Wilful Behaviour (22 page)

She had been reaching for another cigarette when he spoke, and he saw her hand hesitate in mid-air. She gave him a surprised glance, then looked back at her hand, followed through on the gesture, and took a cigarette. ‘What drawings?’ she asked; her look had prepared Brunetti for her protestation of ignorance.

‘Someone told me that the Swiss Consul had given some drawings to the Guzzardis.’

‘Sold some, you mean,’ she said with a heavy emphasis on the first word.

‘As you like,’ Brunetti conceded and left it at that.

‘That was something else that happened after the war,’ she said, sounding tired. ‘People who had sold things tried to get them back by saying they’d been forced to sell them. Whole collections had to be given back by people who had bought them in good faith.’ She managed to sound indignant.

Brunetti had no doubt that things like this had happened, but he had read enough to know that most of the injustice had been suffered by those who, from timidity or outright menace, had been led to sell or sign away their possession. He saw no point, however, in disputing this with Signora Jacobs.

‘
Certo, certo
,’ Brunetti mumbled.

Suddenly he felt his wrist imprisoned by her thin fingers. ‘It’s the truth,’ she whispered, her voice tight and passionate. ‘When he was on trial they all got in touch with the judges, saying he had cheated them out of this or that, demanding their things back.’ She yanked savagely on his hand, pulling him closer until his face was a hair’s breadth from hers. ‘It was all lies. Then and now. All of the things are his, legally his. No one can trick me.’ Brunetti breathed in the raw stench of tobacco and bad teeth, saw something fierce flare up in her eyes. ‘Luca could never have done something like that. He could never have done anything dishonourable.’ Her voice had the measured cadence of one who had said the same thing many times, as if repetition would force it to be true.

There was nothing to be said here, so he waited, though he moved slowly back from her, waiting to hear what her next defence would be.

It seemed, however, that Signora Jacobs had said all she was going to, for she reached over for another cigarette, lit it, and puffed at it as though it were the only thing of interest in the room. At last, when the cigarette was finished and she had dropped it on top of the pile of butts, she said, without bothering to turn to him, ‘You can go now.’

19

WALKING HOME, BRUNETTI
played back in his mind the conversation with Signora Jacobs. He was puzzled by the paradox between her bleak observation that Guzzardi was capable of loving only himself and the profundity of the love she still felt for him. Love rendered people foolish, he knew, sometimes more than that, but it usually provided them with the anaesthesia necessary to blind them to the contradictions in their own behaviour. Not so Signora Jacobs, who seemed utterly devoid of illusions about her former lover. How sad, to be as clear-eyed about your weakness as helpless to resist it. Guzzardi had been handsome, but it was a kind of slick-haired, matinée idol beauty that was today usually associated with pimps and hairdressers rather than with those
men
which current taste defined as handsome, most of whom looked to Brunetti like nonentities in suits or little blond boys bent on keeping puberty at bay.

But the signs of long-term love were there. She had been eager to speak of Guzzardi, had certainly wanted Brunetti to admire his photo, a strange thing to expect one man to do of another. She had spoken of his trial and of his time – it must have been a terrible time – in San Servolo with visible pain, and there was no disguising the effect it had upon her, even now, after so much time, to speak of his death.

She had said the Guzzardis had no knack of resting in peace. Recalling that remark, he remembered that she had made it in reference to Luca Guzzardi’s son, Benito, but then the conversation had sheered away from him, and so Brunetti had never learned in what way he had failed to find peace. And if there had been a son, and there had been Claudia, then there was a mother. Claudia had said her mother’s mother was German, and had referred to her own in the past tense; Lucia told him Claudia had said her father was dead; Signora Gallante said that, although Claudia spoke of her mother as gone, the old woman did not have the sense that this meant she was dead. She could, Claudia’s mother, be anywhere from her late thirties to her fifties and anywhere in the world, but all he knew was that her name was Leonardo, hardly a German surname.

He allowed his mind to run over the available sources of information. With Claudia’s date of
birth
, they could find out where in the city her mother had been resident when she was born. But Claudia had no Venetian accent, so she could have been born on the mainland, indeed, even in some other country. His thoughts keeping pace with his steps, he realized that all of this information would be easily available either at the university or in the Ufficio Anagrafe, where she would have to be registered. She was so young that all of the information would be computerized and thus readily available to Signorina Elettra. He glanced up and smiled to himself, pleased to have found something else with which to engage Signorina Elettra and thus remind her of how essential she was to the successful running of the Questura.

Claudia’s grandmother had gone off with a British soldier after the war, taking Claudia’s father with her. How, then, had the girl ended up in Venice, speaking Italian with no trace of accent, and how had it happened that she had come to think of Signora Jacobs as her adoptive grandmother? Much as he told himself that all speculation on these matters was futile, Brunetti could not keep his imagination from worrying at them.

These thoughts accompanied him home, but as he turned into the final flight of steps leading up to the apartment, he made a conscious effort to leave them on the stairway until the following morning took him back into the world of death.

This decision proved a wise one, for there would have been no room for the people who filled his thoughts at a table that already held not
only
his family but Sara Paganuzzi, Raffi’s girlfriend, and Michela Fabris, a schoolfriend of Chiara’s, come to spend the night.

Because Marco had caused him to miss his lunch, Brunetti felt justified in accepting a second portion of the spinach and ricotta crêpes that Paola had made as a first course. He was too busy sating his hunger to say much as he ate them, and so talk broke into two sections, like the chorus in a Scarlatti oratorio: Paola talked with Chiara and Michela about a movie actor whose name Brunetti didn’t recognize but with whom his only daughter seemed to be hopelessly besotted; while Raffi and Sara conversed in the impenetrable code of young love. Brunetti remembered having once been able to speak it.

As his hunger diminished, he found himself better able to pay attention to what was going on around him, as though tuning in to a radio station. ‘I think he’s wonderful,’ Michela sighed, encouraging Brunetti to change stations and tune in to Sara, but listening was no easier on that channel, save that the object of her adoration was his only son.

It was Paola who saved him by bringing to the table an enormous frying pan filled with stewed rabbit with what looked to him, as she set it down in the centre of the table, like olives. ‘And walnuts?’ he asked, pointing to some small tan chunks that lay on the top.

‘Yes,’ Paola said, reaching for Michela’s plate.

The girl passed it to her but asked, sounding rather nervous, ‘Is that rabbit, Signora Brunetti?’

‘No, it’s chicken, Michela,’ she said with an easy smile, placing a thigh on the girl’s plate.

Chiara started to say something, but Brunetti surprised her into silence by reaching over to pick up her plate, which he passed to Paola. ‘And what else is in it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Oh, some celery for taste, and the usual spices.’

Passing the plate to Chiara, Brunetti asked Michela, ‘What movie were you and Chiara talking about?’

As she told him, not forgetting to extol the charms of the young actor who held her in thrall, Brunetti ate his rabbit, smiling and nodding at Michela as he tried to determine whether Paola had put a bay leaf in, as well as rosemary. Raffi and Sara ate quietly, and Paola came back to the table with a platter of small roasted potatoes and zucchini cooked with thin slices of almonds. Michela turned to the two previous films which had catapulted her actor to stardom, and Brunetti served himself another piece of rabbit.

As she spoke, Michela ate her way through everything, pausing only when Paola slipped another spoonful of meat and gravy on to her plate, at which point she said, ‘The chicken is delicious, Signora.’

Paola smiled her thanks.

After dinner, when Chiara and Michela were back in her room, giggling at a volume achievable only by teenage girls, Brunetti kept Paola company as she did the dishes. He sipped at nothing more than a drop of plum liquor while Paola slipped the dishes into the drying rack above the sink.

‘Why wouldn’t she eat rabbit?’ he finally asked.

‘Kids are like that. They don’t like to eat animals they can be sentimental about,’ Paola explained with every indication of sympathy for the idea.

‘It doesn’t stop Chiara from eating veal,’ Brunetti said.

‘Or lamb, for that matter,’ Paola agreed.

‘Then why wouldn’t Michela want to eat rabbit?’ Brunetti asked doggedly.

‘Because a rabbit is cuddly and something every city child can see or touch, even if it’s only in a pet shop. To touch the other ones you have to go to a farm, so they aren’t really real.’

‘You think that’s why we don’t eat dogs and cats?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Because we have them around all the time and they become our friends?’

‘We don’t eat snake, either,’ Paola said.

‘Yes, but that’s because of Adam and Eve. Lots of people have no trouble eating them. The Chinese, for example.’

‘And we eat eel,’ she agreed. She came and stood beside him, reached down for his glass, and took a sip.

‘Why did you lie to her?’ he finally asked.

‘Because she’s a nice girl, and I didn’t want her to have to eat something she didn’t want to eat or to embarrass herself by saying she didn’t want to eat it.’

‘But it was delicious,’ he insisted.

‘If that was a compliment, thank you,’ Paola said, handing him back the glass. ‘Besides, she’ll get over it, or she’ll forget about it as she gets older.’

‘And eat rabbit?’

‘Probably.’

‘I don’t think I have much of a feeling for young girls,’ he finally said.

‘For which I suppose I should be very grateful,’ she answered.

The next morning he went directly to Signorina Elettra’s office, where he found her engaged in conversation with Lieutenant Scarpa. As the lieutenant never failed to bring out the venom in his superior’s secretary, Brunetti said a general good morning intended for both of them and moved over to stand by the window, waiting for them to finish their conversation.

‘I’m not sure you’re authorized to take files from the archives,’ the lieutenant said.

‘Would you like me to come and ask for your authorization each time I want to consult a file, Lieutenant?’ she asked with her most dangerous smile.

‘Of course not. But you have to follow procedures.’

‘Which procedures would those be, Lieutenant?’ she asked, picking up a pen and moving a notepad closer to her.

‘You have to ask for authorization.’

‘Yes, and from whom?’

‘From the person who is authorized to give it,’ he said, his voice no longer pleasant.

‘Yes, but can you tell me who that person is?’

‘It’s whoever is listed on the personnel directive that details the chain of command and responsibility.’

‘And where might I find a copy of the directive?’ she asked, tapping the point of her pen on the pad, but lightly and only once.

‘In the file of directives,’ the lieutenant said, voice even closer to the edge of his control.

‘Ah,’ Signorina Elettra said with a happy smile. ‘And who can authorize me to consult that file?’

Scarpa turned and walked from her office, pausing at the door as if eager to slam it but then, aware of Brunetti’s bland presence, resisting the temptation.

Brunetti moved over to her desk. ‘I’ve warned you about him, Signorina,’ he said, managing to keep any hint of disapproval out of his voice.

‘I know, I know,’ she said, pursing her lips and letting out an exasperated sigh. ‘But the temptation is too strong. Every time he comes in here telling me what I have to do, I can’t resist the impulse to go right for his jugular.’

‘It will only cause you trouble,’ he admonished.

She shrugged this away. ‘It’s like having a second dessert, I suppose. You know you shouldn’t, but it just tastes so good you can’t resist.’

Brunetti, who had had his own fair share of trouble with the lieutenant, would hardly have chosen that simile, but his nature was not as combative as Signorina Elettra’s and so he let it pass. Besides, any sign of aggressiveness on Signorina Elettra’s part was to be welcomed as evidence of her general return to good spirits, however paradoxical that might seem to anyone who didn’t know her, so Brunetti asked, ‘What have you learned about Guzzardi?’

‘I told you I was looking into his ownership of houses when he died, didn’t I?’

He nodded.

‘Only he didn’t own them at the time of his death. Ownership was transferred to Hedi Jacobs when he was in jail, awaiting trial.’

‘Interestinger and interestinger,’ Brunetti said in English. ‘Transferred how?’

‘Sold to her. It was all perfectly legal; the papers are all in order.’

‘What about his will?’

‘I found a copy at the College of Notaries.’

‘How did you know where to look?’

She gave her most seraphic smile. ‘There’s only one notary who’s been named in all of this,’ she said, but she said it modestly.

‘Filipetto?’ Brunetti asked.

The smile returned.

‘He was Guzzardi’s notary?’

‘The will was recorded in his register soon after Guzzardi’s death,’ she said, no longer able to keep the glow of pride from her voice. ‘And when Filipetto retired, all of his records were sent to the college, where I found it.’ She opened her top drawer and drew out a photocopy of a document typed in the now archaic letters of a manual typewriter.