Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [87]
‘It’s so easy, it’s enough to make me think of changing my ways,’ she said, though Brunetti was quick to hear the lie.
‘I shall live in that single hope,’ he said mildly as he looked at the first paper, which was a copy of a document written in a spidery hand, signed with an indecipherable scribble at the bottom. Two other signatures stood below it.
‘You might want to look at the second paper, sir,’ she suggested. He did so and saw that it was the death certificate of Marie Reynard.
In all these years, Brunetti had never decided whether Signorina Elettra preferred to explain things to him or have him discover them himself. To save time, he asked, ‘And I am looking for?’
‘The dates, sir.’
He glanced back at the first sheet and saw that its date was four days before that on the death certificate. Pointing to it, he said, ‘So this is the famous will?’ No wonder it had caused so much trouble: only an expert could make out this script.
‘The third sheet is a transcript, sir. It was done by three different people, and they all produced roughly the same text.’
‘Roughly?’
‘Nothing that mattered. Or so the accompanying papers state.’
He turned to the third page and read that, being of sound mind, Marie Reynard left her entire estate, comprising bank accounts, investment accounts, houses and their attached estates, apartments, patents, and all moveable property to Avvocato Benevento Cuccetti, and that this will precluded and superseded all previous wills and was an expression of her total desire and irrevocable decision.
‘Nice mixture of the poetic and the legal: “total desire and irrevocable decision”,’ Brunetti observed.
‘Nice mixture of fixed and moveable property, as well,’ Signorina Elettra added, nodding to the papers in his hand. Brunetti turned over the transcript and found a list of bank accounts, properties, and other possessions.
‘What else did you learn?’ he asked.
‘The apartment that was sold to Morandi is behind the Basilica, top floor, one hundred and eighty metres.’
‘If the owner was Cuccetti’s wife, then it can’t have been part of the Reynard estate.’
‘No, she’d owned it for more than ten years before she sold it to him.’
‘The declared price?’
‘One hundred and fifty thousand euros,’ she answered. Then before he could say anything, she added, ‘It’s probably worth more than ten times that today.’
‘And was worth at least three times that when he bought it,’ Brunetti commented neutrally. Then, more to the point, ‘It’s interesting that no one in the tax office questioned that price: it’s so obviously false.’
She shrugged this away. A man as powerful and rich as Cuccetti had probably got away with much worse things during his life, and to whom should the tax office do a favour if not to Avvocato Cuccetti?
Vianello appeared at the door. ‘Signorina, the Vice-Questore would like to speak to you.’
None of the three of them wondered why Patta had not simply used the telephone. This way, all of them would take note, the Vice-Questore could send Vianello on an errand upstairs, force Signorina Elettra to stop whatever she was doing and come to his office, and make clear to Brunetti who it was she worked for, and to whom her loyalty was meant to be given.
She left and Vianello, unasked, came and sat in front of Brunetti’s desk.
‘I’ve had a look in the law books,’ Brunetti said, using his thumb to point to the bookcase behind him, which held volumes of both civil and criminal law. ‘And the statute of limitations expired years ago.’
‘For what?’
‘Falsification of an official document. In this case, a will.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Vianello said with heavy emphasis on the first word.
‘Meaning?’
‘That if I didn’t know it, then it’s unlikely that