Doctored Evidence: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon

Author:Donna Leon [Leon, Donna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural, International Mystery & Crime, Thrillers, Crime
ISBN: 9780802146014
Amazon: B0097D78Y2
Goodreads: 16280865
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2004-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

13

Back in his office, Brunetti dialled the number for Signorina Simionato, but again there was no answer. What puzzled him was the money in the four accounts. Not the total sum: many apparently poor people managed to accumulate hidden fortunes during long lives of daily privation: lira by lira, renunciation by renunciation, they amassed something to pass on to their relatives or to the Church. They must spend their lives counting, Brunetti realized, counting and saying no to anything that was not fundamentally necessary to physical survival. Pleasures went untasted, desires unheeded, as life passed by. Or worse, pleasure was transformed and could be had only by negation and the resultant accumulation, and desire was satisfied only by acquisition.

He’d observed this phenomenon sufficient times no longer to be surprised by it: what did surprise him was the sophistication of the money’s removal from the banks and then from the country. The sophistication and the speed. The transfers had been made on the Monday after her death, long before any legal action could have been taken regarding the will. This suggested that one – or both – of the women had only to learn of Signora Battestini’s death to make a move, and that in its turn suggested that the old woman had kept a close eye on the accounts and would have noticed any withdrawal when the monthly statements arrived.

He made a note to question the postman and check if the statements were delivered to her home. Though Brunetti had found no sign of them in the attic, four statements from different banks – five if he included her normal account at the Uni Credit – could certainly not have passed unobserved by even the most negligent of postmen.

In his youth, Brunetti had considered himself an intensely political man. He had joined and supported a party, rejoiced in its triumphs, convinced that its accession to power would bring his country closer to social justice. His disillusionment had not been swift, though it had been hastened by the presence of his wife, who had reached a state of political despair and black cynicism well before he allowed himself to follow her lead. He had denied, both in word and in belief, the first accusations of dishonesty and endemic corruption against the men he had been sure would lead the nation to a bright and just future. But then he had looked at the evidence against them, not as a true believer, but as a policeman, and his certainty of their guilt had been immediate.

Since then, he had stayed clear of politics entirely, bothering to vote only because to do so set an example for his children, not because he now believed it could make any difference. In the years during which his cynicism had grown, his former friendships with politicians had languished, and his dealings with them had become formal rather than cordial.

He tried to think of someone in the current administration whom he could trust and came up with no name.

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