Chapter Thirteen

 

 

Back in his office, the first thing Brunetti did after he opened the window was call Lele. There was no answer at his house, so Brunetti tried the gallery, where the painter picked up the phone after six rings. ‘Pronto.’

‘Ciao, Lele, it’s Guido. I thought I’d call and see if you’d managed to find out anything.’

‘About that person?’ Lele answered, making it clear that he couldn’t talk freely.

‘Yes. Is someone there?’

‘Ah, yes, now that you mention it, I think that’s true. Are you going to be in your office for a while, Signor Scarpa?’

‘Yes, I will be. For another hour or so.’

‘Good, then, Signor Scarpa. I’ll call you there when I’m free.’

‘Thanks, Lele,’ Brunetti said and hung up.

Who was it that Lele didn’t want to know he was talking with a commissario of police?

He turned to the papers in the file, making a note here and there. He had been in contact with the special branch of police that dealt with art theft on several occasions in the past, but at this point all he had to give them was Semenzato’s name and no proof of anything at all. Semenzato might indeed have a reputation that did not appear in official reports, the sort that never got written down.

Four years ago, he had dealt with one of the captains of the art branch in Rome, about a Gothic altarpiece stolen from the church of San Giacomo dell’Orio. Giulio something or other, but Brunetti couldn’t remember his surname. He reached for the phone and dialled Signorina Elettra’s number.

‘Yes, Commissario?’ she asked when he identified himself.

‘Have you had any response from Heinegger or your friends at the bank?’

‘This afternoon, sir.’

‘Good. Until then, I’d like you to take a look in the files and see if you can find a name for me, a captain of the art theft bureau in Rome. Giulio something. He and I corresponded about a theft at San Giacomo dell’Orio. About four years ago. Perhaps five.’

‘Have you any idea how it would be filed, sir?’

‘Either under my name, since I wrote the original report, or under the name of the church, or perhaps under art theft.’ He thought for a moment and then added, ‘You might check the record of a certain Sandro — Alessandro, that is - Benelli, whose address used to be in San Lio. I think he’s still in prison, but there might be some mention of the captain’s name in there. I think he provided a deposition at the trial.’

‘Certainly, sir. Today?’

‘Yes, signorina, if you could.’

‘I’ll go down to the files and take a look now. Maybe I can find something before lunch.’

The optimism of youth. ‘Thank you, signorina,’ he said and hung up. As soon as he did, the phone rang, and it was Lele.

‘I couldn’t talk, Guido. I had someone in the gallery who I think might be useful to you in this.’

‘Who?’ When Lele didn’t answer, Brunetti apologized, remembering that he needed the   information, not its source. ‘Sorry, Lele. Forget I asked that. What did he tell you?’

‘It seems that Dottor Semenzato was a man of many interests. Not only was he the director of the museum, but he was also a silent partner in two antique shops, one here and one in Milan. The   man I was talking to works in one of the shops.’

Brunetti resisted the urge to ask which one.   Instead, he remained silent, knowing that Lele   would tell him what he thought necessary.             

‘It seems that the owner of these shops — not Semenzato, the official owner — has access to pieces that never appear in the shops. The man I spoke to said that twice in the past certain pieces have been brought in and unpacked by mistake. As soon as the owner saw them, he had them repacked and taken away, said that they were for his private collection.’

‘Did he tell you what these pieces were?’

‘He said that one of them was a Chinese bronze, and the other was a piece of pre-Islamic ceramic. He also said, and I thought this might interest you, that he was fairly certain he had seen a photo of the ceramic in an article about the pieces taken from the Kuwait Museum.’

‘When did this happen?’ Brunetti asked.

‘The first time, about a year ago, and then three months ago,’ Lele answered.

‘Did he tell you anything else?’

‘He said that the owner has a number of clients who have access to this private collection.’

‘How did he know that?’

‘Sometimes, when he was talking to these clients, the owner would refer to pieces he had, but the pieces weren’t in the shop. Or he’d telephone one of these clients and tell him he was getting a particular item on a certain date, but then the piece would never come into the shop. But, later, it would sound like a sale had taken place.’

‘Why would he tell you this, Lele?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew he wasn’t supposed to.

‘We worked together in London, years ago, and I did him some favours then.’

‘And how did you know to ask him, of all people?’

Instead of being offended, Lele laughed. ‘Oh, I asked some questions about Semenzato, and someone told me to speak to my friend.’

‘Thanks, Lele.’ Brunetti understood, as do all   Italians, how the whole delicate web of personal favours enwrapped the social system. It all seemed so casual: someone spoke to a friend, had a word with a cousin, and some information was   exchanged. And with that information a new balance was struck between debit and credit. Sooner or later, everything was repaid, all debts called in.

‘Who’s the owner of these shops?’

‘Francesco Murino. He’s a Neapolitan. I did some business with him when he first opened his shop here, years ago, and he’s un vero figlio di puttana. If there’s anything crooked going on here, he’s in for his fair share.’

‘Is he the one who has the shop in Santa Maria Formosa?’

‘Yes, do you know him?’

‘Only by sight. He’s never been in any trouble, not that I know of.’

‘Guido, I told you he’s a Neapolitan. Of course he hasn’t been in any trouble, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t as crooked as a viper.’ The passion with which Lele spoke made Brunetti curious about the dealings he might have had with Murino in the past.

‘Did anyone say anything else about Semenzato?’

Lele made a noise of disgust, ‘You know how it is when a person dies. No one wants to tell the truth.’

‘Yes, someone else told me that, just this morning,’

‘What else did they tell you?’ Lele asked with what seemed like real curiosity.

‘That I should wait a couple of weeks, and then people will begin to tell the truth again.’

Lele laughed so loudly that Brunetti had to hold the phone away from his ear until he stopped. When he did, Lele said, ‘How right they are. But I don’t think it will take that long.’

‘Does that mean there’s more to tell about him?’

‘No, I don’t want to mislead you, Guido, but one or two people didn’t seem terribly surprised that he was killed like this.’ When Brunetti didn’t ask him what he meant, Lele added, ‘It would seem that he had connections with people from the South.’

‘Are they getting interested in art now?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, it seems drugs and prostitutes aren’t enough anymore.’

‘I guess we’d better double the guards in the museums from now on.’

‘Guido, who do you think they buy the paintings from?’

Was this to be yet another consequence of upward mobility, Brunetti wondered, the Mafia in competition with Sotheby’s? ‘Lele, how trustworthy are these people you’ve spoken to?’

‘You can believe what they say, Guido.’

‘Thanks, Lele. If you hear anything more about him, please let me know.’

‘Of course. And Guido, if these gentlemen from the South are involved in this, then you’d better be very careful, all right?’ It was a sign of the power it had already garnered here in the North that people were reluctant to pronounce the name of the Mafia.

‘Of course, Lele, and thanks again.’

‘I’m serious,’ Lele said before he hung up.

Brunetti replaced his phone and, almost without thinking, went and opened the window to allow some cold air into the room. Work on the fa ç ade of the church of San Lorenzo opposite his office had stopped for the winter, and the scaffolding stood there deserted. One large piece of the plastic wrapping that encased it had been torn loose and, even at this distance, Brunetti could hear it snapping angrily in the wind. Above the church and rolling in from the south, Brunetti could see the dark clouds that would surely bring more rain by the end of the afternoon.

He glanced at his watch. There was no time to visit Signor Murino before lunch, but Brunetti decided to stop by his shop that afternoon and see how he reacted to having a commissario of police come in and announce himself. The Mafia. Stolen art. He knew that more than half of the museums in the country were more or less permanently closed, but he had never before stopped to consider what this could mean in terms of pilfering, theft or, in the case of the Chinese exhibits, substitution. Guards were badly paid, yet their unions were so strong that they prevented volunteers from being allowed to work as guards in the museums. He remembered hearing, years ago, a suggestion that young men who chose two years of social service in lieu of a year and a half of military service be allowed to serve as museum guards. The idea had not even made it to the floor of the Senate.

Assuming that the substitution of false pieces was something Semenzato had a part in, who better to dispose of the originals than an antique dealer? He would have not only the clientele and the expertise to make an accurate appraisal, but, if necessary, he would know how to make delivery without interference from either the police of the Finance Department or the Fine Arts Commission. Getting pieces into or out of the country was child’s play. A glance at the map of Italy showed how permeable the borders were. Thousands of kilometres of bays, coves, inlets, beaches. Or, for the well organized or well connected, there were the ports and the airports, through which anything could pass with impunity. It was not only those who guarded the museums who were badly paid.

His reverie was broken by a knock on the door. ‘Avanti,’ he shouted and closed the window. Time to resume roasting.

Signorina Elettra came into the room, a notebook in one hand, a file in the other. ‘I found the captain’s name in the file, sir. It’s Carrara, Giulio Carrara. He’s still in Rome, but he was promoted to maggiore last year.’

‘How did you find that out, signorina?’

‘I called his office in Rome and spoke to his secretary. I asked her to tell him to expect a call from you this afternoon. He’s already gone to lunch and won’t be back until three thirty.’ Brunetti knew what three thirty could mean in Rome.

He might as well have spoken the thought, for Signorina Elettra answered it. ‘I asked. She said he actually gets back then, so I’m sure you could call him.’

‘Thank you, signorina,’ he said and once again gave silent thanks that this marvel had managed to resist the daily assault of Patta’s reign. ‘If I might ask, how did you manage to find his name so quickly?’

‘Oh, I’ve been familiarizing myself with the files for months. I’ve made some changes because there doesn’t seem to be any inner logic to the system as it is now. I hope no one will mind.’

‘No, I don’t think so. No one’s ever able to find anything, so I don’t think you can do the system any harm. It’s all supposed to be put on computer.’

She gave him the look of one who had spent time among the accumulated records; he would not repeat the remark. She came up to his desk and placed the folder on it. He noticed that she was wearing a black woollen dress today, tied with a bold red belt pulled tight around a very narrow waist. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at her forehead. ‘Is it always so hot in here, sir?’ she asked.

‘No, signorina, it’s something that happens for a few weeks in early February. It’s usually over by the end of the month. It doesn’t affect your office.’

‘Is it the scirocco?’ It was a sensible enough question. If the hot wind that blew up from Africa could bring acqua alta, there was certainly no reason it couldn’t raise the temperature in his office.

‘No, signorina. It’s something in the heating system. No one’s ever been able to figure it out. You’ll get used to it, and it really will be gone by the end of the month.’

‘I hope so,’ she said, wiping again at her brow. ‘If there’s nothing else, sir, I’ll go to lunch now.’

Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was almost one. ‘Take an umbrella with you when you go out,’ he said. ‘It looks like it’s going to rain again.’

 

* * * *

 

Brunetti went home for lunch with his family, and Paola kept her promise not to tell Raffi about the syringes and what his father had feared when he found them. She did, however, manage to use her silence to pry from Brunetti a firm promise that he would not only help her carry the table out on to the terrace at the first sign of sun but would also help her use the syringes to inject poison into each of the many holes made by the woodworms as they bored their way out of the legs where they spent their winter lethargy.

Raffi closed himself in his room after lunch, saying that he had to do his Greek homework, ten pages of Homer to translate for the next morning. Two years ago, when he had fancied himself an anarchist, he had closed himself in his room to think dark thoughts about capitalism, in the doing perhaps to hasten its fall. But this year he had not only found a girlfriend but, apparently, the desire to be accepted at the university. In either case, he disappeared into his room directly after meals, leaving Brunetti to conclude that his wish for solitude had something to do with adolescence, not political orientation.

Paola threatened dark things to Chiara if she didn’t help with the dishes, and while they were busy there, Brunetti stuck his head into the kitchen and told them he was going back to work.

When he left the house, the threatened rain was falling, still light but with the promise of much worse to come. He raised his umbrella and turned right into Rugetta, making his way back towards the Rialto Bridge. Within a few minutes, he was glad he had remembered to wear his boots, for large puddles covered the pavement, tempting him to step heavily into them. By the time he got to the other side of the bridge, it was raining more heavily, and by the time he got to the Questura, his trousers were soaked from calf to knee above where they were protected by the boots.

In his office, he removed his jacket and wished for a moment that he could take off his trousers, too, and hang them to dry above the heater: they’d be dry in minutes. Instead, he held the window open long enough to cool off the office then sat behind his desk, dialled the operator and asked to be connected to the office of the art theft squad at police headquarters in Rome. When he was through, he gave his name and asked for Maggiore Carrara.

‘Buon giorno, Commissario.’

‘Congratulations, Maggiore.’

‘Thanks, and it was about time they did it.’

‘You’re still a kid. You’ve got plenty of time to become a general.’

‘By the time I’m a general, there won’t be a single painting left in any of the museums in this country,’ he said. Carrara’s laugh, when it came, was delayed just so long that Brunetti was unsure whether the remark was meant to be a joke or not.

‘That’s what I’m calling you about, Giulio.’

‘What? Paintings?’

‘I’m not sure about that, museums, at any rate.’

‘Yes, what is it?’ he asked with the sharp curiosity that Brunetti remembered he felt for his work.

‘We’ve had a murder here.’

‘Yes, I know, Semenzato, at the Palazzo Ducale.’ His voice was neutral.

‘You know anything about him, Giulio?’

‘Officially or unofficially?’

‘Officially.’

‘Absolutely not. Nothing. No. Not a thing.’ Before Brunetti could do it, Carrara broke into his own litany and asked, ‘Is that enough to make you ask the next question, Guido?’

Brunetti smiled into the phone. ‘All right. Unofficially?’

‘How strange of you to ask that. In fact, I have a note here on my desk to call you. I didn’t know you were handling the case until I read your name in the papers this morning, so I thought I’d give you a call and suggest a few things. And ask a few favours, as well. I think there are a number of things we might both be interested in.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like his bank statements.’

‘Semenzato’s?’

‘Isn’t that who we’re talking about?’

‘Sorry, Giulio, but I’ve had people telling me all day that I ought not to talk ill of the dead.’

‘If we can’t talk ill of the dead, who can we talk ill of?’ Carrara asked with surprising good sense.

‘I’ve already got someone working on them. I ought to have them by tomorrow. Anything else?’

‘I’d like to have a look at records of his longdistance calls, both from his home and from the office at the museum. Do you think you could get them?’

‘This still unofficial?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll have them.’

‘Good.’

‘What else?’

‘Have you spoken to his widow yet?’

‘No, I haven’t, not personally. One of my men has spoken to her. Why?’

‘She might have some idea of where he travelled to during the last few months.’

‘Why do you want to know that?’ Brunetti asked, honestly curious.

‘No special reason, Guido. But we like to know this sort of thing, once a person’s name has come under our noses more than once.’

‘And his had?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Nothing specific, if I have to tell the truth.’ Carrara sounded disappointed that he didn’t have a definite accusation to pass on to Brunetti. ‘Two men we arrested at the airport here, more than a year ago, with Chinese jade figurines, said only that they had heard him named in conversation. They were only carriers; they didn’t know much at all, didn’t even know the value of what they were carrying.’

‘And that was?’Brunetti asked.

‘Billions. The statues were traced back to the National Museum in Taiwan. They’d disappeared three years before; no one ever learned how.’

‘Were those the only things taken?’

‘No, but they’re the only things recovered. So far.’

‘When else did you hear his name?’

‘Oh, from one of the little people we keep on a string down here. We can get him for drugs or for breaking and entering any time we want him, so we let him run loose, and in return he brings us back a piece of information now and again. He said that he had overheard Semenzato’s name mentioned on the phone by one of the men he sells things to.’

‘Stolen things?’

‘Of course. He has nothing else to sell.’

‘Was the man speaking to Semenzato, or about him?’

‘About him.’

‘Did he tell you what he heard?’

‘The man who was speaking said only that the other person should try to speak to Semenzato. At first, we assumed the reference to him was innocent. After all, the man was a museum director. But then we caught the two men at the airport, and then Semenzato turned up dead in his office. So I thought it was time to call and tell you.’ Carrara paused long enough to signal that he was finished with what he had to give, and now it was time to see what he could get. ‘What have you found out about him there?’

‘Remember the Chinese exhibition a few years ago?’

Carrara grunted in assent.

‘Some of the pieces that were sent back to China were copies.’

Carrara’s whistle, either of surprise or admiration for such a feat, came clearly through the line.

‘And it seems he was silent partner in a pair of antique shops, one here and one in Milan,’ Brunetti continued.

‘Whose?’

‘Francesco Murino Do you know him?’

Carrara’s voice was slow, measured. ‘Only in the way we knew Semenzato, unofficially. But his name has turned up more than a few times.’

‘Anything definite?’

‘No, nothing. It looks like he covers himself very well.’ There was a long pause, and then Carrara added, in a voice suddenly grown more serious, ‘Or someone covers things for him.’

‘Like that, is it?’ Brunetti asked. It could mean anything: some branch of the government, Mafia, a foreign government, even the Church.

‘Yes. Every lead we get turns to nothing. We hear his name, and then we don’t. The finance police have checked him three times in the last two years, and he’s clean.’

‘Has his name ever been linked to Semenzato’s?’

‘Not by anyone here. What else have you got?’

‘Are you familiar with Dottoressa Lynch?’

‘L’americana?’ Carrara asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Of course I’m familiar with her. I have a degree in art history, Guido, after all.’

‘Is she that well known?’

‘Her book on Chinese art is the best one around. She’s still in China, isn’t she?’

‘No, she’s here.’

‘In Venice? What’s she doing there?’

Brunetti had asked himself the same question. Trying to decide whether to go back to China, whether to stay here because of her lover, or, now, waiting to see if her former lover had been murdered. ‘She came here to talk to Semenzato about the pieces that were sent back to China. Two toughs beat her up last week. Cracked her jaw and broke some ribs. It was in the papers here.’

Again, Carrara’s whistle came across the line from Rome, but this one somehow managed to convey compassion. ‘There was nothing here,’ he said.

‘Her assistant in China, a Japanese woman who came here to oversee the return of the exhibits to China, died in an accident out there.’

‘Freud says somewhere that there are no accidents, doesn’t he?’Carrara asked.

‘I don’t know if Freud meant to include China when he said that, but, no, it doesn’t sound like it was an accident.’

Carrara’s grunt could have meant anything. Brunetti chose to interpret it as assent and said, ‘I’m going to talk to Dottoressa Lynch tomorrow morning.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to try to convince her to leave the city for a while, and I want to learn more about the pieces that were substituted. What they were, whether they have a market value—’

Carrara interrupted him. ‘Of course they have a market value.’

‘Yes, I understand that, Giulio. But I want to get some idea of what the market would be, whether they could be sold openly.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t understand what you meant, Guido.’ His pause could have been read as an apology, and then he added, ‘If it’s coming out of a dig in China, you can pretty much put any price you want on it.’

‘That rare?’ Brunetti asked.

‘That rare. But what do you want to know about it?’

‘Chiefly, I want to know where or how the copies could have been made.’

Carrara interrupted again, ‘Italy is full of studios that make copies, Guido. Everything: Greek statues, Etruscan jewellery, Ming pottery, Renaissance paintings. You name it, and there’s an Italian artisan who can make you one that will fool the experts.’

‘But haven’t you people down there got all sorts of ways to detect them? Surely I’ve read that. Carbon-14 and things like that.’

Carrara laughed. ‘Talk to Dottoressa Lynch, Guido. She has a whole chapter on it in her book, so I’m sure she can tell you things that will keep you awake on long winter nights.’ Brunetti heard noise from the other end, then silence as Carrara covered the phone with his hand. In a moment, he was back. ‘Sorry, Guido, but I’ve got a call coming in from Vietnam; it’s taken two days to get it through. Call me if you hear anything, and I’ll call you if I do.’ Before Brunetti could agree, Carrara was gone and the line was dead.

* * * *