3

To stop the silence that expanded out after il Conte’s last remark, Brunetti asked, ‘Have any of your other friends said anything about him?’

‘No, not really.’

‘What does “really” mean?’

The question surprised the older man. ‘No one’s said anything to me about Gonzalo for some time. So far as I know, Lodo’s the only one he’s spoken to.’

‘Would his family know anything?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Elena’s the only one I could ask, and I’d rather not.’

‘Why not the others?’

‘They’re a family that’s grown very rich,’ il Conte said. ‘People like them don’t like trouble.’

Brunetti restrained the impulse to say that all families didn’t like trouble. ‘Conservative?’

Il Conte gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘Gonzalo told me once his parents were worried I’d corrupt him.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ was the best Brunetti could think of to say.

‘Politically,’ il Conte clarified. ‘They’d heard rumours that neither my grandfather nor my father had been a Fascist.’

Brunetti lacked the courage to ask if that was true.

‘A few years after I was born, but before the war, my grandfather realized what was going to happen, so he had my father declared insane,’ il Conte began, speaking easily, as if it were the most normal thing for a parent to do. ‘He took us all to live in the villa in Vittorio Veneto,’ he continued, opening up an entire volume of Falier family history about which Paola had never spoken.

‘That way, with the suspicion that it might be a family trait, there was no more pressure on them to join. Nor for my father to fight. My grandfather was too old, my father was a declared lunatic, and I was still a boy.’ He considered that list and then said, ‘So we stayed there and were forgotten about, all three generations.’

‘Your father? What happened to him?’

‘He learned how much work it was to farm and take care of the land.’

‘Did all of you stay there until the end of the war?’

‘That was my grandfather’s plan, but my father had other ideas.’

‘Such as?’ asked Brunetti, intrigued.

‘He wanted to join the partisans,’ il Conte said. ‘I think he wanted to be a hero.’

‘Ah,’ Brunetti murmured.

Il Conte smiled. ‘We surrendered to the Allies in ‘43, and my grandfather asked him to wait until things became clear before he did anything.’

‘Why?’

‘Probably because he was older and wiser and had fought in the last war and seen how people behaved.’

‘Did your father agree?’

Il Conte nodded. ‘Soon after the surrender, the partisans started to come to the farm to demand the animals that hadn’t been taken up into the hills. The workers had hidden most of the grain and corn and cheese, thank God, so there was something for us to eat.’ He broke into a sudden smile and said, ‘There was one old peasant woman – she must have been ninety – who refused to let any of them into her house. She had chickens in the attic: you could hear them from outside, but the partisans were afraid of her, so they left her alone.’ Voice sobering, he added, ‘The Germans came a year later. They took the chickens.’

To put an end to this talk of the past, il Conte said, ‘Gonzalo’s parents would not have approved of what my grandfather did.’

‘Do you?’ Brunetti surprised himself by asking.

‘Absolutely,’ il Conte said with no hesitation. ‘He saw to it that his son wasn’t forced to join the army and be sent off to fight in Russia or Albania or Greece or Libya. And saved his life.’ After a protracted pause when he seemed to disappear into those long-gone years, he said, ‘My grandfather was right: people behaved badly.’

‘You were still a little boy then. How did you learn about what happened?’

‘The people who run the farm now told me they grew up hearing stories from their parents and grandparents. Over the years, they’ve told them to me.’ Before Brunetti could ask, il Conte said, ‘Yes, that’s one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to sell the villa.’ Straightening himself in his chair, he added, ‘Besides, it’s the first place I remember, so I suppose it’s a case of imprinting: it’s home to me.’

‘And this isn’t?’ Brunetti asked, waving his hand at the wall, the beams in the ceiling, the view through the windows to the palazzi on the other side of the Canal Grande.

The older man’s face softened; he turned his eyes to follow Brunetti’s glance to the other side of the canal. ‘In a different way, it is,’ he said. After a long silence, he went on. ‘Doesn’t Saint Paul say something about having been a child and thinking like one? But now he is a man and has to put away childish things?’

Brunetti knew the lines, but had forgotten the source.

‘So the villa is my childhood. But all this,’ il Conte said, repeating Brunetti’s inclusive gesture, ‘is what came to me as a man.’

Brunetti stiffened with something approaching fear. Please don’t let him start banging on about how it will all pass to Paola one day, and then to Raffi and Chiara, he thought. I don’t want this to become a talk about the weight of centuries that is about to fall on our shoulders, the need to set an example to the hungry peasants and to treat them well. I don’t want to be reminded that I will not be the one to assure the future of my children, but that it will be this man and their mother.

‘Guido?’

Brunetti looked towards il Conte and saw real concern on his face.

He put on a smile and said, ‘Sorry, Orazio. I was thinking about something else.’ Then, realizing that his question would be the first step, he asked, ‘Will you tell me the young man’s name?’

Il Conte pulled his lips together into a grimace of resignation. He finally said, strangely serious, ‘You have to promise not to laugh.’

Struck by the thought of the possibilities that request suggested, Brunetti said, ‘Of course.’

‘Attilio Circetti, Marchese di Torrebardo.’

His promise not to laugh had been wise because the name struck Brunetti as faintly risible, as did so many of the noble names he’d heard and read during his lifetime. Willing himself to overcome prejudice, he told himself that Attilio could easily turn out to be a modest and unassuming young man.

‘You think he’s the one?’ he asked.

‘Probably. He’s been living in Venice for two years,’ il Conte said.

‘Do you know anything for certain about him?’ Brunetti inquired mildly.

‘Very little. For certain, that is.’ Brunetti remained mute, forcing il Conte to continue. ‘I told you I don’t like gossip. But I hear a great deal of it. Because people know I’m Gonzalo’s friend, they might moderate what they say about him.’

‘About Gonzalo?’

‘No, about this other man.’

‘What little have you heard?’

‘That he’s often seen with Gonzalo, and that Gonzalo is very fond of him. There is often a subtext, about how very clever he is and how charming. No one seems quite sure what his profession is, or even if he has one. He’s seen at dinners and parties everywhere, but no one seems to know much about him.’

Brunetti’s experience suggested that this was a common type in certain circles of the city: the perfect man to invite to dinner if the number of gentlemen needed to be evened up. Discreet, affable, well-mannered, somehow familiar with almost everyone in the room, he could talk about most subjects and claim acquaintance with scores of Venetians. And yet, and yet, one never found out just what it was he did or exactly where his family lived, and he had a knack of making it seem rude to ask him.

‘Have you met him?’

‘I’ve been at two dinners where he was present, but I had no chance to speak to him,’ il Conte explained.

‘Is there other gossip?’

Il Conte shook his head. ‘Nothing outright or clear. But there is a certain tone – more an undertone – when his name is mentioned.’ That said, he looked at Brunetti, who nodded. In a closing cadence, il Conte said, ‘I can’t tell you more than that, Guido.’

They sat in silence for a moment, until il Conte said, ‘There’s one more thing.’

Brunetti showed his curiosity by raising his chin.

‘I saw them on the street, about a year ago. Calle de la Mandola.’ He paused but, spurred by Brunetti’s silence, quickly resumed. ‘They were behaving in a way I thought … Well, I thought it was unsuitable for Calle de la Mandola at two in the afternoon.’ Then, by force of will, il Conte added, ‘I said something about it the next time I saw Gonzalo.’

‘You told him that?’

‘Well, something like that.’ Il Conte, like his daughter, had a memory that retained everything: he would remember exactly what he’d said.

‘How did he respond?’

‘He put his napkin beside his plate, got to his feet, and left.’

‘Did he say anything?’

Il Conte looked out the window, but the palazzo across the way had nothing to tell him. ‘No.’

‘And since then, silence?’

‘Yes.’

Brunetti got to his feet and walked over to the window. He had already been with his father-in-law more than an hour and was eager to leave and go home. There were many reasons he could give to refuse the request: it was improper use of police resources; he was too busy with other cases. He knew, however, that the reason was entirely other: he didn’t want to be part of this, didn’t want to put his nose into Gonzalo’s private life.

He thought of going home and talking to Paola about it, but he didn’t want her to be caught between her father and her husband, nor did he want to tell her the investigation concerned her godfather.

The boats went by; he could hear them because the palazzo, as part of the artistic patrimony of the city, could not have double-glazed windows, so the sounds of the motors and the horns, as well as the occasional siren, were a normal backdrop to all conversation in the front rooms. The rooms in the back were darker and quieter.

A taxi roared towards San Marco, wildly in excess of the speed limit, but there was nothing to be done about that. It occurred to Brunetti that there was nothing to be done about most things in the city.

‘There’s one thing I’d like you to do for me,’ il Conte interrupted his musings by saying.

‘What is that?’

‘Lodo’s giving a dinner tomorrow evening. I’d like you to go, you and Paola. I’ve spoken to Lodo, and you’re both invited.’

Only by a hair’s breadth did Brunetti restrain himself from asking, ‘To spy?’ Instead, he asked, ‘Will Gonzalo be there?’

‘Yes.’

‘With this young man?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, Orazio, but I’d rather not do this.’

Il Conte sighed, then said, ‘I thought that would be your reaction, but I wanted to ask you, anyway.’ Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added, ‘The dinner’s different. I want you to see them together and then decide if it’s worth trying to reason with …’ He let his voice wander away.

Brunetti wondered if this was some sort of test of family loyalty. Would his father-in-law tell Paola how he had let the team down? Would this mark some change in his not-easily-achieved friendship with il Conte?

The older man pushed himself to his feet and paused to shake one leg of his trousers down into place. He came over to Brunetti and joined him in looking at the traffic on the canal. Finally he said, ‘As more time passes, so much about this city seems stranger and stranger. Opposite us, there’s a palazzo that was built in the fifteenth century and still has the same columns and windows. A bit farther up that side, there’s a palazzo where Henry James wrote The Aspern Papers and that my daughter treats as though it were therefore the Holy Sepulchre. And I’ve just asked someone I love to spy on someone else I love.’

The last words battered at Brunetti’s heart, robbing him of the power of speech. He reached out his right arm and embraced the shoulders of the man beside him. The frailty of those shoulders shocked him and stopped him from trying to pull il Conte nearer to him. He bent and kissed the older man on the temple and said, ‘I’ll give your love to Paola and the kids.’

‘Thank you, Guido,’ il Conte said, his attention directed rigidly at the boats below them.

Brunetti turned away and left his father-in-law there, watching the past.