Robbed of every sense but sight, Brunetti saw in four corners wide cloth-covered panels that reached from the floor to the height of a man, all turned to face the centre of the room. And there in the centre, a man lay on a chaise-longue covered with pale brown leather. His attention entirely given to a small square booklet in his hands, he gave no sign that he had noticed Brunetti’s entrance. Brunetti stopped just inside the door and watched him. And he listened to the music.
The soprano’s tone was absolutely pure, a sound that was generated in the heart and warmed there until it came swelling out with the apparent effortlessness that was achieved only by the greatest singers and then only with the greatest skill. Her voice paused upon a note, soared off from it, swelled, flirted with what he now realized was a harpsichord, and then rested for a moment while the strings spoke with the harpsichord. And then, as if it had always been there, the voice returned and swept the strings up with it, higher and higher still. Brunetti could make out words and phrases here and there, ‘disprezzo’, ‘perch è ’, ‘per pietade’, ‘fugge il mio bene’, all of which spoke of love and longing and loss. Opera, then, though he had no idea which one it was.
The man on the chaise-longue looked to be in his late fifties and wore around his middle proof of good eating and soft living. His face was dominated by his nose, large and fleshy — the same nose Brunetti had seen on the mug shot of the accused rapist, his son — on which sat a pair of half-lens reading glasses. His eyes were large, limpid and dark enough to seem almost black. He was cleanshaven, but his beard was so heavy that a dark shadow was evident on his cheeks, though it was still early afternoon.
The music came to a chilling diminuendo and died away. It was only in the silence that radiated out to him that Brunetti became aware of just how perfect the quality of sound had been, the volume disguised by that perfection.
The man leaned back limply on his chaise-longue, and the booklet fell from his hand to the floor beside him. He closed his eyes, head back, his entire body slack. Though he had in no way acknowledged Brunetti’s arrival, Brunetti had no doubt the man was very much aware of his presence in the room; moreover, he had the feeling that this display of aesthetic ravishment was being put on specifically for his edification.
Gently, much in the manner his mother-in-law used to applaud an aria she hadn’t liked but had been told was very well sung, he patted the tips of his fingers together a few times, very lightly.
As if called back from realms where lesser mortals dared not enter, the man on the chaise-longue opened his eyes, shook his head in feigned astonishment, and turned to look at the source of the lukewarm response.
‘Didn’t you like the voice?’ La Capra asked with real surprise.
‘Oh, I liked the voice a great deal,’ Brunetti answered, then added, ‘but the performance seemed a bit forced.’
If La Capra caught the absence of possessive pronoun, he chose to ignore it. He picked up the libretto and waved it in the air. ‘That was the best voice of our age, the only great singer,’ he said, waving the small libretto for emphasis.
‘Signora Petrelli?’ Brunetti inquired.
The man’s mouth twisted up as if he’d bitten into something unpleasant. ‘Sing Handel? La Petrelli?’ he asked with tired surprise. ‘All she can sing is Verdi and Puccini.’ He pronounced the names as a nun would say “sex” and “passion”.
Brunetti began to offer that Flavia also sang Mozart, but instead he asked, ‘Signor La Capra?’
At the sound of his name, the man pushed himself to his feet, suddenly recalled from aesthetic pronouncements to his duty as a host, and approached Brunetti, extending his hand. ‘Yes. And whom do I have the honour of meeting?’
Brunetti took his hand and returned the very formal smile. ‘Commissario Guido Brunetti.’
‘Commissario?’ One would think La Capra had never heard the word.
Brunetti nodded. ‘Of the police.’
Momentary confusion crossed the other man’s face, but this time Brunetti thought it might be a real emotion, not one manufactured for an audience. La Capra quickly recovered and asked, very politely, ‘And what is it, if I might ask, that brings you to visit me, Commissario?’
Brunetti didn’t want La Capra to suspect that the police connected him with Semenzato’s death, so he had decided to say nothing about his son’s fingerprints having been found at the scene of Semenzato’s murder. And until he had a better sense of the man, he didn’t want La Capra to know the police were curious about any link that might exist between him and Brett. ‘Theft, Signor La Capra,’ Brunetti said and then repeated, ‘Theft.’
Signor La Capra was, in an instant, all polite attention. ‘Yes, Commissario?’
Brunetti smiled his most friendly smile. ‘I came to speak to you about the city, Signor La Capra, since you’re a new resident, and about some of the risks of living here.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Dottore,’ returned La Capra, matching him smile for smile. ‘But, please, we can’t stand here like two statues. Could I offer you a coffee? You’ve had lunch, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I have. But a coffee would be welcome.’
‘Ah, then come along with me. We’ll go down to my study and I’ll have us brought some.’ Saying that, he led Brunetti from the room and back down the stairway. On the second floor, he opened a door and stood back politely to allow Brunetti to enter before him. Books lined two walls; paintings much in need of cleaning — and looking all the more expensive because of that - filled the third. Three ceiling-high windows looked out over the Grand Canal, where boats went about their boaty business. La Capra waved Brunetti to a satin-covered divan and went himself to a long oak desk, where he picked up the phone, pushed a button, and asked that coffee be brought to the study.
He came back across the room and sat down opposite Brunetti, careful first to pull gently at his trousers above the knees so as not to stretch them out when he sat. ‘As I said, it’s very thoughtful of you to come to speak to me, Dottor Brunetti. I’ll be sure to thank Dottor Patta when I see him.’
‘Are you a friend of the Vice-Questore’s?’ Brunetti asked.
La Capra raised his hands in a self-deprecating gesture, pushing away the possibility of such glory. ‘No, I have no such honour. But we are both members of the Lions’ Club, and so we have occasion to meet socially.’ He paused a moment and then added, ‘I’ll be sure to thank him for your thoughtfulness.’
Brunetti nodded his gratitude, knowing just how thoughtful Patta would find it.
‘But, tell me, Dottor Brunetti, what is it you wanted to warn me about?’
‘There’s no specific warning I can give you, Signor La Capra. It’s more that I want to tell you that the appearances of this city are deceiving.’
‘Yes?’
‘It seems that we have a peaceful city here,’ Brunetti began and then interrupted himself to ask, ‘You know that there are only seventy thousand inhabitants?’
La Capra nodded.
‘So it would seem, at first glance, that it is a sleepy little provincial town, that the streets are safe.’ Here Brunetti hastened to add, ‘And they are; people are still safe at all times of the day or night.’ He paused a moment and then added, as if it had just come to him, ‘And they are generally safe in their homes, as well.’