If Cavanis had told his best friend no more than this about the incident at San Boldo, that would be the end of that. Or it would be, were it not that Cavanis had also said he’d remembered something that was going to make him a lot of money and shortly afterwards had been found lying dead on the floor of his apartment, a knife driven into his neck.
Brunetti found himself thinking of Dante’s belief that heresy was a form of intellectual stubbornness, the refusal to abandon a mistaken idea. In Dante’s case, this path led to eternal damnation; in his own case, Brunetti reflected, intellectual stubbornness might well be leading him deep into the Dark Wood of Error. Saving part of Manuela from the waters of the canal was hardly the only thing Cavanis had done in his life; it need not have been the cause of his death. Drunks are reckless, thoughtless, rash. They drive off the road or into walls, they start fights they know they cannot win, and they say things that cannot be forgiven or forgotten. They menace and they brag, and very often they push people too hard or too far. Nothing linked his murder to the incident with Manuela Lando-Continui. Nothing linked his murder to anything save Brunetti’s own suspicions. This was real life, random and messy and uncontrolled.
His phone rang. He answered with his name.
‘Get down here,’ came the unconfoundable voice of his superior.
‘Sì, Dottore,’ Brunetti said and got to his feet.
Signorina Elettra was still not at her desk, thus he went into the lion’s den with no advance warning and no way to prepare his excuses and prevarications. Even before Brunetti was halfway across the room, Patta demanded, ‘Did you put her up to this?’
Patta’s wife? Signorina Elettra? Contessa Lando-Continui? Brunetti kept his face motionless.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said, for once telling Patta the simple truth.
‘This email,’ Patta said, slamming his palm down on some sheets of paper at the centre of his desk. ‘From the Assistant to the Minister of the Interior, for God’s sake. Do you know what this can do to my career?’
‘I must repeat, Vice-Questore, that I know nothing about any email sent to you.’ He looked Patta in the eye when he said this, hoping that the tactic he used when he lied to his superior would prove equally effective when he told the truth.
‘Don’t lie to me, Brunetti,’ Patta said.
‘I’m not lying, Dottore,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I know nothing about that,’ he said, daring to point at the papers in front of his superior.
‘Read it before you say that, Brunetti,’ Patta said in an ugly voice, slamming his palm flat on the papers again and shoving them in Brunetti’s direction.
Once Patta had removed his hand, Brunetti picked up the papers and held them at the correct distance. The cover page bore the letterhead of the Ministry of the Interior. Brunetti reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out his glasses. One-handedly he shook them open and put them on. The address jumped into clear focus, as did the text.
Worthy Dottor Patta,
Please note that the Ministry has been informed of – and is about to initiate an investigation of – certain grave irregularities in a number of ongoing investigations currently being conducted by the Questura di Venezia. These irregularities include – but are not limited to:
1. The unauthorized investigation into the bank records of private citizens and certain public and private organizations.
2. Similarly unauthorized searches of public documents and records.
3. Acquisition and perusal of state documents or reserved information by unauthorized persons or civilian employees.
4. Similar behaviour regarding the reserved medical records of certain individuals.
5. A persistent and deliberate attempt to disguise these actions.
The Ministry expects, by the 14th of the current month, a full and detailed report of any facts bearing upon these irregularities and a list of the persons responsible for these violations as well as an accurate account of the precise nature of their involvement in each.
Attached please find a list of the statute numbers, as well as dates of passage, of the laws being violated by these activities.
The email was signed – there was no polite closing phrase – by someone named Eugenia Viscardi, whose title was ‘Assistant to the Minister’ and whose illegible signature was placed above her printed name.
Brunetti finished reading, barely glanced at the second page, which contained the relevant numbers of the statutes involved as well as their dates of enactment. He removed his glasses and slipped them back into his pocket. With a gesture that showed just how difficult it was for him to disguise his contempt, Brunetti let the papers fall back on Patta’s desk.
‘And you believed this, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked, making his astonishment audible. ‘This?’ he repeated, waving a hand at the papers that now lay supine on his superior’s desk.
‘Of course I believed it,’ Patta all but shouted. ‘And I believe it. It’s from the Ministry of the Interior, for God’s sake.’