The Temptation of Forgiveness Read online

  Also by Donna Leon

  Death at La Fenice

  Death in a Strange Country

  Dressed for Death

  Death and Judgment

  Acqua Alta

  Quietly in Their Sleep

  A Noble Radiance

  Fatal Remedies

  Friends in High Places

  A Sea of Troubles

  Willful Behavior

  Uniform Justice

  Doctored Evidence

  Blood from a Stone

  Through a Glass, Darkly

  Suffer the Little Children

  The Girl of His Dreams

  About Face

  A Question of Belief

  Handel’s Bestiary

  Drawing Conclusions

  Venetian Curiosities

  Beastly Things

  The Jewels of Paradise

  The Golden Egg

  My Venice and Other Essays

  Gondola

  By its Cover

  Falling in Love

  The Waters of Eternal Youth

  Earthly Remains

  Donna Leon

  The Temptation of Forgiveness

  Copyright © 2018 by Donna Leon and Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich

  Cover photograph © Damaisin1979 / Dreamstime

  Endpaper Map © Martin Lubikowski, ML Design, London

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain in 2018

  by William Heinemann.

  First Grove Atlantic edition: March 2018

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-0-8021-2775-4

  eISBN 978-0-8021-6561-9

  Atlantic Monthly Press

  an imprint of Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  groveatlantic.com

  18 19 20 21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Ann Hallenberg

  The law condemns, but love will spare.

  Handel, Esther, Act II, Scene 3

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by Donna Leon

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Tow

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Back Cover

  1

  Having left the apartment smack on time so as to arrive at the Questura on time for a meeting with his superior, Brunetti found himself seated towards the rear of a Number One vaporetto, glancing idly through a copy of that morning’s Gazzettino. Subconsciously aware that they had just left la Salute, starting to cross to Vallaresso, he heard the boat’s motor slip into reverse. A Venetian system of batlike echolocation told him they were still some distance from the left bank of the canal, so the sound of the boat reversing was out of place: perhaps the Captain was trying to avoid something in the water ahead of them.

  Brunetti lowered the paper, looked up, and saw nothing. Or, more accurately, he saw no farther than a sober grey wall he recognized instantly as an approaching bank of fog. It was hard to believe his eyes, so clear had the sky been when he’d left his home twenty minutes before. While he had been reading about the latest failure of the MOSE floodgates to function – after more than thirty years of plans and peculation – someone appeared to have draped a thick grey cloth in front of the vaporetto.

  It was November; fog was thus to be expected, and the temperature was no warmer than it had been for the past week. Brunetti turned and looked at the man sitting on his right, but saw that he was so rapt by whatever showed on the screen of his phone that he would not have noticed seraphs had they descended and flown in close formation on either side of the boat.

  They slowed to a stop a few metres from the grey wall, and the motor slipped into neutral. From behind him, Brunetti heard a woman whisper, ‘Oddio’, her voice filled with mild surprise, not fear. Brunetti looked towards the riva on his left and could see the Hotel Europa and Palazzo Treves, but apparently Ca’ Giustinian had been devoured by the same dense mist that stretched across the Canal Grande in front of them.

  The man beside him finally looked up from his phone and stared straight ahead, then returned his attention to the small screen in his left hand. Brunetti folded his paper and turned to look behind them. Through the back door and windows, he saw boats coming in their direction, others moving away from them towards the Rialto Bridge. A Number Two pulled out from the Accademia stop, starting towards them, but then it slowed and appeared to stop.

  He heard the klaxon before he saw the taxi swerve around the stationary Number Two and tear towards them. As it passed the larger boat, Brunetti saw that the pilot was talking to a blonde woman who stood behind him. Just as they passed Brunetti, her mouth opened in what might have been a gasp, or a scream, forcing the driver to turn and face forward. Expressionless, he swung the tiller, swerved around the front of Brunetti’s vaporetto and plunged into the curtain of fog.

  Brunetti pushed past his neighbour and out on to the deck, listening for a crash from in front of them, but all he heard was the disappearing noise of the taxi. Their own engine throbbed back into life and they began to edge forward. From where he stood, Brunetti could not see if the radar on the roof of the cabin was turning, but surely it had to be or they would not be venturing to move at all.

  Then, as easily as if they were aboard a magic boat in a fantasy novel, they slipped through the grey curtain, and sunlight was restored to them. Inside the pilot’s cabin, the sailor, completely relaxed, half leaned back against the window, and the Captain looked ahead, hands on the tiller. On the embankment, the palazzi, freed of their foggy wrappings, moved calmly to the left as the vaporetto approached the Vallaresso stop.

  Behind him, the cabin door slid open and passengers slipped past him and bunched together in front of the railing. The boat docked, the sailor slid back the metal railing, people got off, people got on, the sailor slid the railing closed, and the boat departed. Brunetti looked back in the direction of the Accademia, but there was no sign of fog. Boats
approached them and moved away: ahead lay the bacino; on the left, the Basilica, the Marciana, and the Palazzo stood quietly in their appointed places while the morning sun continued sweeping up last night’s shadows.

  Brunetti looked into the cabin, wondering if those inside had seen the same thing he had, but he had no memory of which of them had been aboard when he saw the fog. He would have had to ask them, but anticipation of their looks kept him from doing so.

  Brunetti touched the top of the railing, but it was dry, as was the deck. He was wearing a dark blue suit, and he felt the sun warm his right sleeve and shoulder. The sun glowed; the air was fresh and dry; the sky was cloudless.

  He got off at San Zaccaria, forgetting his newspaper behind and, as he watched the boat pulling away, leaving behind any hope of verifying what he had seen. He walked slowly down the riva, grew tired of pondering the inexplicable, and instead concentrated his thoughts on what he would have to do when he got to the Questura.

  The previous afternoon, Brunetti had received an email from his superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, requesting that he come and have a word with him the following morning. No explanation had been given, which was normal; the language was polite, which was not.

  Most of Vice-Questore Patta’s behaviour was predictable for a man who had progressed through government bureaucracy. He seemed busier than he was; he never missed the opportunity to claim for himself any praise given to the organization for which he worked; he had a black belt in shifting blame or responsibility for failure to shoulders other than his own. What was not to be expected in someone who had, with such ease, shimmied up the pole of organizational success was the fact that he had, for decades, remained in the same place. Most men who attained his rank continued to rise, zigzagging from province to province, city to city, until perhaps a late-career promotion took them to Rome, where they tended to remain, like thick clots on the top of yogurt, cutting off light, air, and the possibility for growth from those below them.

  Patta, like a Cambrian trilobite, had dug himself into place at the Venice Questura and had become a sort of living fossil. Beside him, petrified in the same layer of silt, was his assistant, Lieutenant Scarpa, another native of Palermo who had come to prefer these pastures new. Commissari came and went, three different Questori had been in charge during Patta’s time in Venice; even the computers had been twice replaced. But Patta remained, a limpet attached to his rock, as the waters washed over him and away, leaving him intact and in place, his faithful Lieutenant at his side.

  And yet, neither Patta nor Scarpa had ever demonstrated any enthusiasm for the city, nor any special fondness for it. If someone said that Venice was beautiful – perhaps even going so far as to say it was the most beautiful city on earth – Scarpa and Patta would exchange a glance that expressed, but did not state, disagreement. Yes, they both seemed to be thinking, but have you ever seen Palermo?

  It was Patta’s secretary, Signorina Elettra Zorzi, who greeted Brunetti as he came into the office from where she guarded that of the Vice-Questore. ‘Ah, Commissario,’ she said. ‘The Vice-Questore called a few minutes ago and asked me to tell you he’d be here soon.’

  Had Vlad the Impaler apologized for the dullness of the stakes, the message would have been no more astonishing. ‘Is there something wrong with him?’ Brunetti asked without thinking.

  She tilted her head to one side to consider his question, began to smile and then stopped. ‘He’s been spending a lot of time on the phone with his wife lately,’ she said and then added, ‘Difficult to tell: he says very little in response to whatever it is she says to him.’ She had somehow managed to place a type of listening device – Brunetti did not want to know more – in her superior’s office, but he thought it best not to display any knowledge of this.

  ‘When he talks to Scarpa, they go over by the window.’ Did that mean the device was on his desk or that Patta suspected something and saw to it that he and his assistant spoke in voices too low to be heard? Or did they just like the view?

  ‘What?’ Brunetti asked, eyebrows raised. Her blouse, he noticed, was the colour of beetroot and had white buttons down the front and on the cuffs. It fell with the liquid grace of silk.

  She placed the outstretched fingers of one hand over those of the other and made a grille covering part of her desk. ‘I’ve no idea what’s troubling him.’ Brunetti sensed that this was a question but did not understand how it could be: if anyone knew what Patta was up to, it was Signorina Elettra. She went on, eyes still on her hands. ‘He isn’t nervous when he talks to his wife. He listens but tells her to do whatever she thinks best.’

  ‘And with Scarpa?’

  ‘With him he does sound nervous.’ She stopped, as though to reflect on this and then added, ‘It could be that he doesn’t like what Scarpa’s saying. The Vice-Questore cuts him short. One time he even told him not to bother him with more questions,’ she said, forgetting how unlikely it was that she would be able to hear any of this from her office.

  ‘Trouble in paradise,’ Brunetti said, straight-faced.

  ‘So it would seem,’ she agreed. Then she asked, ‘Do you want to wait for him in his office, or should I call you when he comes in?’

  ‘I’ll go upstairs. Call me when he gets here.’ Then, unable to resist a parting remark, he added, ‘I wouldn’t want the Vice-Questore to find me rifling through his drawers.’

  ‘Neither would he,’ said a deep voice from the doorway.

  ‘Ah, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said easily, directing a happy smile at the man lounging against the jamb of the door to the office. ‘Once again, we are two hearts that beat as one in our concern for the best interests of the Vice-Questore.’

  ‘Are you being ironic?’ Scarpa asked with a thin smile. ‘Or perhaps sarcastic, Commissario?’ The Lieutenant paused briefly and then added, by way of explanation, ‘Those of us who did not have the advantage of a university education sometimes have trouble telling the difference.’

  Brunetti waited a moment to give the question the consideration it warranted, then answered, ‘In this case, I’d say it’s merely hyperbole, Lieutenant, where the obvious exaggeration is meant to render the entire statement false and unbelievable.’ When Scarpa did not respond, Brunetti added, ‘It’s a rhetorical device used to create humour.’ Scarpa said nothing, so Brunetti continued, smiling all the while, ‘In philosophy – one of those things we studied at university – it’s called the “Argumentum ad Absurdum”.’ Realizing he had gone quite far enough, Brunetti stopped himself from adding that it was a rhetorical device he found especially suitable to his conversations with the Vice-Questore.

  ‘And it’s meant to be funny?’ Scarpa finally asked.

  ‘Exactly, Lieutenant. Exactly. It is so clearly absurd to think that I would in any way abuse the Vice-Questore’s trust that the mere suggestion is enough to provoke laughter.’ Brunetti broadened his mouth as if his dentist had asked him to show his front teeth.

  Scarpa propelled himself away from the door jamb with a quick shove of his left shoulder. One instant he’d been lounging casually; the next he was upright and much taller. The speed with which he uncoiled his easy, limp posturing reminded Brunetti of snakes he’d seen in television documentaries: leave them alone and they lie coiled, still as death; make a sound and they become a whiplash unbraiding in the sun, multiplying the range within which they can strike.

  Smile intact, even broader than it had been, Brunetti turned to Signorina Elettra and said, ‘I’ll be in my office, if you’d be kind enough to call me when the Vice-Questore arrives.’

  ‘Certainly, Signor Commissario,’ Signorina Elettra agreed and turned to Scarpa to ask, ‘What might I do for you, Lieutenant?’

  Brunetti started towards the door. Scarpa did not move, still stood effectively blocking the exit. Time stopped. Signorina Elettra looked away.

  Finally the Lieutenant stepped towards Signorina Elettra’s desk, and Brunetti left the office.

  2

 
; On his desk, Brunetti found what he did not want to find, a file that had been accumulating pages ever since its first appearance in the Questura. He had last seen it, perhaps two months ago, when it had spent a week in his in-tray, resting there in the manner of the person a friend brings to dinner, who drinks too much, says nothing during the meal, and then refuses to leave, even after the other guests are long gone. Brunetti had not invited the file, it told him almost nothing, and now he could not think of a way to get rid of it.

  The dark green manila folder was used for car-related crimes: reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, destruction of speed cameras at the side of the road; driving while drunk or speaking on the telefonino or, far more dangerous, texting. In a city with no automobiles, crimes of this sort were seldom brought to the attention of the Venice Questura.

  The folder, however, also contained cases involving the illegal acquisition of documents: vehicle registration, insurance, driver’s licence, driving test results. Even though these documents had to be registered at the central office in Mestre, any illegal attempt to obtain them, as was common with any crime committed in the joined cities, was reported to the Venice police.

  Most of the folder’s weight was currently due to an incident on the mainland. After reading the first report, Brunetti had been left with renewed respect for the endless creativity of his fellow man. The crime had originally been detected in the hospital in Mestre, where, over the course of only two days, five men presented themselves to Pronto Soccorso with miniature radio receivers implanted so deep in their ears that they were unable to remove them and had no choice but to go to the hospital. When examined, all of the men were discovered also to have transmitting equipment taped on to their abdomens and miniature cameras attached to their chests, the lenses peeking out through their buttonholes.

  Because four of them were Pakistani and none of them spoke much Italian, a translator and then the police were called. All five men, it turned out, had enrolled in the same driving school in Mestre and had previously failed the verbal test, during which they had been asked to explain the meaning of certain road signs. The transmitters, the police later discovered, had been taped to their abdomens by men sent from the driving school, the same men who had inserted the tiny transmitters deep into their ears. During the test, the buttonhole cameras had relayed the signs the men had been asked to identify to distant helpers, who in turn whispered into their ears the meanings of the signs displayed by the examiners. And thus they passed their exam and were given their driver’s licences.