‘Ah, Brunetti,’ he said when he saw the other man come in. ‘Have a seat. Please have a seat.’ In the more than five years Brunetti had worked for Patta, this, he was certain, was the first time he had heard the Vice-Questore say ‘please’, other than to strain the word through tightly clenched teeth.
Brunetti did as he was asked and waited to see what new marvels were in store.
‘I wanted to thank you for your help,’ Patta began, looking at Brunetti for a second and then glancing away, as if following a bird that had flown across the room behind Brunetti’s shoulder. Because Paola was gone, no copies of Gente or Oggi were in the house, so Brunetti could not be sure of the absence of stories about Signora Patta and Tito Burrasca, but he assumed that this was the reason for Patta’s gratitude. If Patta wanted to credit that fact to Brunetti’s supposed connections with the world of publishing rather than to the relative inconsequence of his wife’s behaviour, Brunetti saw no sense in disillusioning the man.
‘It was nothing, sir,’ he said, quite truthfully.
Patta nodded. ‘What about this business in Mestre?’
Brunetti gave him a brief account of what he had learned so far, concluding with his visit to Ravanello that morning and the man’s assertion that he knew of Mascari’s inclinations and tastes.
‘Then it would seem that his murderer has got to be one of his, what do you call them, “tricks”?’ Patta said, showing his unerring instinct for the obvious.
‘That is, sir, if you think men of our age are sexually attractive to other men.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Commissario,’ Patta said, returning to a tone with which Brunetti was more familiar.
‘We’re all assuming that he was either a transvestite or a whore and was killed as a result of that, yet the only evidence we have is the fact that he was found in a dress and the statement of the man who took his job.’
‘That man is also the director of a bank, Brunetti,’ Patta said, with his usual reverence for such titles.
‘Which job he has as a result of the other man’s death.’
‘Bankers do not kill one another, Brunetti,’ Patta said with the rock-solid certainty so characteristic of him.
Too late, Brunetti realized the danger here. Patta had only to see the advantage of attributing Mascari’s death to some violent episode in his deviant private life, and he would be justified in leaving it to the Mestre police to search for the person responsible and thus effectively remove Brunetti from any involvement with the case.
‘You’re probably right, sir,’ Brunetti conceded, ‘but this is not the time when we can risk a suggestion in the press that we have not explored every possible avenue in this case.’
Like a bull at the slightest flip of the cape, Patta responded to this reference to the media. ‘What are you suggesting, then?’
‘I think we should, of course, concentrate all efforts on an examination of the world of the transvestites in Mestre, but I think we should at least go through the motions of examining the possibility of some connection to the bank, however remote we both know that to be.’
Almost with dignity, Patta said, ‘Commissario, I’m not that far gone yet. If you want to pursue this idea that there might be some connection between his death and the bank, you are free to do so, but I want you to bear in mind whom you are dealing with and treat them with the respect due to their position.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘I’ll leave it to you, then, but I don’t want you to do anything involving the bank without checking with me first.’
‘Yes, sir. Will that be all?’
‘Yes.’
Brunetti got to his feet, pushed the chair closer to the desk, and left the office without another word. He found Signorina Elettra in the outer office, leafing through the papers in a file.
‘Signorina,’ he began, ‘have you managed to get any of that financial information?’
‘About which one?’ she asked with a small smile.
‘Eh?’ Brunetti asked, entirely at a loss.
‘Avvocato Santomauro or Signor Burrasca?’ So preoccupied had Brunetti been by his involvement with Mascari’s death that he had forgotten that Signorina Elettra had been given the task of finding out everything she could about the film director as well.
‘Oh, I’d forgotten all about that,’ Brunetti admitted. The fact that she mentioned Burrasca made it clear to Brunetti that she wanted to talk about him. ‘What did you find out about him?’
She laid the file to one side of her desk and looked up at Brunetti as if surprised by his question. ‘That his apartment in Milano is for sale, that his last three films lost money, and that the villa in Monaco has already been taken over by his creditors.’ She smiled. ‘Would you like more?’
Brunetti nodded. How on earth had she done it?
‘Criminal charges have been brought against him in the United States for using children in pornographic films. And all copies of his last film have been confiscated by the police in Monaco; I can’t find out why.’
‘And his taxes? Are those copies of his returns you’re looking through?’
‘Oh, no,’ she answered, voice heavy with disapproval. ‘You know how difficult it is to get any information from the tax people.’ She paused and added, as he suspected she might, ‘Unless you know someone who works there. I won’t have them until tomorrow.’
‘And then will you give it all to the Vice-Questore?’
Signorina Elettra favoured him with a fierce look. ‘No, Commissario. I’m going to wait at least a few more days before I do that.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I do not joke about the Vice-Questore.’
‘But why make him wait?’
‘Why not?’
Brunetti wondered what minor indignities Patta had heaped on this woman’s head during the last week to have made him be so soon repaid in this way. ‘And what about Santomauro?’ he asked.
‘Ah, the Avvocato is an entirely different case. His finances couldn’t possibly be in better condition. He’s got a portfolio of stocks and bonds that must be worth more than half a billion lire. His yearly income is declared at two hundred million lire, which is at least double what a man in his position would normally declare.’
‘What about taxes?’
‘That’s what’s so strange. It seems that he declares it all. There’s no evidence that he’s cheating in any way.’
‘You sound like you don’t believe it,’ Brunetti said.
‘Please, Commissario,’ she said, giving him another reproachful look, though less fierce than the last. ‘You know better than to believe that anyone tells the truth on their taxes. That’s what’s so strange. If he’s declaring everything he earns, then he’s got to have another source of money that makes his declared income so insignificant he doesn’t have to cheat on it.’
Brunetti thought about it for a moment. Given the tax laws, no other interpretation was possible. ‘Does your computer give you any indication of where that money might be coming from?’
‘No, but it does tell me that he’s the president of the Lega della Moralità. So that would seem the logical place to look.’
‘Can you,’ he asked, speaking in the plural and nodding at the screen in front of her, ‘see what you can find out about the Lega?’
‘Oh, I’ve already begun that, Commissario. But the Lega, so far, has been even more elusive than have Signor Burrasca’s tax returns.’
‘I have confidence you’ll see your way clear of every obstacle, Signorina.’
She bowed her head, taking it as no more than her due.
He decided to ask, ‘How is it that you’re so familiar with the computer network?’
‘Which one?’ she asked, looking up.
‘Financial.’
‘Oh, I worked with it at my last job,’ she said and glanced back down at the screen.
‘And where was that, if I might ask?’ he said, thinking of insurance agencies, perhaps an accountant’s office.