Commissario Brunetti - 10 - A Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon

Author:Donna Leon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780143116202
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2009-09-15T10:20:00+00:00

'Five hundred million lire,' Resto said. 'At the end, that is. It was higher at the beginning, but then it was reduced.'

'Why?'

'We examined his assets, and all he had was the boat and two small bank accounts.'

'Yet you knew he was making half a billion a year?'

'We had reason to believe that, yes. But it was decided that, in the absence of equity on his part, we would settle for the lesser sum.'

'Which represented?'

'His boat, and the money in both of those accounts.'

'And his house?'

'The house is his wife's. She brought it to the marriage, and so we had no right to it.'

'Have you any idea where the money's gone?'

'None. But there are rumours that he gambles.'

'Unluckily, it would seem,' Brunetti observed. 'Everyone who gambles gambles unluckily.' Brunetti gave this the laugh it deserved, then asked, 'And since then?'

'I've no idea,' Resto answered. 'He's not been reported to us since then, so there's nothing else I can tell you about him.'

Brunetti asked, 'Did you meet him?'

'Yes.'

'And?'

Without hesitation, Resto said, 'And he's a very unpleasant man. Not because of what he did. Everyone cheats. We expect that. But there was a kind of frenzy in his resistance to us I've rarely seen before. I don't think it had anything to do with the money he lost, though I could be wrong.'

'If not the money, then what?'

'Losing. Or being defeated,' Resto suggested. 'I've never seen a man so angry at having been caught, though it was impossible we wouldn't catch him, he'd been so stupid.' It sounded as though it was Spadini's carelessness he disapproved of, not his dishonesty.

'Would you say he's violent?' Brunetti asked.

'Does that mean do I think he's capable of those murders?'

'Yes.'

‘I don't know. I suppose many people are, though they don't realize it until they get into the right situation. Or the wrong one,' Resto added quickly. 'Maybe. Maybe not.' When Brunetti said nothing, Resto said, 'I'm sorry not to be able to answer that for you, but I just don't know.'

'That's all right,' Brunetti said. 'Thank you for what you could tell me.'

'Let me know what happens, will you?' Resto said, surprising Brunetti with his request.

'Of course. Why?'

'Oh, just curious,' Resto said, disguising something, though Brunetti couldn't tell what. With a mutual exchange of pleasantries, the two men took their leave of each other.

21

Brunetti found his family seated around the table when he came in, almost-empty dishes of lasagne before them. Chiara got up and kissed him, Raffi said, 'Qiao, Papa' before returning to his pasta, and Paola smiled in his direction. She went to the stove, bent and opened the oven, pulled from it a plate with a large rectangle of lasagne in the centre, and set it at his place.

He went to the bathroom, washed his hands, and came back, aware of how hungry he was and how happy to be home with them.

'You look like you were in the sun today,' Paola said, pouring him a glass of Cabernet.

He took a sip. 'Is this the stuff that student of yours makes?' he asked, raising the glass and studying the colour.

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