Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [78]
‘Perhaps if you looked at the date of Madame Reynard’s death,’ she suggested.
He found the copy of her death certificate and saw that Morandi had bought the apartment exactly one month after her death. He made a noise.
When no comment or question followed, she asked, ‘Did you see the name of the person selling the apartment?’
He looked. He said, ‘Matilda Querini.’ He caught Vianello’s confused glance and switched on the speaker, then replaced the receiver.
Again, he did not comment. ‘You and the Inspector don’t remember the case, then?’ she asked.
‘I remember that those people witnessed it and that Cuccetti inherited the lot.’
‘Ah,’ she said, drawing the syllable out and letting it end on a dying fall.
‘Tell me,’ Brunetti said.
‘Matilda Querini was his wife.’
‘Ah, his wife,’ Brunetti let himself say in conscious imitation. Then, a few heartbeats later, he asked, ‘Is she still alive?’
‘No. She died six years ago.’
‘Wealthy?’
‘Money without limit.’
‘And where did it go? The son was the only child, wasn’t he?’
‘Rumour has it that she left it to the Church.’
‘Only rumour, Signorina?’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Fact. She left it to the Church.’ Before he could ask, she explained, ‘I have a friend who works in the Patriarch’s office. I called and asked him, and he told me it was the biggest sum they’ve ever been left.’
‘Did he say how much?’
‘I thought it impolite to ask.’ Vianello made a small moaning noise.
‘So?’ he asked, knowing she’d be unable to leave something like that alone.
‘So I asked my father. Her money wasn’t at his bank, but he knows the director of the one where it was, and he asked him.’
‘Do I want to know?’
‘Seven million euros, give or take a few hundred thousand. And the patent for that process, and at least eight apartments.’
‘To the Church?’ Brunetti asked, at the sound of which question Vianello put his head, rather melodramatically, in his hands and shook it violently from side to side.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
An idea came to him and he asked, ‘Have you looked at Cuccetti and his wife’s bank accounts?’ For her to do so was for her to break the law. For him to know that she had done so and then do nothing was for him to break the law.
‘Of course,’ she answered.
‘Let me guess,’ Brunetti said, unable to resist the temptation to show off a little, ‘there was no money put into either account after the sale?’
‘Nothing,’ she answered. ‘Of course, she may have given Morandi the apartment from the goodness of her heart,’ she said, her tone excluding this possibility a priori.
‘Cuccetti’s reputation makes that unlikely, wouldn’t you say?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, then added, ‘But it also makes his wife’s decision to leave it all to the Church …’ she began and then paused to search for the suitable word.
‘Grotesque?’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Ah,’ she said in appreciation of the justness of his choice.
22
Brunetti filled Vianello in on the missing half of his conversation with Signorina Elettra. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, I know,’ Vianello said, sober-faced, ‘but the thought that everything that greedy old bastard Cuccetti stole during his miserable life ended up in the pockets of the Church is …’ He gave a resigned nod, either in admiration or astonishment, and said, ‘Like them or not, you have to admit they’re the best.’
‘The priests?’
‘Priests. Nuns. Monks. Bishops. You name them. They’ll have their snouts in the soup before you set the plate on the table. They got to her in the end, and they sucked it all up. My compliments to them,’ he said, shaking his head in what Brunetti took to be real – however grudging – admiration.
Deciding he had nothing to oppose that sentiment, Brunetti suggested they would both be better off at home with their families, an opinion in which Vianello joined him. They left the Questura together, going their separate ways just outside the front door.
Brunetti decided to walk, needing the sense of motion and freedom that came from moving through the city without having to give conscious thought to where he was going. Memory and imagination, tranquillized