Free Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon Page B

office.
    â€˜On one of the launches, on his way to Fondamenta Nuove.’
    Brunetti was put in mind of the stand-off scenes he’d seen in so many of the westerns he’d watched while growing up, where the good guy and the bad guy stood face to face, each trying to stare the other down. Here, however, there was no question of good guy and bad guy; unless, of course, one were to take the narrow-minded view that breaking into a room at the Questura to make an unauthorized copy of state documents was in any way reprehensible. Brunetti’s vision of the law was far too lofty to accept such a view, so he went to hold the door open for her. As she passed in front of him, she said, smiling, ‘I won’t be long.’
    How did she do it? he found himself asking as he walked back to his office. He wasn’t curiousabout the means at Signorina Elettra’s command, the computer and the friends at the other end of the phone, always willing to do a favour and break a rule, or a law. Nor did he particularly care about the techniques she used to learn as much as she did about the life and weaknesses of her superiors. What puzzled him was how she found the courage to oppose them so consistently and so openly and to make no attempt to disguise where her loyalties lay. She had once explained to him how it was that she had given up a career in banking and accepted what must be, in the eyes of her family and her friends, a vastly inferior job with the police. She had acted on principle in leaving the bank, and he supposed she was acting on principle now, but he had never had the courage to ask her just what those principles were.
    Back at his desk, he made a list of the information he needed: the extent of Signora Battestini’s estate; to what degree Avvocatessa Marieschi was involved in Signora Battestini’s affairs and what those affairs were; whether the dead woman’s name had ever appeared in police files; same with her husband; what the people in the neighbourhood knew of bad feelings between her and anyone else; and, unlikely after three weeks, whether anyone remembered having seen someone other than the Romanian woman entering or leaving her apartment that day and would be willing to tell the police about it. He would also need to speak to the woman’s doctor.
    By the time he finished making this list, Signorina Elettra was back, careful to knock on his door before coming in.
    â€˜Did you make one for Vianello?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ she said, placing a thin file on his desk and holding up an identical one.
    â€˜Do you know where he is?’ he asked, careful to place no special emphasis on ‘he’ and thus avoid suggesting that she’d somehow had computer chips placed behind the ears of everyone in the Questura and was now able to keep tabs on them all by means of a satellite hook-up to her computer.
    â€˜He should be here this afternoon, sir.’
    â€˜Have you looked at this?’ he asked, nodding at the folder.
    â€˜No.’
    He believed her.
    â€˜Why don’t you take a look at Vianello’s copy before you give it to him?’ He didn’t need to explain why he wanted her to do this.
    â€˜Of course, sir. Would you like me to start checking the most obvious things?’
    Years ago, he would have asked her what she had in mind, but familiarity had taught him that the ‘things’ were probably identical to the notes on his desk, and so he said only, ‘Yes. Please.’
    â€˜Very well,’ she said and left.
    First in the file was the autopsy report. Long experience made Brunetti turn immediately to the signature; the same experience underlay his relief at seeing the scrawled letters indicating that Rizzardi had performed it.
    Signora Battestini was eighty-three at the time of her death. She might well, the doctor suggested, have lived another ten years. Her heart and other organs were in excellent shape. She had given birth at