Chapter Eight

Leaving the hospital, Brunetti noticed that the sky had darkened, and a sharp wind had risen, sweeping across the city from the south. The air was heavy and damp, presaging rain, and that meant they might be awakened in the night by the shrill blast of the sirens. He hated acqua alta with the passion that all Venetians felt for it, felt an anticipatory rage at the gaping tourists who would cluster together on the raised wooden boards, giggling, pointing, snapping pictures and blocking decent people who just wanted to get to work or do their shopping so they could get inside where it was dry and be rid of the bother, the mess, the constant irritation that the unstoppable waters brought to the city. Already calculating, he realized that the water would affect him only on the way to and from work, when he had to pass through Campo San Bartolomeo at the foot of the Rialto Bridge. Luckily, the area around the Questura was high enough to be free of all but the worst flooding.

He pulled up the collar of his coat, wishing he had thought to wear a scarf that morning, and hunched his head down, propelled from behind by the wind. As he crossed behind the statue of Colleoni, the first fat drops splattered on the pavement in front of him. The only advantage of the wind was that it drove the rain at a sharp diagonal, keeping one side of the narrow calle dry, protected by the roofs. Those wiser than he had thought to bring umbrellas and walked protected by them, ignoring anyone who had to dodge around or under them.

By the time he got to the Questura, the shoulders of his coat were wet through and his shoes soaked. In his office, he removed his coat and put it on a hanger, then hung it on the curtain rod that ran in front of the window above the radiator. Anyone looking into the room from across the canal would see, perhaps, a man who had hanged himself in his own office. If they worked in the Questura, their first impulse would no doubt be to count the floors, looking to see if it was Patta’s window.

Brunetti found a single sheet of paper on his desk, a report from Interpol in Geneva saying that they had no information about and no record of Francesco Semenzato. Below that neatly typed message, however, there was a brief handwritten note: ‘Rumours here, nothing definite. I’ll ask around.’ And below that was a scrawled signature he recognized as belonging to Piet Heinegger.

His phone rang late that afternoon. It was Lele, saying that he had managed to get in touch with a few friends of his, including the one in Burma. No one had been willing to say anything about Semenzato directly, but Lele had learned that the museum director was believed to be involved in the antiques business. No, not as a buyer but as a seller. One of the men he had spoken to said he had heard that Semenzato had invested in an antique shop, but he knew no more than that, not where it was or who the official owner might be.

‘Sounds like that would create a conflict of interest,’ Brunetti said, ‘buying from his partner with the museum’s money.’

‘He wouldn’t be the only one,’ Lele muttered, but Brunetti let the remark lie. ‘There’s another thing,’ the artist added.

‘What?’

‘When I mentioned stolen art works, one of them said he’d heard rumours about an important collector in Venice.’

‘Semenzato?’

‘No,’ Lele answered. ‘I didn’t ask, but the word is out that I’m curious about him, so I’m sure my friend would have told me if it was Semenzato.’

‘Did he say who it was?’

‘No. He didn’t know. But the rumour is that it’s a gentleman from the South.’ Lele said this as if he believed it impossible for any gentleman to come from the South.

‘But no name?’

‘No, Guido. But I’ll keep asking around.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate this, Lele. I couldn’t do this myself.’

‘No, you couldn’t,’ Lele said evenly. Then, not even bothering to brush off Brunetti’s thanks, Lele said, ‘I’ll call you if I hear anything else,’ and hung up.

Believing that he had done enough for the afternoon and not wanting to be trapped on this side of the city by the arrival of acqua alta, Brunetti went home early and had two quiet hours to himself before Paola got back from the university. When she got home, soaked by the increasing intensity of the rain, she said that she had used the quotation, given the spurious attribution, but still the dreaded marchese had managed to spoil it, suggesting that a writer such as James, who was supposed to have such a good reputation, certainly could have avoided such simple-minded redundancies. Brunetti listened as she explained, surprised at how much he had come, over the last months, to dislike this young man he had never met. Food and wine tempered Paola’s mood, as they always did, and when Raffi volunteered to do the dishes, she radiated contentment and well-being.

They were in bed by ten, she deeply asleep over a particularly infelicitous example of student writing and he deeply engrossed in a new translation of Suetonius. He had just reached the passage describing those little boys swimming in Tiberius’ pool at Capri when the phone rang.

‘Pronto’ he answered, hoping it wouldn’t be police business but knowing that, at ten to eleven, it probably was.

‘Commissario, this is Monico.’ Sergeant Monico, Brunetti recalled, was in charge of the night shift that week.

‘What is it, Monico?’

‘I think we’ve got a murder, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘Palazzo Ducale.’

‘Who is it?’ he asked, though he knew.

‘The director, sir.’

‘Semenzato?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What happened?’

‘It looks like a break-in. The cleaning woman found him about ten minutes ago and went screaming down to the guards. They went back up to the office and saw him, and they called us.’

‘What have you done?’ He dropped the book on to the floor at the side of the bed and began looking around the room to see where he had left his clothes.

‘We called Vice-Questore Patta, but his wife said he wasn’t there, and she has no idea of how to get in touch with him.’ Either of which, Brunetti reflected, could be a lie. ‘So I decided to call you, sir.’

‘Did they tell you what happened, the guards?’

‘Yes, sir. The man I spoke to said there was a lot of blood, and it looked like he’d been hit on the head.’

‘Was he dead when the cleaning lady found him?’

‘I think so, sir. The guards said he was dead when they got there.’

‘All right,’ Brunetti said, flipping back the covers. ‘I’ll go over there now. Send whoever’s there — who is it tonight?’

‘Vianello, sir. He was here on night shift with me, so he went over as soon as the call came in.’

‘Good. Call Dottor Rizzardi and ask him to meet me there.’

‘Yes, sir, I was going to call him as soon as I spoke to you.’

‘Good,’ Brunetti said, swinging his feet out and putting them on the floor. ‘I should be there in about twenty minutes. We’ll need a team to photograph and take prints.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll call Pavese and Foscolo as soon as I’ve spoken to Dottor Rizzardi.’

‘All right. Twenty minutes,’ Brunetti said and hung up. Was it possible to be shocked and still not be surprised? A violent death, and only four days after Brett was attacked with similar brutality. While he pulled on his clothing and tied his shoes, he warned himself against jumping to conclusions. He walked around to Paola’s side of the bed, leaned down, and shook her gently by the shoulder.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him over the top of the glasses she had begun, that year, to use for reading. She wore a ragged old flannel dressing gown she had bought in Scotland more than ten years ago and, pulled over it, an Irish knit cardigan her parents had given her for Christmas almost as long ago. Seeing her like that, momentarily confused by his having pulled her from her first deep sleep and peering myopically at him, he thought how much she looked like the homeless and apparently mad women who passed their winter nights in the railway station. Feeling traitorous for the thought, he leaned into the circle of light created by her reading lamp and bent down to kiss her forehead.

‘Was that the sovereign call of duty?’ she asked, immediately awake.

‘Yes. Semenzato. The cleaning woman found him in his office at the Palazzo Ducale.’

‘Dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Murdered?’

‘It looks that way.’

She removed her glasses and placed them on the papers that spilled across the covers in front of her. ‘Have you sent a guard to the American’s room?’ she asked, leaving it to him to follow the swift logic of what she said.

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I will as soon as I get to the Palazzo. I don’t think they’d risk two in the same night, but I’ll send a man over.’ How easily ‘they’ had come into existence, created by his refusal to believe in coincidence and Paola’s to believe in human goodness.

‘Who called?’ she asked.

‘Monico.’

‘Good,’ she said, recognizing the name and familiar with the man. ‘I’ll call him and tell him about the guard.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait up. I’m afraid this will take a long time.’

‘So will this,’ she said, leaning forward and gathering up the papers.

He bent again and this time kissed her on the lips. She returned his kiss and turned it into a real one. He straightened up and she surprised him by wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his stomach. She said something that was too mumbled to understand. Gently, he stroked her hair, but his mind was on Semenzato and Chinese ceramics.

She pulled herself away and reached for her glasses. Putting them on, she said, ‘Remember to take your boots.’

* * * *