‘Thank you, Signora,’ Brunetti said and asked her to fax the letter.
It had arrived by the time they got back to the Questura. It was dated two weeks before Manuela fell into the canal, a description that Brunetti was tired of using. Though the phrases read to him were strong, they left open the exact nature of Vittori’s actions. ‘Disrespectful manner’, ‘actions not to be tolerated’. They could mean almost anything, from suggestive speech to attempted rape.
Gottardi, the magistrate, when Brunetti insisted on speaking to him, was both sceptical about and interested in Brunetti’s description of Manuela’s panicked response when they’d met Vittori on the street, but he insisted that they could do nothing unless the fingerprints or DNA matched.
Brunetti used the skills taught to him by Signorina Elettra – perfectly legal skills – and checked to see if Vittori or Vittori-Ricciardi had a criminal record. Neither name appeared in any city, provincial, or national list of convicted criminals, information he gave to Gottardi.
‘This delay gives Vittori time to think of excuses, construct an alibi if he has to,’ Brunetti told the magistrate in a last effort to persuade him to action.
‘It gives us time to acquire physical evidence,’ Gottardi countered, and that was the end of their conversation. After it, Brunetti paused only long enough to call Griffoni and tell her of Gottardi’s decision before he took his dejected and still-damp self home.
The next day, to keep himself busy while waiting for news from Bocchese, he decided to occupy himself with his Chinese prostitutes, only to discover that they seemed to have disappeared, as if swept from the Veneto by some force of nature. It turned out that the women, none of whom had produced identification when arrested, had been released and told to return the following day with their documents. None had done so, and when the police eventually got around to checking the addresses, no one at those addresses – one of which was a vegetable stand, another a tobacco shop – knew what the police were talking about.
The Italian owners of the apartments where the women had been installed were duly shocked to learn that the Chinese gentleman who had rented all three apartments had provided false information and could not be traced. By this time, all of the women and the man who had signed the rental contracts had vanished.
His reflections were interrupted by a call from Bocchese, who said directly, ‘Everything – prints, DNA – was compromised by the rain, and there are traces of at least three different people there. I could try to argue that they match the traces on the knife, but a good defence attorney would make a fool of me.’
‘Thanks,’ Brunetti said, unable to think of anything else to say. More ambiguity. More inconclusive evidence.
He’d lost track of time while reading the files and now saw that the daylight had faded while he was reading, though it was still too early to think of going home.
Perhaps a conversation with Signor Vittori of the added surname might resolve the ambiguity of some of the information they had. He removed the phone directory from his bottom drawer, thinking how such a simple, common action as consulting its pages had become an archaic ritual.
He found the Vs and then, with no trouble at all, an Alessandro Vittori-Ricciardi – there could not be two in the city – at an address in San Marco. He dialled the number and heard a recorded voice asking the caller to leave a message or try calling a second number, which the voice provided.
He dialled that and was answered by, ‘Vittori-Ricciardi.’
‘Ah, Signore,’ Brunetti said at his most pleasant. ‘This is Commissario Guido Brunetti. We met yesterday.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ the man said.
‘We met in the rain, in Calle del Tintor. You were with your friend, Signor Bembo. Surely you remember.’
‘Ah, of course,’ he said in a far more cordial voice. ‘In what way can I be useful to you, Commissario?’
‘By finding time to have a word with me,’ Brunetti said with mirrored cordiality. ‘There are a few things I’d like to clarify.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Vittori-Ricciardi said.
Brunetti forged ahead, as if the other man had not spoken. ‘It’s only a formality, Signore, but I’d like to discuss the reaction of that woman when she saw you.’
‘You know there’s something wrong with her,’ Vittori-Ricciardi said heatedly. ‘Certainly you can’t treat seriously anything she says.’
‘You know her, then?’ Brunetti asked mildly.
It took Vittori-Ricciardi a few moments to respond, but when he did, he came back strongly. ‘Of course I know her. She’s my employer’s granddaughter.’
‘Ah,’ Brunetti sighed, and then, as though he’d forgotten, ‘Of course.’ He waited to see if the other man would say anything more.
‘That is, I know about her,’ Vittori-Ricciardi corrected himself.