61
Sergeant Vosper was a slow and methodical man, for whom orders were orders. Other than questioning the procedural validity of taking over another man’s case, he did not doubt his chief. Finkel had analyzed the murderer’s motives. Vosper’s job was to furnish the supporting evidence.
The contessa, of course, would be able to name the guilty lover easily, but Vosper was not a policeman for nothing. He was sly enough to know that she would refuse to give away the name-even if she suspected him. She was probably flattered by the passions she had aroused. Questioning her was, therefore, a waste of time.
The truth was, Vosper was slightly scared by the prospect of interviewing the Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria, with her titles and protocols, and the opportunities for making a fool of himself. But Vosper’s own aunt had been in service, many years ago, and he knew how to talk to servants. He knew, too, that servants kept their eyes open; they were a mine of information.
“So, Andrea?” he said pleasantly to the contessa’s footman, as he slipped into a chair in the little cafe on the Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini.
“It’s Antonio. Who are you?”
“Police. Don’t worry, I’m not here to put a finger on you. I just want to have a little chat.”
“It’s Barbieri, is it? I know nothing about it.”
“I see. And what makes you so sure it is about Barbieri?”
Antonio looked at the policeman and frowned. “What else would it be?”
Vosper considered the question. He couldn’t think of an answer, so he said, “The contessa, your mistress. She’s an attractive woman.”
Antonio didn’t respond.
“Unmarried, curiously.” For Vosper, an unmarried woman was a rare and rather unappealing idea. “But she has men in her life, I’m thinking. Admirers.”
Antonio looked blank. “It’s not for me to say.”
“You can confide in me, Antonio, because I am a policeman.” Vosper took out a toothpick and put it into his mouth; he saw no point in beating about the bush. “I wonder, has anyone new come calling on her recently? A new friend, perhaps?”
Antonio smiled to himself. He didn’t have much time for the friends, or their policemen. “You mean, the American?”
“The American,” Vosper returned, noncommittally. “Tell me about him.”
Antonio obliged. There was very little to tell, but he was reasonably sure that a fellow as stupid as Vosper could waste a lot of time pondering Signor Brett’s involvement in the case. He hoped Signor Brett would not be much inconvenienced: he had seemed like a decent man.
“He took the neighboring apartment? Interesting.” How better to manage an affair?
He found the details of Brett’s last-albeit first-public visit to the palazzo interesting, too.
“He felt sick, you say?” Sick with jealousy, no doubt. Brett had seen his rival in the room. He left early and then, having carefully brought Antonio to the door of his apartment to establish an alibi, he waited until the coast was clear and doubled back.
An open-and-shut case, just like the chief said.
“Thank you, Andrea, you’ve been most helpful.”
“My pleasure,” Antonio said.
Only one thing troubled Vosper as he made his way back to the Procuratie.
He was not, he would have admitted, the brightest candle in the chandelier. So why hadn’t Brunelli pounced already?
62
Brunelli returned to the Procuratie after a quick lunch, to find an anxious Scorlotti waiting for him in the office.
“Trouble, Scorlotti?”
“Vosper’s taken over the Barbieri case, Commissario. The chief told him it was a crime of passion.”
Brunelli sat down heavily at his desk and rubbed his eyes. He felt terribly tired.
“Thank you, Scorlotti.”
“Aren’t you-I mean, don’t you want to see the chief?”
Brunelli looked up. “Frankly, Scorlotti, no. He won’t be back from lunch for another hour or two, anyway.”
“Not today, sir. He’s in his office. Vosper thinks he’s found the murderer.”
“Well, that was quick. At least he ruled out suicide.”
Scorlotti grinned.
“So.” Brunelli clasped his hands in front of him and swiveled on his chair. “Who did it?”
“The American, apparently. Brett.”
“Ah, yes.” Brunelli nodded slowly. “Has he asked to see my notes on the case?”
“Not necessary, the chief says.”
“No. No, of course not.” He stood up. “If anyone asks for me-I don’t suppose they will, Scorlotti, but you never know-tell them I’ve gone for a walk.”
“Bene, Commissario.” Scorlotti hesitated. “It’s a mess, isn’t it, sir?”
“For Signor Brett, Scorlotti, it has the makings of a nightmare.”
63
Scorlotti understood that the commissario wanted to be alone. He was not fooled by his air of weary calm. Brunelli might despise the politics of his situation, but he hated injustice even more-especially injustice perpetrated by people whose job was to dispense it fairly.
The walk, Scorlotti dimly supposed, would lead to a resolution.
Brunelli’s own thoughts were equally vague, as he stepped out of the Procuratie and began to stump angrily along the Molo. He did not exercise enough, as it was, and as a matter of course he liked to eat too well- seppia con nero was just the tip of the iceberg. He counted himself lucky that he could eat well, for many people in Venice had been on rations for years, ever since the arrival of the friends and the decline of the port. Sometimes his wife reminded him to be more forgiving. Hunger makes thieves, she said.
He walked, without really choosing where he went, following the invitation of a bridge or the angle of an alleyway, but the intricacy of the walk pleased him, not least because it reflected the intricacies of his own mind. The stadtmeister complained of having nowhere to ride, or to hit his stride when he wanted a walk; sometimes he had himself shipped out to the Lido for an afternoon. “I like a straight line, Brunelli, and-let us not delude ourselves-that goes for police work, too.”
Brunelli knew every inch of his city, from the water and from the land. The Grand Canal curved in a lazy backward S between islands with different dialects, different loyalties, different saints, and separate traditions. Even faces could vary from parish to parish. But Venice itself was compacted out of all these differences. Together, Brunelli sensed, they made a whole.
That explained how the city had subdued a straggling empire, fought and traded and conceded ground when pushed, and regained what it could when the opportunity arose. The money that had built Venice-the money that had paid for the bricks and stones and crockets and secret gardens, for the handsome wellheads in every campo, and the churches and the schools-came from anything but following the straight line. It came, Brunelli thought, as he turned into a sotoportego beneath a building constructed on the profit of camel trading in the Negev, from a habit of looking around the next corner, from regularly observing juxtapositions-the curve of a bridge, the redness of an old wall, and the reflection of a tiny votive niche in a canal at night. It came from a certain sort of efficiency-not the straight-lined sort, but one that could hold a thousand turnings and windings in the mind at once.
He found himself at the Rialto and crossed the bridge.
According to the stadtmeister, the Austrians had plans to fill in canals and bring a railway across the lagoon. Why not? The city was dying on its feet. Carrots were cheaper in Padua or Mestre. Lawyers were busy along the coast-but in Venice, for sure, they wanted work like everyone else.
Brunelli found himself on a bridge with a parapet-another Austrian felicity-and leaned on the wall, looking down into the green water of the canal.
64
Brunelli raised his eyes from the canal and let them rove across the facade of a palazzo he recognized as belonging to the Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria.