The Golden Egg (15 page)

‘They seem to like the letter,' Signorina Elettra said.

Ignoring this and pointing at the screen, Brunetti asked, ‘How many years ago was this?'

She flicked the screen back to the magazine cover and let him read: twelve years before. Lucrezia would have been fifty, with a face that appeared to have been kept behind for a decade or so. Her children looked in their late teens, so they'd be approaching or in their early thirties now.

‘The young man?' he asked.

‘Her husband, you mean,' Signorina Elettra said, and Brunetti felt a wave of pathos sweep across him, as if he'd heard of the illness or death of a friend.

Not wanting Signorina Elettra to accuse him of judging people rashly, nor of that equal crime of throwing his compassion around with too liberal a hand, he said nothing, but he did take another look at the face and posture of the young man. His body bristled with confidence: was there a desire that had not been answered? Was there something he still longed to have?

Brunetti forced himself to look away from the photo, troubled that his feelings against this unknown man could be so unreasonably strong. He told himself to stop behaving like a teenage Sir Galahad and said, ‘What about the other sister, or sisters?'

‘There were three altogether,' she answered. ‘Lavinia and Lorenza, and Lucrezia.'

‘They were stretching a bit with Lorenza,' Brunetti said, relieved to have so easily rediscovered his ironic tone.

‘As it happens, she died.'

‘What happened?'

‘According to the reports I read, she drowned in their swimming pool,' Signorina Elettra answered. Brunetti's memory fled to the first photo.

‘Where?'

‘No,' she said, ‘not there.' Then quickly, ‘I should have explained. They had a ranch in Chile, some kind of
finca
, it sounds like, and she was found there.' Before he could ask, she said, ‘Eight years ago.' Then, soberly, ‘She was the baby of the family, only twenty when it happened.'

Brunetti had been busy working out the dates and, when he had finished, he asked, ‘Same mother?'

‘No. He left the first one after thirty-four years and set up a household with – are you ready? – the physical therapist who took care of him after he broke his shoulder in a skiing accident. Lorenza was their daughter.'

‘How old was he?'

‘When he left?'

‘Yes.'

‘Sixty.'

It was a common enough story and certainly none of his business. It had usually happened to his friends when they were about forty: all Lembo had done was wait a generation. ‘He died last year, didn't he?' Brunetti asked. He had a vague memory of reading about his death, but what he remembered most was his surprise that the newspapers would engage in so much hand-wringing over the death of another dinosaur.

‘Yes. They were here, but not living in the
palazzo
.'

‘Where? They?'

‘He was living on the Giudecca. Not with the physical therapist: she left him after the daughter died. He had a companion and people who came to clean and cook. He wasn't married to the companion.'

Brunetti had the strange sensation that he had just played another round of the backward plot game with his family. Wealthy blonde marries gigolo young enough to be her son. Wealthy man unable to produce a male heir, leaves wife for younger woman, only to have another daughter. Daughter dies. ‘And the other daughter? Lavinia?'

Signorina Elettra made no move towards the keys. ‘She studied abroad and lives abroad. She's fifty-one now.'

‘Where is she?'

‘Ireland. Teaching mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin.' Before he could ask, she said, ‘She's been to her classes this week.'

Brunetti felt relief pass over him at this suggestion that one of the daughters had turned out well. He returned his attention to Lucrezia and asked, ‘Could you go back and show me the name of her doctor again?'

‘Whose?' she asked, surprised.

‘Signora Cavanella's.'

She quickly brought up the medical records, and he wrote down the name, address, and phone number of the doctor. The name seemed familiar, Luca Proni. Hadn't he been at school with Umberto Proni? Surely there could not be more than one family in the city with that name.

He pulled out his phone and dialled the number of the doctor's office. A recorded message told him the doctor's office hours were 9–13 and 16–19, Monday to Friday. For emergencies, patients could reach him on his
telefonino.
Brunetti was astonished to hear such a message from a family doctor, and even more so when it was followed by the number. He wrote down the number and immediately dialled it.

After three rings, a deep voice answered with, ‘Proni.'

‘Dottor Proni,' Brunetti said, deciding not to waste time and not to deceive. ‘This is Guido Brunetti. I was at school with Umberto.'

‘You're the one who became a policeman, aren't you?' he asked in an entirely neutral voice.

‘Yes.'

‘Umberto's often spoken of you.' From the way he said it, there was no way of gauging what Umberto might have said.

‘Spoken well, I hope,' Brunetti said lightly, trying to remember anything Umberto might have told him, all those years ago, about his older brother. Nothing came.

‘Always.' Then, ‘How may I help you, Commissario?'

‘You're listed as Ana Cavanella's doctor.'

There was a brief hesitation. ‘Yes, I am.'

‘Then you've been told, Dottore?' Brunetti asked. He was her doctor, so the hospital would have called him.

‘About what?' Proni asked in a voice somewhere between curiosity and concern, but nowhere near alarm.

‘Signora Cavanella's in the hospital.'

‘What?' the doctor asked.

‘I'm sorry, Dottore. I thought they would have called you.'

‘No. What happened?'

‘She was found over on the Zattere yesterday. She told the man who found her that she'd fallen down.' Brunetti spoke neutrally, merely repeating a piece of information. When Proni said nothing, Brunetti continued, ‘She may have a concussion, two fingers are crushed, and her face is badly bruised. But the doctor who examined her says she's not in any danger.' Proni still said nothing.

‘I'd like to speak to you,' Brunetti added.

‘You realize I'm her doctor,' he said, this time using that fact to construct a barrier to information.

‘I understand that, Dottore.' Brunetti abandoned any idea of asking about Davide: all he wanted was the chance to talk to Proni directly. ‘I know what it means in terms of your professional responsibility.'

‘But still you want to talk to me?'

Brunetti decided to tell him the truth. ‘Yes, I do. There are things about her I don't understand. And about her son.'

‘You mean his death?'

‘Yes.'

‘It was an accident,' Proni said.

‘I believe that, Dottore. But I'd like to understand how it was possible.'

‘This sounds like nothing more than personal curiosity, Commissario.'

Brunetti let out a small puff of air, exasperated at how transparent he had become. ‘I suppose it is.'

‘In that case, I'll speak to you,' Proni surprised him by saying.

Brunetti glanced at his watch. ‘I could be at your office in twenty minutes, Dottore.'

‘All right.' Brunetti heard the click of the phone as the doctor replaced it.

Brunetti went to the window, leaned out and saw Foa on the
fondamenta
, talking to the guard at the door. Brunetti called the pilot's name and shouted down that he had to go over to San Polo; Foa raised an arm in assent. As he went down the stairs, Brunetti was conscious of the dim view Chiara would take of his crossing the entire city in a police boat when he could just as easily have used public transportation, even though the Number Two would take more than twenty minutes to get him there. ‘People have to learn to wait,' was her current mantra.

He stepped on to the boat, ignoring the pilot's outstretched hand. Foa turned the key, revved the motor, and pulled them away from the dock towards the
bacino
. ‘Last days for standing around outside, I'm afraid, sir,' the pilot said amiably.

‘For the likes of me, it certainly is,' Brunetti said. ‘Until the first sign of springtime, I'll leave being out in the weather to you.'

Foa heard the friendliness and smiled. ‘I called a couple of people I know, sir. About the Lembo family, like you asked me to. To see what else I could learn.'

‘Very good,' Brunetti said. ‘What did they have to
tell you?'

‘Well, sir,' Foa said, turning right in a broad sweep that would take them up the Grand Canal, ‘It's
una famiglia sfigata
.' It was the language of the streets, but from the little Brunetti had heard, it
did
sound as if the whole family was screwed.

‘What did they tell you?'

‘Well, there's the daughter that died. In Brazil, I think. There's another one in Ireland or some place like that, but it seems she turned out all right. And then there's the one who had the kids, Lucrezia.' He gave a little puff of exasperation with the name. ‘Who'd do that to a kid, give her a name like that?'

‘She named her own children Loredano and Letizia.'

Foa made another exasperated noise. ‘I suppose that was to keep in good with her parents. From what my friends said, they ran a tight ship.' Then, after a moment's reflection, Foa said, ‘Though a couple of them said it was the mother. A real tiger. And a religious one at that.'

‘What does that mean?' Brunetti looked up to the top of the bell tower of San Giorgio just at the instant when the angel chose to shift in the wind and wave his wings at Brunetti.

‘She was a friend of the Patriarch, always wore a black veil when she went to Mass, the worst sort of
basabanchi
.' Then, after a pause, ‘Got it from her family, I'm told.'

Brunetti smiled, in love with his own language. He'd seen them as a boy, those veiled women in black, bending forward as if to kiss the top of the pew in front of them.
Baciare il banco
. Only the dialect of anti-clerical – proudly, historically anti-clerical – Venice could transform the word, and the act, and the idea, with such acid contempt.
Basabanchi.

‘The mother had a nun living in the
palazzo
and governesses to turn the girls into ladies. Her father – the mother's father, that is, so the girls' grandfather – had some sort of title, but it was one that the Savoias gave him, so it was really just a piece of shit.'

Well, there's a bit of vox pop to tell Paola about, Brunetti reflected. He hoped she would pass the remark on to her father: because his own title was several centuries older, he was sure to appreciate it. Foa paused and looked aside at Brunetti, who nodded in agreement. ‘This is all gossip, sir,' the pilot went on. ‘You know what it's like when people sit around in the bars and talk about other people.'

‘Who aren't there to defend themselves?' Brunetti asked with a laugh. He did not add that it also helped if the person under discussion was rich or successful, or both.

‘Exactly. Besides, it sounds as if the family always – well, the grandfather, they told me – was always quick to go to law with everyone, and no one likes that. Cross him in a deal, try to buy a property he wanted, and you'd find six lawyers at breakfast the next morning. I asked my father, and he said he never heard a good word about him.'

Brunetti stopped himself from observing that the list of the people about whom he himself had never heard a good word was longer than Leporello's list of Don Giovanni's conquests, but, instead, he asked, ‘Did you ever meet any of the daughters?'

‘Me, no. But my best friend Gregorio told me he had an affair with Lucrezia. A long time ago, before they were married. Wasn't anything important, really.' Brunetti did not have to strain to understand that they did not marry one another. ‘Gregorio always thought she did it to spite her mother.'

‘What sort of reputation did she have?' Brunetti asked. ‘When she was a girl, that is.'

‘Oh, you know what it's like, Signore,' Foa said and cut to the left and into Rio de la Madoneta. ‘Once a woman goes with a man, everyone's going to say he's had her, too.' Brunetti put this nugget in a side pocket in his memory to pull out the next time someone spoke to him of human progress.

Then, as if to make up for what he had said, Foa added, ‘Gregorio said she was a nice girl. They remained friends for a long time.'

‘But not now?'

‘Not on your life, sir. He married a girl from Giudecca, and she keeps him on a short lead. If she found out he even telephoned another woman, she'd have the cross up in the garden, and she'd send him out to get the nails.'

‘Would he go?'

‘I'm afraid so, sir.' Foa brought the boat to a smooth stop on the right side of the canal.

‘No need to wait for me, Foa,' Brunetti said.

‘Thank you, sir. I'll have a coffee and go back to the Questura. If you change your mind, call me and I'll
come get you.'

Brunetti said he would, though he trembled at the thought of Chiara's reaction should she learn that he had had a boat travel twice all the way across the city, and the second time when there was no urgency. She'd probably send him out for the nails, too.

He had checked the address in
Calli, Campielli e Canali
, and so found it easily, an undistinguished building with a dark green double door. The doctor's name was on one of the bells, and the door opened soon after Brunetti rang. The entrance hall smelled of damp; no surprise after the previous day's rain. At the very end of the hallway, facing the entrance, a door stood open. Brunetti entered and found the standard chair-lined walls of a doctor's waiting room, though here the chairs were separ­­ate, wooden, antique, and beautiful. More surprisingly, the walls displayed, not the usual sentimental portraits of dogs and children, but three fine-lined drawings that drew his eye. At first, he thought they were surreal cityscapes, with abstract towers and cupolas, until closer examination showed that it was his eyes, and not the lines, that created the illusion of a city. The lines were so close together that the background of the drawing seemed grey: Brunetti wondered what technique the artist
had used to put them so flawlessly close, for nowhere did one line touch another.

Brunetti took his reading glasses from his pocket and put them on, the better to study these magical lines that drew the gaze of the viewer with the force of an electromagnet. The second drawing suggested a beach, though here again it was the viewer who imposed this reality on the drawing, where the varied spaces between horizontal lines of different widths and lengths suggested the variation in surface and texture between sand and sea.

The third had to be the facades of the buildings on the eastern side of Campo San Polo, but only a Venetian would see that, just as only a Venetian would recognize Palazzo Soranzo and Palazzo Maffetti-Tiepolo. Or perhaps not.
When Brunetti stepped back from the drawing, the
distance transformed it into mere lines, closely drawn but utterly abstract and devoid of meaning. He swept his eyes along the three drawings and was very relieved to see that they were covered with glass. Then he moved closer to the third one again, and the magic repeated itself: the
palazzi
materialized among the lines. Enough to move back forty centimetres, and again they dissolved.

‘Commissario?' a man's voice said behind him.

He turned, removed his reading glasses, and saw a short, thickset man a decade younger than himself. Though the doctor wore glasses, Brunetti saw that one eye was slightly larger than the other, or angled differently in his face. Yet when he looked for similar imperfection in his mouth, he found it was perfectly proportioned. He searched for a resemblance to Umberto and found it in the general squareness of the face: ears tight to the head, jawbone prominent and almost as wide as the cheekbones.

Brunetti extended his hand. ‘Thank you for letting me come,' he said. He had learned, when greeting people who had agreed to speak to him, to say only that and to say nothing at first that would remind them that he was there to ask them questions. He returned his glasses to his pocket.

‘Do you like the drawings?' the doctor asked.

‘More than that, I'd say.' Brunetti turned back to them and, from this distance, saw that all three had turned into entirely different images. ‘Where did you get them?'

‘Here,' Proni said. ‘A local artist.' Then he turned, saying, ‘Perhaps we'd be more comfortable in my office.'

He held the door open for Brunetti, who passed through what must be the nurse's reception room and then into the doctor's, in which there was a desk that held a computer and a small bouquet of orange tulips. Two more of the antique chairs stood in front of the desk, and Brunetti went over to one of them, leaving the doctor to take his seat behind the desk. Being questioned by the police was so alien an experience for most people that it was best to make the circumstances as comfortable and close to normal as possible.

Brunetti sat and glanced around the room. The windows were heavily barred, standard practice in any doctor's office where drugs might be, or be thought to be. A glass-doored cabinet between the windows, its shelves stacked with unruly piles of boxes of medicine, was exactly what addicts hoped to see: cocktail time. Brunetti was pleased to see another of the drawings on the wall opposite the windows. Had he not seen those in the waiting room, Brunetti would have taken it for an abstract watercolour in different tones of grey, but he now realized that the colour resulted from the closeness of the lines: there could not be a millimetre between them.

Proni called back Brunetti's attention by saying, ‘I called the hospital and spoke to the doctor in charge of her ward. He says he wants to keep her there for at least another day. The concussion is very slight, but they want to be careful.'

‘Did she tell him what happened?' Brunetti asked, though he was certain he knew what the answer would be.

‘Just what she told the man who found her: she fell down the steps.' After saying that, Proni kept his eyes on Brunetti's.

‘Let's hope that's what happened,' was his response.

‘What does that mean, Commissario?'

‘Exactly what I said, Dottore: I hope that's what happened.'

‘Instead of?'

‘Instead of an attempt to harm her.'

‘Who would want to do that?' the Doctor asked, seeming honestly puzzled.

Brunetti allowed himself a small smile. ‘You'd have a better idea of that than I would, Dottore.'

Proni was immediately indignant. ‘If I might repeat myself, what does that mean?'

Brunetti held up one hand and gave a soft answer, to turn away wrath. ‘You're her doctor, so you'd know more about her life than I do. All I know is that she is the mother of a man who died, Davide Cavanello.' He knew more than that, but little of it was of substance, and none of any help.

‘What sort of thing do you expect me to know, Commissario?' Proni asked, careful to use the polite form of address.

Brunetti responded with equal formality. ‘I'd like to know anything you can tell me about the relationship between Signora Cavanella and her son.'

‘She was his mother.'

Try as he might, Brunetti found no sarcasm there, so he responded quite naturally. ‘Was she a good mother?'

Proni's face remained unchanged. ‘That's an entirely subjective judgement, one I'm not qualified to make.' There was no apology in his voice, only explanation. ‘She took care of his physical needs to the best of her ability, if that's the sort of information you're looking for.'

It wasn't, but it was still information Brunetti had not had before and was glad to have. He did, however, find it interesting that the doctor specified physical needs and did not describe her ability.

Brunetti had no intention of telling him that he had seen Ana Cavanella's medical records: no doctor should know how easily they were available to anyone skilled enough to look for them. ‘Could you give me a general idea of her health?'

The doctor's eyes contracted, as if he had been awaiting a question about the son and not the mother. He appeared to give the question some thought and then answered, ‘I'd say that, for a woman of her age, she's healthy. She doesn't smoke and never has, drinks moderately – not even that – and to the best of my knowledge has never taken drugs.'

‘Did you prescribe the sleeping pills, Dottore?'

This question could not have surprised him, yet the doctor failed to disguise his nervousness in answering it. He pulled his eyes away from Brunetti's and looked at the drawing on the far wall, then said, eyes still on the drawing, ‘Yes, I did.'

‘You seem troubled by the question, Dottore. Why is that?'

‘Because I don't like being in any way responsible for Davide's death.' He looked at Brunetti as he said this.

Brunetti shook his head. His failure to understand was not feigned. ‘That's too hard a judgement, don't you think, Dottore?'