Brunetti took out his notebook and set it on the table next to the cards and carefully copied out the long serial number on each card. Big Brother was not only watching us, he reflected; he was also able to trace any call that had been made using these cards.
He turned his attention to the scraps of paper. One was a flyer announcing the appointment of a new pastor to the parish of San Zan Degolà. Another was a wadded tissue which the technicians had decided not to open, and two more were receipts from shops.
Brunetti turned the receipts over; on the back of the second one he saw the familiar 52, the initial digits of a local phone number, followed by five more. He pulled out his phone and dialled the number.
‘Soprintendenza di Belle Arti,’ a woman’s voice answered after six rings. Brunetti ended the call without bothering to speak. So Cavanis had dialled the number he had written down, but why call the Belle Arti? Anyone’s guess. Only a fool – or a drunk – would call a city office at eleven at night. Or, for that matter, his cynic’s voice added, at eleven in the morning. He thanked Bocchese and said he’d come back to see him if anything ever went wrong with his own phone.
‘Most people just throw them away,’ the technician said with audible disapproval.
Brunetti nodded and went up to Signorina Elettra’s office. She was not there, so he carefully copied the numbers of the phonecards on a sheet of paper and wrote a note asking her to find the numbers called using both. When he got back to his office, he took out his phone and dialled the number for dalla Lana that Vianello had given him. Because dalla Lana was a teacher, Brunetti was prepared to leave a message, but dalla Lana answered with his name.
‘Signor dalla Lana, this is Commissario Brunetti. There’s one thing I forgot to ask you.’
‘What’s that?’ dalla Lana asked in a tired, patient voice.
‘Did your friend say anything recently about the Soprintendenza di Belle Arti?’
‘I don’t understand your question, Commissario,’ dalla Lana said, sounding confused. ‘What could Pietro have had to do with them?’
‘He had their phone number in his home, and he called it after he spoke to you the other night.’
‘Saturday?’
‘Yes.’
‘What would he want with them?’ dalla Lana asked. ‘At that hour?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Brunetti admitted. ‘You’re sure he never mentioned them to you?’
‘No. Never.’ Then, after a moment, dalla Lana added, ‘He was very drunk when I spoke to him, Commissario, not really coherent.’ Dalla Lana was simply stating a fact and making no attempt to draw conclusions from that.
‘Do you know who his other friends were?’ Brunetti asked, adding, ‘I should have asked you that earlier.’
‘There are the men at the bar,’ dalla Lana said after a pause, ‘but I’m not sure they were really friends. I don’t think Pietro saw them anywhere else. And I never met any other friends; I don’t know if he had any.’
What did Cavanis do all day? Brunetti asked himself. He visited a bar a few times, watched television, and drank. Is this what’s left of life after retirement? Six hundred euros a month didn’t permit much else, he had to remember. But still.
‘Did he ever mention an incident in Campo San Boldo, when he saved a girl’s life?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes, he told me about it when it happened, but he said it wasn’t important. He said he dived in and pulled her out without thinking about it.’ There was a long silence. ‘In fact, he laughed about it, said he was so drunk when it happened that he was lucky he didn’t drown himself.’
‘Is that all he remembered?’ Brunetti asked.
‘As far as I know, yes. It’s all he ever told me about it, at any rate.’
‘Thank you, Signor dalla Lana,’ Brunetti said and then, hoping that hearing a compliment for his friend would somehow comfort him, added, ‘It was a very brave thing for him to do.’
‘Yes,’ dalla Lana said and broke the connection.