their solemn manner and long faces, Brunetti suspected, were meant to demonstrate the grief he was intruding upon, shared grief at the departure of a beloved husband and friend. But Brunetti had been rendered sceptical of both by his conversation with Judge Beniamin, and perhaps he had been rendered sceptical of humanity in general by his brief conversation with Franco Silvestri.

Quickly, Brunetti reeled off his formulaic thanks for their having agreed to talk to him. Martucci nodded; Signora Trevisan gave no sign of having heard him.

'Signora Trevisan,' Brunetti began,
‘I
would like to obtain some information about your husband's finances.' She said nothing, asked for no explanation. 'Could you tell me what becomes of your husband's law practice?'

‘
You can ask me about that,' Martucci interrupted.

‘I
did, two days ago,' Brunetti said. 'You told me very little.'

'We've had more information since then,' Martucci said.

'Do
es that mean you've read the will
?' Brunetti asked, quiedy pleased to see how much his tastelessness surprised
them
both.

Martucci's voice remained calm and polite.
‘
Signora Trevisan has asked me to serve as her lawyer in the settling of her husband's estate, if that's what you mean.
’

'That answer will do as well as another, I suppose,
’
Brunetti said, interested that Martucci could not easily be baited. Must come of practising corporate law, Brunetti reflected, where everyone's forced to be polite. Brunetti continued, 'What happens to the law firm?'

'Signora Trevisan retains 60 per cent'

Brunetti said nothing for so long that Martucci was forced to add, 'And I retain 40.
’

'May I ask when this will was drawn up?'

'Two years ago,' Martucci answered with no hesitation.

'And when did you join Signor Trevisan's firm,
Avvocato
Martucci?'

Signora Trevisan turned her very pale eyes on Brunetti and spoke for the first time since they came into the room. 'Commissario, before you become too exercised in pursuit
of your own vulgar curiosity, m
ight I inquire as to the final goal of these questions?
’

'If they have a goal, signora, it is in gaining information to help in finding the person who murdered your husband.'

'It would seem to me', she began, propping her elbows on the arms of her chair and pressing her hands into a steeple in front of her, 'that this would be true only if some connection existed
between the conditions of his wil
l and his murder. Or am I being too simple-minded for you?' When Brunetti felled to answer immediately, she graced him with a sliver of a smile, it
is
possible for things to be too simple-minded for you, isn't it, commissario?'

I'm certain it is, signora,' Brunetti said, glad he had managed to provoke at least one of them 'Hence I like to ask questions with simple answers. This one has a number, how long Signor Martucci worked for your husband.'

Two years,' Martucci answered.

Brunetti turned his attention back to the lawyer, intent on him now, and asked, 'And if I might ask about the other dispositions of the will?'

Martucci started to answer, but Signora Trevisan held up a hand to silence him.
I
’ll answer this, avv
ocato.' Then, turning to Brunetti, she said, 'The bulk of Carlo's property, as is entirely common under the law, is left to me, as his widow, and to his children in equal shares. There are some other bequests to relatives and friends, but
the
bulk comes to us. Does that satisfy your curiosity?'

'Yes, signora, it does.
’

Martucci shifted in his seat, preparing to rise, and said, if that's all you came for
..
.
’

‘I
have some other questions,' Brunetti said, turning to Signora Trevisan, 'for you, signora.'

She nodded without bothering to answer him and gave a calming glance in Martucci's direction.

'Do you have a car?'

‘I’m
afraid I don't understand your question,' she said after a short pause.

Brunetti repeated, 'Do you have a car?' 'Yes.'

'What kind?'

'I don't see what sense this makes,
’
Martucci interrupted.

Ignoring him, Signora Trevisan said, 'It's a BMW. Three years old. Green.'

'Thank you,' Brunetti said, face impassive, and men asked, 'Your brother, signora, does he leave a family?'

'No. He and his wife never had children.'

Martucci interrupted again. 'I'm sure your records must tell you that.'

Ignoring him, Brunetti asked, choosing his words carefully, 'Did your brother have anything to do with prostitutes?'

Martucci jumped to his feet, but Brunetti ignored him; his attention was riveted on Signora Trevisan. Her head shot up when she heard the question, and then, almost as though listening to an echo of it, she looked away from him for a moment, then brought her eyes back to his. Two very slow beats passed before her face displayed any anger, and then she said in a loud, declamatory voice, 'My brother had no need for whores.'

Martucci caught the tail of her anger and used it to swing his own towards Brunetti.
‘I
will not permit you to insult the memory of Signora Trevisan's brother. Your accusation is disgusting and offensive. We don't have to listen to your insinuations.' He paused to gather breath, and Brunetti could almost hear his lawyer's mind spring into action. 'Furthermore, your remark is slanderous, and I have Signora Trevisan as a witness to what you've said.' He looked from one to the other for a response, but neither had paid the least attention to his explosion.

Brunetti never glanced away from Signora Trevisan, nor did she make any attempt to avoid his eyes. Martucci started to speak again, but then stopped, confused at the attention they seemed to be paying to one another, missing the fact that what engaged them was not the slanderous potential of Brunetti "s last remark but, rather, its exact phrasing.

Brunetti waited until the others realized that he wanted an answer, not righteous indignation. He saw her consider the question and how to answer it. He thought he saw some revelation move from her eyes to her Hps, but just as she was about to speak, Martucci started up again.
‘I
demand an apology.' When Brunetti didn't bother to answer him, Martucci took two steps towards Brunetti until he stood between him and Signora Trevisan, blocking their view of one another.
‘I
demand an apology,' he repeated, looking down at Brunetti.

'Of course, of course,' Brunetti said with singular lack of interest.
‘
You can have as many apologies as you like.' Brunetti got to his feet and stepped to Martucci's side, but Signora Trevisan had looked away and didn't bother to look up at him. One glance told him that Martucci's interruption ha
d served to drive all urge towards confidence fr
om her; Brunetti saw there was no sense in repeating himself.

'Signora,' he said, 'if you decide to answer my question, you'll find me at the Questura.' Saying nothing eke, he stepped around Martucci and left the room, then let himself out of the house without bothering to call the maid, who was nowhere to be seen.

As
he walked home, Brunetti thought about how dose he had just come to that moment of contact that he sometimes managed to create between himself and a witness or
a
suspect, that delicate point of balance when some chance phrase or word would suddenly spur
a
person to reveal something they had tried to keep hidden. What had she been about to say, and what had Lotto had to do with prostitutes? And
the
woman in
the
Mercedes? Wis she the woman who had dinner with Favero the night he was killed? Brunetti asked himself what could happen during dinner to make
a
woman so nervous or forgetful that she would leave behind
a
pair of glasses worth more than a million fire. And had it been something that happened during dinner or what she knew was going to happen after dinner that made her nervous? The questions swirled around Brunetti, Furies calling to him and mocking him because he didn't know the answers and, worse, because he didn't even know which questions were important.

When he left the Trevisan apartment, Brunetti turned automatically toward the Accademia Bridge and home. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that it took him some time to notice that the street seemed crowded. He glanced down at his watch, puzzled that there should be so many people in this part of the city more than a half-hour before the shops closed He looked at them more carefully and saw that they were Italians: both men and women were too well dressed and groomed to be anything eke.

He abandoned any thought of hurrying and allowed the flow to carry him towards Campo San Stefano. From the bottom of the closest bridge, he heard amplified sound but could not distinguish it clearly.

Down the narrow slot of the last
call
e
they pulled him and men, suddenly, freed him into the darkening
campo.
Directly in front of him was
the
statue Brunetti had always thought of as the Meringue Man, so starkly white and porous was
the
marble from which he was carved Other people, seeing
the
pile of books that seemed to issue from beneath his coat, called him something more indelicate.

To Brunetti's right, a wooden platform had been erected along the side of the church of San Stefano. A few wooden chairs stood on it; the front corners held enormous speakers. From three wooden poles at the back of the platform hung the limp flags bearing the Italian tricolor,
the
lion of San Marco, and the newly minted symbol of what had once been the Christian Democratic party.

Brunetti moved over closer to the statue and stepped behind the low metal fence that encircled its base. About a hundred people stood in front of the platform; from that group three men and a woman broke away and walked up the steps of the platform. Loud music suddenly blared forth. Brunetti thought it was the national anthem, but the volume and the static made it difficult to tell.

A man in jeans and a bomber jacket handed a microphone with a long hanging wire up to one of the men on the platform. He held it at his side for a while, smiled at
the
crowd, shitted the microphone to his left hand, and shook hands with
the
people on
the
platform. From below, the man in the jacket lifted a hand and made a cutting gesture, but
the
music didn't stop.

The man on the platform held the microphone up to his mouth and said something, but
the
music rode above it and made it incomprehensible. He held the microphone out at arm's length and tapped at it with one hand, but this came through as six muffled pistol shots.

A pod of people broke away from the crowd and went into a bar. Six more walked around towards the front of
the
church and disappeared up Calle della Mandorla. The man in the bomber jacket clambered up on to the platform and did something to the wires at the back of one of
the
speakers. That speaker went suddenly dead, but music and static continued to blare forth from
the
other. He walked hurriedly across the platform and knelt behind
the
other speaker.