That didn't surprise Brunetti: until a case was brought against the old woman, the lawyer would not be legally involved in the private behaviour of her client. But her refusal to respond to these complaints seemed at odds with Awocatessa Marieschi's assertions of regard and concern for Signora Battestini. Then again, a lawyer did not write a letter and then not charge for doing it.
'And the day she was killed?'
'Nothing. One man thinks he remembers seeing the Romanian come out of the house, but he wouldn't swear to it.'
'What was he uncertain about, that it was the Romanian or that she was coming out of that house?'
‘I don't know. As soon as I showed any interest in what he was saying, he clammed up.' Throwing up his hands, Vianello admitted, ‘I know it's not a lot, but I don't think there's much else to be got by asking around.'
'That's nothing new, is it?' Brunetti asked, making no attempt to disguise his disappointment.
Vianello shrugged. 'You know what it's like. No one seems to remember much about the son; they all disliked her, and since the husband's been dead for a decade, all anyone can say is that he was una brava persona, how he liked to have a drink with his friends, and how they didn't understand how he could stay married to a woman like that.'
Would people say the same things about him after he died? Brunetti wondered.
'What about you?' Vianello asked.
Brunetti told him about his conversation with the lawyer, not omitting mention of the dog.
'Did you ask her about the bank accounts?' Vianello asked.
'No. She said that Signora Battestini had about five thousand Euros at the Uni Credit. I didn't want to ask about the other accounts until we know something more about them.'
As if the thought were mother to the deed, Signorina Elettra chose that moment to appear in the doorway. She wore a green skirt and a white blouse, and at her neck she had a necklace of large cylindrical amber beads. As she came towards them, the sun fell on the necklace, turning the beads a flaming red and in the process bedecking her in the colours of the flag, as if she were a walking personification of civic virtue. Coming closer, she passed out of the sunlight and turned again into herself. She held out a folder and put it on his desk.
Pointing to it, she said with appealing self-effacement, 'It turned out to be easier than I thought, sir.'
'And Deutsche Bank?' Vianello asked.
She shook her head in stern disapproval. 'It was so easy you could have done it, Ispettore,' she said by way of explanation and then added with even greater asperity, 'I think it's all this Europeanization: in the past, German banks were reliable; now it's as if they go home in the afternoon and leave the door open. I tremble at the thought of what will happen to the Swiss if they join Europe.'
Brunetti, unimpressed by her concern for the financial security of the continent, asked, 'And?'
'They were all opened the year before the husband died’ she explained, 'over a period of three days, each with an initial deposit of half a million lire. Ever since then, deposits of a hundred thousand lire were made every month into each account, except for the period right after the son died, when no deposits were made.' She smiled at their response to this and went on. 'But that was made up for when they began again after two months.' She left them to consider all this for a moment before adding, 'The last deposits – normal deposits, I suppose one could call them – were made at the beginning of July, bringing the total in the accounts, with interest, to almost thirty thousand Euros. But no deposits were made this month.'
All three of them considered the meaning of this, but it was Brunetti who gave voice to it. 'So the need for the payments died with her.'
'So it would seem’ agreed Signorina Elettra, and then added, 'But the strange thing is that the money was never touched: it sat there, just gathering interest.' She opened the file and, holding it so that both men could see the figures, said, 'Those are the totals in the accounts. They were all in her name.'
'What happened to them when she died?' Brunetti asked.
'She died on a Friday; on Monday all of it was transferred to the Channel Islands’ she said, and then added a suggestive, 'and…' that successfully captured the attention of both men before she continued, 'though no name is given for the person authorizing the transfers, all of the banks have powers of attorney on file in the names of both Roberta Marieschi and Graziella Simionato.'
‘I asked Marieschi this morning how much money Signora Battestini had left, but all she mentioned was an account at the Uni Credit with about ten million lire.'
'Taxes?' Vianello gave voice to the obvious. By moving the accounts instantly out of the country and then trusting to general bureaucratic incompetence, it was not unlikely that the transfer would pass unobserved by the tax authorities, especially if they were in different banks.
'And the niece?' Brunetti asked.
'I've begun that’ was all she answered.
'It's more than sixty million’ Vianello said, like most people, still calculating in old lire.
'A nice sum to be in the hands of a widow who lived in three rooms’ Signorina Elettra commented, not that this needed to be said.
'And a nice sum to slip past the hands of the taxman’ Vianello added, not without audible admiration. Looking at Signorina Elettra, he asked, 'But can that be done?'
It was impossible for Brunetti to observe her tilted chin and expression of fierce concentration without wondering if there existed limits to her familiarity with the unlawful. Certainly years of employment in the national bank would be superb preparation^ J?ut he feared her craft had been raised to new heights by her years at the Questura.
Like Santa Caterina returning from contemplation of the Divine Presence, Signorina Elettra left the world of theoretical malfeasance behind and came back to Brunetti and Vianello. 'Yes’ she declared, 'if whoever did it counted on incompetence at the Finanza and played the odds that the transfer wouldn't be noticed, then it would be easy enough, I think.' Vianello and Brunetti began to calculate the odds of this until Signorina Elettra interrupted them by asking, 'But why would she leave the money there and never touch it?'
Brunetti, who had read Balzac's descriptions of the cunning and avidity of peasants, had no doubts about this. 'To watch it accumulate’ he said. Vianello's past did not include much in the way of French novels, but he had spent time in the countryside and instantly recognized the truth of this.
‘I was up in the attic, and I saw the things she kept’ Brunetti said, remembering a pair of felt slippers so worn that not even Caritas would have dared to offer them to the poor and tea towels with tattered edges and worn-in stains. 'She'd have enjoyed looking at the numbers and watching them grow, believe me.'
'But where are the original records?' Vianello asked.
'Who packed up the apartment?' countered Brunetti.
"The niece inherited, so it would have been her job’ Signorina Elettra supplied. 'But it would be easy enough for the dead woman's lawyer to go into the apartment before that and take them.' Then, as an afterthought, she added, 'Or her killer.'
'Or they could have been what the killer was looking for’ Vianello said. His face brightened and he suggested, 'But we have the computer records if we ever want proof.'
Like Lachesis and Atropos, turning their blind eyes to an errant Clotho, Brunetti and Signorina Elettra turned and stared at Vianello. "The government has seen to that, Ispettore’ Signorina Elettra said with a voice that stopped just short of reproach, as though he were responsible for the law that stipulated that only original bank records, not photocopies and not computer records, could be introduced as evidence.
Did Brunetti see the inspector blush? ‘I hadn't thought’ Vianello confessed, realizing instantly that the information would have legal weight only when and if bank officials produced the original records of accounts that had slept unobserved for more than a decade, until their mysterious flight to a tax haven so famous as surely to be known even to a lawyer in a sleepy provincial town such as Venice.