Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [49]
He called down to the archive, giving the alias she had used in Ferrara and the name he thought was on her file. When he heard the names, the archivist laughed and said, ‘And I thought we were rid of her.’
‘We are, but I’m afraid Ferrara is not,’ Brunetti said. ‘Could you send them a copy of the file?’
‘And so now she’ll get a letter from them, telling her to leave the country within forty-eight hours?’ Tomasini asked. Then, after a moment’s reflection, he said in a completely serious voice, ‘I think what we should do is declare ourselves an art cooperative and ask to be allowed to exhibit at the Biennale. All they have to do is give us the Italian pavilion.’
‘Who’s “us”?’
‘Everyone here, but me especially because I’ve got all the documents and the copies of the letters.’
‘What would you do with them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Paper the walls of the entire pavilion. Not in any order; not chronological or alphabetical or according to crime. We’d just mix up a few thousand of them and paste them on the walls, all those letters telling the same people, time after time, that they have forty-eight hours to leave the country because of the crime they’ve committed. And we call it something like, “Italia Oggi.”’
All joking fled from the archivist’s voice as he asked, ‘It’s the right title, isn’t it? This is Italy today.’ When Brunetti did not answer, the younger man repeated, ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Fabio,’ Brunetti said in a level voice, ‘send the file to Ferrara, all right?’
‘Sì, Dottore,’ he answered and replaced his phone.
The ecologists never tired of saying that the city was going to be under water in a number of years: though the number of years changed, no one questioned the prediction. When, Brunetti wondered, would the entire country be under papers? The walls in the rooms at the back of the ground floor were already lined with metal racks filled with files that reached from the floor to ten centimetres short of the ceiling. The acqua alta of three years ago had destroyed the first two shelves, long before they had been put into the computerized system, and so that part of the record of criminal behaviour had effectively been destroyed. Maybe Tomasini was on to something: surely the walls of a Biennale exhibit could be no less evanescent than the files downstairs.
His phone rang. ‘I’ve spoken to them, Commissario,’ Signorina Elettra said. ‘Shall I come up and tell you?’
‘Yes. Please.’
She arrived preceded by flowers. ‘I’m afraid I went a bit overboard this morning, Dottore,’ she said as she came in. ‘So I’d like to leave some here, if you don’t mind.’ They were tall things that looked like daisies, white and yellow, and they brought some cheer into the room. She set the vase on his desk, stood back and studied them, and then moved the vase over to the windowsill. Satisfied, she came back and sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
‘I got the telefonino number of the woman who runs it,’ she said, placing a piece of paper on his desk. ‘Maddalena Orsoni. She’s very bright.’
‘Bright enough to what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘To wonder why the police are interested in Signora Altavilla. And her death.’
‘If I say it’s only routine?’
‘She won’t believe you,’ Signorina Elettra said quickly. ‘She’s been dealing with the authorities for years, and with the social services, and with the men these women are hiding from. So she can spot a liar at ten metres, and she isn’t likely to believe you.’
‘And if I’m not lying about her death?’
‘Commissario, even I suspect you’re lying.’
Brunetti thought