The Death of Faith (25 page)

‘And are you lighting candles against
acqua alta?’

‘Guido, if I thought it would keep the waters at bay until those papers are signed, I’d crawl to Lourdes.’

‘Business that bad?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘You selling it to the Germans?’ he asked.

‘Sehr gut,’
Brunetti answered. ‘You find out anything about those apartments?’

‘Yes, but nothing very interesting. All three have been on the market for months, but everything’s complicated by the fact that the owner is in Kenya.’

‘Kenya? I thought he was in Torino. That’s the address in the will.’

‘That might well be true, but he’s been in Kenya for the last seven years, so he doesn’t have residence in Venice any more. It’s all become a tax nightmare, and no one wants to handle the apartments, especially in this market. You don’t even want to know what a mess it is.’

No, Brunetti reflected, he didn’t; it was enough to learn that the heir had been in Kenya for seven years.

Stefania asked, ‘Is that enough for—’ but her voice was cut off by the sound of a phone ringing in her office. ‘It’s the other line. I’ve got to go, Guido. Pray it’s business.’

‘I will. And thanks, Steffi.
Auf Wiedersehen.’

She laughed and was gone.

He left his office and went down the stairs to Signorina Elettra’s office. She looked up when he came in and gave him a small smile. Brunetti noticed that today she was wearing a severe, high-collared black suit. At the top, rather in the way a clerical collar peeps out from a priests lapels, Brunetti saw a thin band of white cotton that had been bleached to blinding whiteness. ‘Is that your idea of monastic simplicity?’ Brunetti asked when he saw that the suit was made of raw silk.

‘Ah, this,’ she said, as if she were just waiting for the next charity drive to be able to get rid of it. ‘Any resemblance to the clergy is entirely accidental, I assure you, Commissario.’ She reached down to her desk, picked up a few sheets of paper, and offered them to him. ‘After you read this, I’m sure you’ll understand my desire that it be accidental.’

He took the papers and read the first two lines. ‘Padre Luciano?’ he asked.

‘The very same. A much-travelled man, as you will see.’ She turned back to her computer, leaving Brunetti to read through the papers.

The first page contained a brief history of Luciano Benevento, born in Pordenone forty-seven years ago. His schooling was listed, as was the fact that he entered the seminary when he was seventeen. There was a gap here, presumably while he received his priestly education, but the school report attached to the back of the papers did not suggest that he would have been an outstanding student.

While still a student in the seminary, Luciano Benevento came to the attention of the authorities for having been involved in some sort of disturbance on a train, a disturbance involving a child whose mother had left her with the seminary student while she went to another carriage to get them some sandwiches. What had happened while she was away was never clear, and whatever confusion had ensued was attributed to the little girl’s imagination.

After his ordination twenty-three years ago, Padre Luciano was posted to a small village in the Tirol, where he remained for three years, transferred when the father of a catechism student, a girl of twelve, began telling the villagers strange stories of Padre Luciano and the questions he asked his daughter in the confessional.

His next posting was in the south, where he remained for seven years, until he was sent to a home kept by the Church for priests who had problems. The nature of Padre Luciano’s problem was not disclosed.

After a year there, Padre Luciano was assigned to a small parish in the Dolomites, where he served for five years without distinction under a pastor the severity of whose rule was said to be unequalled in Northern Italy. Upon the death of that pastor, Padre Luciano was named pastor in his place but was transferred from that village two years later, mention being made of a ‘trouble-making, Communist mayor.’

From there, Padre Luciano had been sent to a small church on the outskirts of Treviso, where he had remained a year and three months before his transfer, a year ago, to the church of San Polo, from which pulpit he now preached and from which church he was sent to contribute his portion to the religious instruction of the youth of the city.

‘How did you get this?’ Brunetti asked when he had finished reading.

‘The ways of the Lord are many and mysterious, Commissario,’ was her calm response.

‘This time I’m serious, Signorina. I’d like to know how you obtained this information,’ he said, not responding to her smile.

She considered him for a moment. ‘I have a friend who works in the Patriarch’s office.’

‘A clerical friend?’

She nodded.

‘Who was willing to give you this?’

She nodded again.

‘How did you manage that, Signorina? I would imagine this is information they would want kept out of the hands of the laity.’

‘I would assume as much, Commissario.’ Her phone rang but she made no move to answer it. After seven rings, it stopped. ‘He’s having an affair with a friend of mine.’

‘I see,’ he said. Then he asked neutrally, ‘And you used that as blackmail?’

‘No. Not at all. He’s wanted to leave for months, just walk out and begin a decent life. But my friend has persuaded him to remain there.’

‘At the Patriarch’s office?’

She nodded.

‘As a priest?’

She nodded again.

‘Dealing with documents and reports as sensitive as this?’

‘Yes.’

‘For what purpose does your friend want him to remain there?’

‘I would prefer not to tell you that, Commissario.’

Brunetti refused to repeat his question, but he also refused to move away from her desk.

‘It’s in no way criminal, what he does.’ She considered what she had just said and added, ‘Just the contrary.’

‘I think I need to know that’s true, Signorina.’

For the first time in the years they had worked together, Signorina Elettra looked upon Brunetti with open disapproval. ‘If I gave you my word?’ she asked.

Before he answered, Brunetti looked down at the papers in his hands, badly made photocopies of the original documents. Badly blurred, but still visible at the top, was the seal of the Patriarch of Venice.

Brunetti glanced up. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary, Signorina. I’d as soon doubt myself.’

She didn’t smile, but the tension left her body and voice. ‘Thank you, Commissario.’

‘Do you think your friend could obtain information about a priest who is a member of an order, rather than a parish priest?’

‘If you gave me his name, he could certainly try.’

‘Pio Cavaletti, he’s a member of the Order of the Sacred Cross.’

She noted the name and looked up. ‘Anything else, sir?’

‘There is one more thing. I’ve heard gossip about Contessa Crivoni.’ Because Signorina Elettra was Venetian, Brunetti did not have to specify the nature of the gossip. ‘About a priest. I have no idea who he is, but I’d like your friend to see if he can find out anything.’

Signorina Elettra made another note, looked up, and said, ‘I won’t give him this until I see him, but I should see him at dinner tonight.’

‘At your friend’s place?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes. We never discuss any of this over the phone.’

‘For fear of what would happen to him?’ Brunetti asked, uncertain of how seriously he meant the remark.

‘Partly,’ she said.

‘And what else?’

‘Fear of what would happen to us.’

He looked at her to see if she was joking, but her face was set and grim. ‘You believe that, Signorina?’

‘It is an organization that has never been kind to its enemies.’

‘And is that what you are, an enemy?’

‘With all my heart.’

Brunetti was about to ask her why, but he stopped himself. It was not that he did not want to know — quite the opposite — just he did not want to begin a discussion of this topic now, and not in the office, standing in front of a door through which Vice-Questore Patta could walk at any moment. Instead, he said, ‘I’ll be very grateful to your friend for any information he can give me.’

The phone rang again, and this time she picked it up. She asked who was speaking and then asked them to hold the line for a moment while she called the files up on her computer.

Brunetti nodded in her direction and went back up toward his office, the papers still in his hand.

* * * *

Chapter Fifteen

And this, Brunetti thought as he walked back up to his office, was the man to whom he had, all unwittingly, entrusted Chiara’s religious education. He could not say that they had done it together, for Paola had made it clear from the very beginning that she wanted no part of it. He had known, even back when the children were just beginning elementary school, that she opposed the idea, but the social consequences of an outright rejection of religious instruction would be endured by the children themselves and not by the parents making the decision for them. Where would a child whose parents rejected religious instruction sit while his or her peers were learning the catechism and the lives of the saints? What would happen to a child who did not join in the rites of passage marked by First Communion and Confirmation?

Brunetti recalled a legal case much in the headlines last year that concerned a perfectly respectable couple, childless, he a doctor and she a lawyer. The high court of Torino had rejected their application to adopt a child because both of them were atheists, and it was determined that these people would not, therefore, be suitable parents.

He had laughed at the story of those Irish priests in Dublin, as if Ireland were some Third World country in the death grasp of a primitive religion, yet here in his own country signs of the same grasp were surely to be seen, if only to the jaundiced eye.

He had no idea what to do about Padre Luciano, for he knew he had no legal foothold. The man had never been charged with a crime, and Brunetti guessed it would be impossible to find anyone in his old parishes to speak out openly against him. The infection had been passed on for other people to deal with, a natural enough response, and those who were free of him were sure to remain silent, if only because this would assure that they would remain free of him.

Brunetti knew that his society took a jocund view of sex offences, viewing them as little more than excesses of male ardour. It was not a view he shared. What sort of therapy, he wondered, was given to priests like Padre Luciano at this home where he had been sent? If Padre Luciano’s record since his stay there was any indication, whatever treatment he had been given had not proven effective.

Back at his desk, he tossed the papers down in front of him. He sat for a while, then got up and went over to look out the window. Seeing nothing there to interest him, he returned to his desk and pulled together all of the reports and papers having to do with Maria Testa and the various events that could in any way be related to what she had told him that quiet day, now weeks ago. He read through them all, taking an occasional note. When he was finished, he stared at the wall for a few minutes, then picked up the phone and asked to be connected to the Ospedale Civile.