Authors: Donna Leon
After another half hour Signorina Elettra came in, managing to capture a smile from the barman and the offer of coffee from two men who stood at the bar. Though it was less than a block from the office, she had put on a quilted black silk coat that came to her ankles. She shook her head in polite refusal of coffee and came towards the two policemen. She pulled a few sheets of paper from her pocket and held them up. ‘Child’s play.’ She shook her head in false exasperation. ‘It’s just too easy.’
‘Of course.’ Brunetti smiled and paid for what had passed as lunch.
* * * *
13
Brunetti and Vianello turned up at the travel agency just as it was reopening at 3.30 p.m. and asked to speak to Signor Dorandi. Brunetti glanced back into the
campo
and noticed that the glass in the window was so clean as to seem invisible. The blonde woman at the front desk requested their names, pushed a button on her phone, and a moment later the door at the left of her desk opened, revealing Signor Dorandi.
Not quite as tall as Brunetti, he had a full beard already starting to go grey, though he could not have been much into his thirties. When he saw Vianello’s uniform, he came forward with his hand outstretched, a smile spreading up from the corners of his mouth. ‘Ah, the police. I’m glad you’ve come.’
Brunetti said good-afternoon but didn’t give either of their names, letting Vianello’s uniform serve as sufficient introduction. He asked if they might speak in Signor Dorandi’s office. Turning, the bearded man held open the door for the other two and paused long enough to inquire if they’d like some coffee. Both refused.
Inside, the walls of the office were filled with the predictable posters of beaches, temples and palaces, sure proof that a bad economy and continuing talk of financial crises were not enough to keep Italians at home. Dorandi took his place behind his desk, pushed some papers to the side, and turned to Brunetti, who folded his coat over the back of one of the chairs facing Dorandi and sat down. Vianello lowered himself into the other.
Dorandi was wearing a suit, but something was wrong with it. Distracted, Brunetti tried to figure out what it was, whether the garment was too big or too small, but neither seemed to be the case. Double-breasted, the jacket was cut of some thick blue material which looked like wool but could as easily have been plasterboard. The jacket fell in a straight line, without a single wrinkle, from his shoulder before disappearing behind the desk. Dorandi’s face gave Brunetti the same impression of something being amiss, but he didn’t understand what. Then he noticed the moustache. Dorandi had shaved away the top half, leaving that area of his upper lip clean-shaven, so the adornment ran in a thin straight line under his nose and disappeared into his beard on either side. The trimming had been done very carefully and was clearly not the result of a careless hand, but the proportions of the moustache had been destroyed, and the result was a pasted-on rather than a naturally grown appearance.
‘What may I do for you, gentlemen?’ Dorandi asked, smiling and placing his folded hands in front of him.
‘I’d like you to tell me a bit about Dottor Mitri and the agency, if you would,’ Brunetti said.
‘Ah, yes, gladly.’ Dorandi paused for a moment while he thought where to begin. ‘I’ve known him for years, since I first came here to work.’
‘When was that exactly?’ Brunetti asked.
Vianello took a pad from his pocket, opened it on his lap, and began to take notes.
Dorandi turned his chin to the side and stared at the poster on the far wall, looking for the answer in Rio. He turned back to Brunetti and said, ‘It will be exactly six years in January.’
‘And what position did you have when you came?’ Brunetti inquired.
‘The same as I have now: manager.’
‘But aren’t you also the owner?’
Dorandi smiled as he answered, ‘In everything but name, I am. I own the business, but Dottor Mitri still holds the licence.’
‘What exactly does that mean?’
Again, Dorandi consulted the helpful city on the far wall. When he’d found the answer, he turned back to Brunetti. ‘It means that I decide who gets hired and fired, on what advertizing to use, what special offers to make, and I also get to keep the major portion of the earnings.’
‘What portion?’
‘Seventy-five per cent.’
‘And the rest went to Dottor Mitri?’
‘Yes. As well as rent.’
‘Which was?’
‘The rent?’ Dorandi asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Three million lire a month.’
‘And the profits?’
‘Why is it you need to know this?’ Dorandi asked in the same level voice.
‘At this point, Signore, I’ve no idea what I need to know and what not. I am simply trying to accumulate as much information about Dottor Mitri and his affairs as I can.’
‘To what purpose?’
‘To better understand why he was killed.’
Dorandi’s answer was instant. ‘I thought that was made very clear by the note you found.’
Brunetti raised a hand as if in concession to this idea. ‘I think it’s important that we learn as much as we can about him, just the same.’
‘There was a note, wasn’t there?’ Dorandi demanded.
‘Where did you hear that, Signor Dorandi?’
‘It was in the papers, in two of them.’
Brunetti nodded. ‘Yes, there was a note.’
‘Did it say what the papers say it did?’
Brunetti, who had seen the papers, nodded.
‘But that’s absurd.’ Dorandi said, voice raised, as if it were Brunetti who had written the words. ‘There’s no child pornography here. We don’t cater for pederasts. The whole thing’s ridiculous.’
‘Have you any idea why someone might have written that, Signore?’
‘Probably because of that madwoman,’ Dorandi said, making no attempt to disguise his disgust and rage.
‘Which madwoman is that?’ Brunetti asked.
Dorandi paused a long time before he answered this, studying Brunetti’s face carefully, looking for the trick in the question. Finally he said, ‘That woman who threw the stone. She began all this. If she hadn’t started with her insane accusations - all lies, all lies - then nothing would have happened.’
‘Are they lies, Signor Dorandi?’
‘How dare you ask that?’ Dorandi bent towards Brunetti, voice raised. ‘Of course they’re lies. We have nothing to do here with child pornography or with pederasts.’
‘That was the note, Signor Dorandi.’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘They are two different accusations, Signore. I’m trying to understand why the person who wrote the note might have believed that the agency was involved in pederasty and child pornography.’
‘And I’ve told you why,’ Dorandi said on a note of rising exasperation. ‘Because of that woman. She went to all the papers, libelling me, libelling the agency, saying we arranged sex-tours...’
‘But nothing about pederasty or child pornography?’ Brunetti interrupted.
‘What’s the difference to a madwoman? Everything’s the same to them, anything that has to do with sex.’
‘Then do the tours the agency arranged have something to do with sex?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Dorandi shouted. Then, hearing how loud his voice was, he closed his eyes for a moment, unfolded and carefully refolded his hands, and said in an entirely normal voice, ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I must have got it wrong.’ Brunetti shrugged, then asked, ‘But why would this madwoman, as you call her, say those things? Why would anyone, indeed, say those things?’
‘Misunderstanding.’ Dorandi’s smile was back. ‘You know how it is with people: they see what they want to see, make things mean what they want them to mean.’
‘Specifically?’ Brunetti asked with a pleasant expression.
‘Specifically I mean what this woman has done. She sees our posters for tours to exotic places - Thailand, Cuba, Sri Lanka - then she reads some hysterical article in some feminist magazine that claims there is child prostitution in those places and that travel agencies arrange tours there, sex-tours, and she puts the two things together in some crazy way, and comes here at night and destroys my window.’
‘Doesn’t that seem an excessive response? Without proof, I mean.’ Brunetti’s voice was all sweet reason.
Dorandi answered with more than a touch of sarcasm, ‘That’s why they’re called crazy people: because they do crazy things. Of course it’s an excessive reaction. And utterly without cause.’
Brunetti allowed a long pause to spread out between them, and then said, ‘In the
Gazzettino
you were quoted as saying that just as many women go to Bangkok as do men. That is, that most of the men who buy tickets to Bangkok take women along with them.’
Dorandi looked down at his joined hands, but didn’t answer. Brunetti reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out the sheets of paper Signorina Elettra had given him. ‘Would you be willing to be a bit more precise about that, Signor Dorandi?’ Brunetti asked, looking down at the papers.
‘About what?’
‘The number of men who took women with them when they went to Bangkok. Say in the last year.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Brunetti didn’t waste a smile on him. ‘Signor Dorandi, I’ll remind you that this is a murder investigation, which means that we have the right to request, or demand, if we are forced to do so, certain information from the people involved.’
‘What do you mean, “involved”?’ Dorandi spluttered.
‘That should be clear to you,’ Brunetti answered in a level voice. ‘This is a travel agency, which sells a certain number of tickets and arranges tours to what you call “exotic” locations. An accusation has been made that these are for the purposes of sex-tourism, which I hardly need remind you is now illegal in this country. A man, the owner of this agency, has been murdered and a note left suggesting that these tours might be the motive for that crime. You yourself seem to believe that there is a connection. So it would appear that the agency is involved and so are you as its manager.’ Brunetti paused for a moment, before asking, ‘Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes.’ Dorandi’s voice was sullen.
‘Then would you mind telling me how accurate your statement - or, if I might speak more plainly - how true your statement was that most of the men who went to Bangkok took women along with them?’
‘Of course it’s true,’ Dorandi insisted, shifting to the left side of his chair, one hand still on the desk in front of him.
‘Not according to your ticket sales, Signor Dorandi.’
‘My what?’
‘The sales of plane tickets made by your agency, all of which, I’m sure you must know, are kept in a centralized computer system.’ Brunetti saw this register and went on, ‘Most of the tickets to Bangkok that your agency sold, during the last six months at least, were to men travelling alone.’
Almost before he could think, Dorandi blurted out, ‘Their wives joined them later. They were travelling on business, the men, and their wives joined them.’
‘Did they buy tickets from your agency?’
‘How do I know?’
Brunetti placed the papers, face up, on the desk in front of him, leaving them in plain sight, open to Dorandi if he chose to try to read them. He drew a deep breath. ‘Signor Dorandi, shall we start again with this? I’ll repeat my question and this time I’d like you to consider your answer before you give it to me.’ He paused a long time, then asked, ‘Did the men who bought tickets to Bangkok through your agency travel with women or not?’