Chapter Twenty-Eight
Brunetti opened the door to his office and, finding it no more than warm and the heating system silent, breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Saint Leandro, even though weeks had passed since he had worked his yearly miracle. There were other signs of spring: at home that morning, he had noticed that the pansies on the balcony were battering their way through the winter-hardened earth in the vases, and Paola had said she had to replant them this weekend; the wooden table, legs injected with poison, baked in the sun beside them; that morning, he’d seen the first of the black-headed seagulls that spent a brief spring holiday on the waters of the canals each year before heading off elsewhere; and the air breathed with a sudden softness that flowed like a benediction across the islands and the waters.
He hung his coat in the cupboard and walked over to his desk, but he veered away from it and went to stand at the window. There was motion on the scaffolding that covered San Lorenzo this morning; men moved up and down on the ladders and scrambled across the roof. Unlike the bursting insistence of nature, all of this man-made activity, Brunetti was sure, was no more than a false spring and would quickly end, no doubt with the renewal of the contracts.
He stood at the window for some time, until he was distracted by Signorina Elettra’s cheerful ‘Buon giorno.’ Today she was in yellow, a soft silk dress that fell to her knees, and heels so sharp he was glad his floor was stone and not parquet. Like the flowers and the gulls and the soft breezes, she brought grace into the room with her, and he smiled with something that felt like joy.
‘Buon giorno, signorina,’ he said. ‘You look especially lovely today. Like spring itself.’
‘Ah, this rag,’ she said dismissively and flipped fingers down towards the skirt of the dress that must have cost her more than a week’s salary. Her smile was at odds with her words, so he didn’t insist.
She handed him two files with a letter clipped to the top of them. ‘This needs your signature, Dottore.’
‘La Capra?’ he asked.
‘Yes. It’s your statement about why you and Officer Vianello went into the palazzo that night.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he muttered while he read quickly through the two-page document, written in response to the complaint of La Capra’s lawyers that Brunetti’s entrance into his home two months before had been illegal. Addressed to the Praetore, it explained that, during the course of his investigation, he had become increasingly convinced that La Capra had played some role in Semenzato’s murder and cited as evidence the fact that Salvatore La Capra’s fingerprints had been found in Semenzato’s office. Acting upon that and spurred by Dottoressa Lynch’s disappearance, he had gone to the La Capra palazzo with Sergeant Vianello and Signora Petrelli. Upon arriving, they had found the door to the courtyard open (as mentioned in the statements given by both Sergeant Vianello and Signora Petrelli) and had entered when they heard what sounded like the screams of a woman. His report carried a full description of events pursuant to their arrival (again, confirmed by the statements of Sergeant Vianello and Signora Petrelli); he offered this explanation to the Praetore to set his mind at rest that their entrance into the property of Signor La Capra had been well within the limits of the law, as it is, beyond question, the right, indeed, the duty, of even a private citizen to answer a call for help, especially if easy and legal access is available to do so. There followed a respectful closing. He took the pen Signorina Elettra held out to him and signed the letter.
‘Thank you, signorina. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes, Dottore. Signora Petrelli called and confirmed your meeting with her.’
More proof of spring. More grace.
‘Thank you, signorina,’ he said, taking the files and returning the letter to her. She smiled and was gone.
* * * *
The first file was from Carrara’s office in Rome and contained a complete list of the articles in La Capra’s collection that the art fraud police had been able to identify. The list of provenance read like a tourist’s, or policeman’s, guide to the plundered troves of the ancient world: Herculaneum, Volterra, Paestum, Corinth. The Orient and Middle East were well represented: Xian, Angkor Wat, the Kuwait Museum. Some of the pieces appeared to have been acquired legitimately, but they were in the minority. More than a few pieces had been declared to be fakes. Good ones, but still fakes. Documents sequestered in La Capra’s home proved that many of the illegal pieces had been acquired from Murino, whose shop was closed to allow the art police to make a complete inventory of the pieces there and in the warehouse he kept in Mestre. He denied all knowledge of illegally acquired pieces and insisted that they must have been brought in by his former partner, Dottor Semenzato. Had it not been for the fact that he had been arrested while accepting delivery of four boxes of alabaster ashtrays made in Hong Kong and of the four statues contained with them, he might have been believed. As it was, he was under arrest, and his lawyer had the responsibility of producing the invoices and dockets that would implicate Semenzato.
La Capra, in Palermo, where he had taken his son’s body for burial, seemed to have lost all interest in his collection. He had ignored all orders to produce further documents that could prove either purchase or ownership. The police, therefore, had confiscated all pieces known or believed to be stolen and were continuing to search for the source of those few which had still not been identified. Brunetti was pleased to note that Carrara had seen to it that the pieces taken from the Chinese show at the Ducal Palace were not listed in the inventory of objects found in La Capra’s house. Only three people - Brunetti, Flavia and Brett - knew where they were.
The second file contained the mounting papers on the case against La Capra, his late son, and the men arrested with him. Both of the men who had beaten Dottoressa Lynch had been in the palazzo that night and were arrested along with La Capra and another man. The first two admitted the beating but claimed that they had gone there to rob her apartment. They insisted they knew nothing about the murder of Dottor Semenzato.
La Capra, for his part, maintained that he had no idea that the two men, whom he identified as his driver and his bodyguard, had attempted to rob the apartment of Dottoressa Lynch, a woman for whom he had the highest professional regard. At the beginning, he also asserted that he neither knew nor had dealings of any sort with Dottor Semenzato. But as information flowed in from those places where he and Semenzato had met, as various dealers and antiquarians signed statements linking the two men together in a host of business dealings, La Capra’s story ebbed away as did the waters of acqua alta with the turning of the tide or a favourable change in the wind. And with the change of this particular tide came the memory that he had, in the past, perhaps bought a piece or two from Dottor Semenzato.
He had been ordered to return to Venice or risk being carried back by the police, but he had placed himself under doctor’s care and had been committed to a private clinic, suffering from ‘nervous collapse resulting from personal grief. He remained there, physically and, in a country where only the bond between parent and child remained sacred, legally untouchable.
Brunetti pushed the files away from him and stared at the empty surface of his desk, imagining the forces that had already been brought into play in this. La Capra was a man not without influence. And he now had a dead son, a young man of violent temper. Hadn’t the two thugs, the day after they’d spoken to their lawyer, recalled hearing Salvatore once say that Dottor Semenzato had treated his father without respect? Something about a statue that he had bought for his father that turned out to be false - something like that. And, yes, they thought they could remember hearing him say he would make the Dottore sorry he had ever recommended false artifacts for his father or for him to buy for his father.
Brunetti had no doubt that, as time passed, the two thugs would remember more and more, and all of it would point to poor Salvatore, bent on nothing else but the mistaken defence of his father’s honour and his own. And they’d probably recall the many occasions when Signor La Capra had tried to persuade his son that Dottor Semenzato was an honest man, that he had always acted in good faith when he endorsed pieces that were then sold by Murino, his partner. Perhaps the judges, if the case ever got that far, would have to listen to a tale of Salvatore’s desire to give his father nothing but pleasure, devoted son that he was. And Salvatore, not at all a sophisticated boy, but good, good at heart, would have tried to procure these presents for his beloved father in the only way he could think of, by seeking the advice of Dottor Semenzato. And given his devotion to his father, his intense desire to please him, it was but a short step to imagine his rage when he discovered that Dottor Semenzato had attempted to take advantage of both his innocence and his generosity by selling him a copy instead of an original piece. From there, it was but no distance at all to the injustice of adding to a father’s grief, a father who had to bear in one blow the death of his beloved only son and the sad knowledge of the lengths to which that son was capable of going in his attempts both to give his father pleasure and to defend their family honour.
Yes, it would hold, and the association between La Capra and Semenzato would, instead of working as evidence of his guilt, be used as the opposite, as an explanation of the underlying good faith between the two men, a trust destroyed by the dishonesty of Semenzato and the impulsiveness of Salvatore, alas, now beyond the power of the law. Brunetti had no doubt that the final legal decision would be that Salvatore had killed Semenzato. Well, he might have; no one would ever know. Either he or La Capra had done it, or had it done, and both of them had paid in their own way. Were he a man more given to sentimentality, Brunetti would judge La Capra to have paid the greater price, but he was not, so it seemed to him that Salvatore had paid the greater price for Semenzato’s death.
Brunetti pushed himself up, away from the desk and from the files that led to this conclusion. He had seen La Capra with his son, had pulled him from the slimy waters and helped the screaming man float his son’s body to the foot of the three low steps. And there, it had taken him and Vianello and two of the other officers to separate them, to pull La Capra away from his futile attempt to close with his own fingers the bloodless hole in the side of his son’s neck.
Brunetti had never believed that a life could be paid for with another life, so he again dismissed the idea that La Capra had paid for Semenzato’s death. All grief was separate and discrete, relating only to one loss. But he found it difficult to feel any personal rancour for the man he had last seen howling in the arms of a policeman whose only concern was to keep him from seeing his son’s body as it was carried away on a stretcher, face covered by Vianello’s rain-soaked coat.
He pushed these memories away. It was all beyond him now, taken into the hands of another agency of the law, and he could no longer affect the outcome in any way. He’d had enough of death and violence, enough of pilfered beauty and the lust for the perfect. He longed for springtime and its many imperfections.
* * * *
An hour later, he left the Questura and walked towards San Marco. Everywhere, he saw the same things he’d been seeing for days, but today he chose to call them signs of spring. Even the omnipresent pastel tourists lifted his heart. Via XXII Marzo pulled his steps down towards the Accademia Bridge. On the other side of it, he saw the season’s first long line of tourists waiting to enter the museum, but he had seen enough of art for a while. The water drew him now and the thought of sitting in the young sun with Flavia, having a coffee, talking of this and that, seeing the way her face went so quickly from ease to joy and back again. He was to meet her at Il Cucciolo at eleven, and he already delighted in the thought of the sound of the waters stirring under the wooden deck, of the desultory motion of the waiters, not yet thawed from their winter lethargy, and of the large valiant umbrellas which insisted on creating shade, long before there was any need of it. He took even greater delight in the thought of the sound of her voice.
Ahead of him he saw the waters of the Giudecca Canal and, beyond them, the happy fa ç ades of the buildings on the other side. From the left, a tanker steamed into view, riding high and empty in the water, and even its streaked grey hull seemed bright and beautiful in this light. A dog scampered past, kicked up its hind legs, then circled back upon itself, bent on capturing its tail.
At the water’s edge, he turned left and walked towards the open deck of the bar, searching for her. Four couples, a lone man, another, a woman and two children, a table with six or seven young girls whose giggles were audible even as he approached. But no Flavia. Perhaps she was late. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her. He began again at the first near table and studied everyone again, in the same order. And saw her, sitting with the two children, a tall boy and a young girl still plump with the fat of childhood.
His smile disappeared, and a different one took its place. Using this one, he approached their table and took her extended hand.
She smiled up at him. ‘Oh, Guido, how wonderful to see you. What a glorious day.’ She turned to the boy and said, ‘Paolino, this is Dottor Brunetti.’ The young boy stood, almost as tall as Brunetti, took his hand and shook it.
‘Buon giorno, Dottore. I’d like to thank you for helping my mother.’ It sounded as if he had practised the line, and he delivered it formally, as from one trying to be a man to one who already was. He had his mother’s dark eyes, but his face was longer and narrower.
‘Me too, Mamma,’ the girl piped up, and, when Flavia was slow to respond, stood and held her hand out to Brunetti. ‘I’m Victoria, but my friends call me Vivi.’
Taking her hand, Brunetti said, ‘Then I’d like to call you Vivi.’
She was young enough to smile, old enough to look away before she blushed.
He pulled out a chair and sat, then angled the chair to get his face info the sun. They talked generally for a few minutes, the children asking him questions about being a policeman, whether he carried a gun, and when he said he did, where it was. When he told them, Vivi asked if he had ever shot anyone and seemed disappointed when he said that he had not. It didn’t take the children long to realize that being a policeman in Venice was a great deal different from being a cop on Miami Vice, and after that revelation, they seemed to lose interest both in his career and in him.
The waiter came and Brunetti ordered a Campari soda; Flavia asked for another coffee, then changed it to a Campari. The children grew audibly restless, until Flavia suggested that they walk up along the embankment to Nico’s and get themselves gelato, an idea that was met with general relief.
When they were gone, Vivi hurrying to keep up with Paolo’s longer steps, he said, ‘they’re very nice children.’ Flavia said nothing, so he added, ‘I didn’t know you’d brought them to Venice with you.’
‘Yes, it’s seldom that I get a chance to spend a weekend with them, but I’m not scheduled to sing the matinee this Saturday, so we decided to come here. I’m singing in Munich now,’ she added.
‘I know. I read about you in the papers.’
She gazed out over the water, across the canal to the church of the Redentore. ‘I’ve never been here in the early spring before.’
‘Where are you staying?’
She pulled her eyes back from the church and looked at him. ‘At Brett’s.’
‘Oh. Did she come back with you?’ he asked. He had last seen Brett in the hospital, but she had stayed there only overnight, then she and Flavia had left for Milan two days later. He’d had no word of either of them until the day before, when Flavia had called and asked him to meet her for a drink.
‘No, she’s in Zurich, giving a lecture.’
‘When will she come back?’ he asked politely.
‘She’ll be in Rome next week. I finish in Munich next Thursday night.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then London, but only for a concert, and then China,’ she said, voice carrying her reproach that he had forgotten. ‘I’m invited to give master classes at the Beijing Conservatory. Don’t you remember?’
‘Then you’re going to go through with it? You’re going to take the pieces back?’ he asked, surprised that she would do it.
She made no attempt to disguise her own delight. ‘Of course we are. That is, I am.’
‘But how can you do that? How many pieces are there? Three? Four?’
‘Four. I’m carrying seven pieces of luggage, and I’ve arranged it that the Minister of Culture will meet me at the airport. I doubt that they’re going to look for antiques being smuggled into the country.’
‘What if they find them?’ he asked.
She gave a purely theatrical wave of the hand. ‘Well, I can always say that I was bringing them to donate to the people of China, that I was going to present them after I’d taught the classes, as a token of my gratitude for their having invited me.’
She’d do it, too, and he was certain she’d get away with it. He laughed at the thought. ‘Well, good luck to you.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, certain that she’d need no luck there.
They sat in silence for a while, Brett a third party, invisible but present. Boats puttered past; the waiter brought their drinks, and they were glad of the diversion.
‘And after China?’ he finally asked.
‘Lots of travelling until the end of summer. That’s another reason I wanted to spend the weekend with the children. I’ve got to go to Paris, then Vienna; and then back to London.’ When he said nothing she tried to lighten the mood by saying, ‘I get to die in Paris and Vienna, Lucia and Violetta.’
‘And in London?’ he asked.
‘Mozart. Fiordiligi. And then my first attempt at Handel.’
‘Will Brett go with you?’ he asked and sipped at his drink.
She looked over to the church again, the church of the Redeemer. ‘She’s going to stay in China for at least a few months,’ was all the answer Flavia gave.
He sipped again and looked out over the water, suddenly conscious of the dance of light on its rippled surface. Three tiny sparrows came and landed at his feet, hopping about in search of food. Slowly, he reached forward and took a fragment of the brioche that still lay on a plate in front of Flavia and tossed it to them. Greedily, they pounced on it and tore it into pieces, then each flew off to a safer place to eat.
‘Her career?’ he asked.
Flavia nodded, then shrugged. ‘I’m afraid she takes it far more seriously than . . .’ she began, but then she trailed off.
‘Than you take yours?’ he asked, not ready to believe it.
‘In a way, I suppose that’s true.’ Seeing that he was about to protest, she placed her hand on his arm and explained. ‘Think of it this way, Guido. Anyone at all can come and listen to me and shout his head off, and he doesn’t have to know anything about either music or singing. He just has to like my costume, or the story, or perhaps he just shouts “brava” because everyone else does.’ She saw that he didn’t believe this and insisted, ‘It’s true. Believe me. My dressing room is filled with them after every performance, people who tell me how beautiful my singing was, even if I sang like a dog that night.’ He watched the memory of this play across her face, and then he knew she was speaking the truth.
‘But think about what Brett does. Very few people know anything about her work except the people who really know what she’s doing; they’re all experts, so they understand the importance of her work. I suppose the difference is that she can be judged only by her peers, her equals, so the standards are much higher, and praise really means something. I can be applauded by any fool who chooses to cheer.’
‘But what you do is beautiful.’
She laughed outright. ‘Don’t let Brett hear you say that.’
‘Why? Doesn’t she think it is?’
Still laughing, she explained, ‘No, Guido, you misunderstand. She thinks what she does is beautiful, too, and she thinks the things she works with are as beautiful as the music I sing.’
He remembered then that there had been something unclear in Brett’s statement and he had wanted to ask her about it. But there had been no time: she’d been in the hospital and then had left Venice immediately after signing a formal statement. ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ he began and then laughed outright when he realized how very true that was.
Her smile was tentative, questioning. ‘What?’
‘It’s about Brett’s statement,’ he explained. Flavia’s face relaxed. ‘She wrote that La Capra had shown her a bowl, a Chinese bowl. I forget what century it was supposed to be from.’
‘The third millennium before Christ,’ Flavia explained.
‘She told you about it?’
‘Of course she did.’
‘Then maybe you can help me.’ She nodded and he continued. ‘In her statement, she said that she broke it, that she let it fall to the floor, knowing it would break.’
Flavia nodded. ‘Yes, I talked to her. That’s what she said. That’s what happened.’
‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ Brunetti said.
‘What?’
‘If she loves these things so much, if she’s so devoted to them, to saving them, then the bowl had to have been a false one, didn’t it, another of those fakes that La Capra bought, thinking that they were real?’
Flavia said nothing and turned her head away to stare off towards the abandoned mill that stood at the end of the Giudecca.
‘Well?’ Brunetti insisted.
She turned and faced him, sun shining down on her from the left and chiselling her profile against the buildings across the canal. ‘Well what?’ she asked.
‘It had to be a fake, didn’t it, for her to destroy it?’
For a long time, he thought she was going to ignore him or refuse to answer him. The sparrows came back and, this time, Flavia tore the remaining heel of brioche into tiny fragments and tossed it down to them. They both watched as the small birds swallowed the golden crumbs and looked up towards Flavia for more. At the same time, they glanced up from the peeping birds, and their eyes met. After a long moment, she glanced away from him and off down the embankment, where she saw her children coming back towards them, ice cream cones in their hands.
‘Well?’ Brunetti asked, needing an answer.
They both heard Vivi’s hoots of laughter ring out over the water.
Flavia leaned forward and put her hand on his arm again. ‘Guido,’ she began, smiling. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’