‘He probably thinks he’s too clever to be caught,’ she suggested.
‘How very foolish of him,’ Brunetti said, recalling how often the Lieutenant had made a point of attempting to prove to Signorina Elettra his own superior cleverness. ‘He should have realized how dangerous it was,’ Brunetti began and, seeing her smile at the breadth of his understanding, added, ‘to have thought he could get away with anything.’
‘The Lieutenant does at times try my patience,’ she said. The coolness of her smile warmed his heart.
24
As though given wings by the novel experience of working within the limits of the law, Signorina Elettra obtained the missing information by noon the following day, when she came into his office. Though she perhaps attempted to imitate the bland expression of blindfolded Justice as she placed the papers on his desk, she failed to disguise her satisfaction at having so quickly succeeded in her task.
‘It’s so easy, it’s enough to make me think of changing my ways,’ she said, though Brunetti was quick to hear the lie.
‘I shall live in that single hope,’ he said mildly as he looked at the first paper, which was a copy of a document written in a spidery hand, signed with an indecipherable scribble at the bottom. Two other signatures stood below it.
‘You might want to look at the second paper, sir,’ she suggested. He did so and saw that it was the death certificate of Marie Reynard.
In all these years, Brunetti had never decided whether Signorina Elettra preferred to explain things to him or have him discover them himself. To save time, he asked, ‘And I am looking for?’
‘The dates, sir.’
He glanced back at the first sheet and saw that its date was four days before that on the death certificate. Pointing to it, he said, ‘So this is the famous will?’ No wonder it had caused so much trouble: only an expert could make out this script.
‘The third sheet is a transcript, sir. It was done by three different people, and they all produced roughly the same text.’
‘Roughly?’
‘Nothing that mattered. Or so the accompanying papers state.’
He turned to the third page and read that, being of sound mind, Marie Reynard left her entire estate, comprising bank accounts, investment accounts, houses and their attached estates, apartments, patents, and all moveable property to Avvocato Benevento Cuccetti, and that this will precluded and superseded all previous wills and was an expression of her total desire and irrevocable decision.
‘Nice mixture of the poetic and the legaclass="underline" “total desire and irrevocable decision”,’ Brunetti observed.
‘Nice mixture of fixed and moveable property, as well,’ Signorina Elettra added, nodding to the papers in his hand. Brunetti turned over the transcript and found a list of bank accounts, properties, and other possessions.
‘What else did you learn?’ he asked.
‘The apartment that was sold to Morandi is behind the Basilica, top floor, one hundred and eighty metres.’
‘If the owner was Cuccetti’s wife, then it can’t have been part of the Reynard estate.’
‘No, she’d owned it for more than ten years before she sold it to him.’
‘The declared price?’
‘One hundred and fifty thousand euros,’ she answered. Then before he could say anything, she added, ‘It’s probably worth more than ten times that today.’
‘And was worth at least three times that when he bought it,’ Brunetti commented neutrally. Then, more to the point, ‘It’s interesting that no one in the tax office questioned that price: it’s so obviously false.’
She shrugged this away. A man as powerful and rich as Cuccetti had probably got away with much worse things during his life, and to whom should the tax office do a favour if not to Avvocato Cuccetti?
Vianello appeared at the door. ‘Signorina, the Vice-Questore would like to speak to you.’
None of the three of them wondered why Patta had not simply used the telephone. This way, all of them would take note, the Vice-Questore could send Vianello on an errand upstairs, force Signorina Elettra to stop whatever she was doing and come to his office, and make clear to Brunetti who it was she worked for, and to whom her loyalty was meant to be given.
She left and Vianello, unasked, came and sat in front of Brunetti’s desk.
‘I’ve had a look in the law books,’ Brunetti said, using his thumb to point to the bookcase behind him, which held volumes of both civil and criminal law. ‘And the statute of limitations expired years ago.’
‘For what?’
‘Falsification of an official document. In this case, a will.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Vianello said with heavy emphasis on the first word.
‘Meaning?’
‘That if I didn’t know it, then it’s unlikely that someone like Morandi would know it, don’t you think?’
‘And that means?’
Vianello crossed his legs and folded his arms, slumped down in the chair, and said, speaking so slowly that Brunetti could almost hear the Inspector fitting the pieces together as he spoke, ‘And that means that one way to put these things together is to assume that Signora Sartori said something to Signora Altavilla about whatever it was she and Morandi did. About the will, that is.’
Brunetti interrupted him to ask, ‘That they knew it was false when they witnessed it?’
‘Perhaps,’ Vianello said.
‘Madre Rosa referred to her “terrible honesty”. Something like that,’ Brunetti said, failing to recall the precise phrase, though its strangeness had struck him when she said it. ‘So if Signora Altavilla learned something from Signora Sartori, she might have been capable of confronting Morandi with it.’
‘Because she’d want him to confess?’ Vianello asked.
Brunetti considered this for some time before he answered. ‘I thought about that. But to what purpose? The old woman’s dead, Cuccetti and his wife and son are dead. The estate’s disappeared: the Church has whatever was left.’ Then he added, with a shrug of incomprehension, ‘Maybe she believed it would save his reputation, or his conscience.’ After a moment, he added, ‘Or save his soul.’ Who knew, people believed even stranger things.
‘Morandi’s not the sort of man who’d worry about his conscience,’ Vianello said abruptly. ‘Or his reputation.’ The Inspector chose not to comment on the third.
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘At what?’
‘At how important their reputation can be to the people we’d least expect to give it a thought.’
‘But he’s a man with no education, with a long criminal record, a known thief,’ Vianello said, making no attempt to disguise his astonishment.
‘You could be describing many of the men in Parliament,’ Brunetti said in return, intending it as a joke but then suddenly oppressed by the truth of it. But beyond the joke, Brunetti had struck on a truth, and he knew it: even the worst men wanted to be perceived as better than they were. How else could hypocrisy have risen to such delirious levels?
He thought back to his meeting with Morandi. The old man had been surprised to find him there and had reacted instinctively. But as soon as he realized that Brunetti was a representative of the state, there in performance of his duty – which duty he believed was to help Signora Sartori – his manner had softened. Brunetti thought of his own violent father: even at his worst, he had always remained deferential to authority and to those whose good opinion he valued. And he had always treated his wife with respect and strived to have hers. How slowly these old forms disappeared.
Vianello pulled him back from these thoughts by saying, though he said it grudgingly, ‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘About?’
‘That people’s good opinion would be important to him. You said he was protective of the woman?’