Uniform Justice by Donna Leon Page B

kicked the drawer shut and left his office, then the Questura. Because he had half an hour, he chose to walk to Campo San Maurizio, and because he was early, he chose to stop and say hello to a friend in her workshop. But his mind was on things other than jewellery, so he did little more than exchange a kiss and promise to bring Paola to dinner some time soon; then he crossed the
campo
and headed up towards the Grand Canal.
    He had last been to the apartment six years ago, near the end of a long investigation of a trail of drug money that led from the noses of adolescents in New York to a discreet account in Geneva, a trail that paused long enough in Venice to invest in a couple of paintings meant to join the money in the vault of that eminently discreet bank. The money had made its way safely through the empyrean realms of cyberspace, but the paintings, made of less celestial matter, had been stopped at Geneva airport. One by Palma il Vecchio and the other by Marieschi and thus both part of the artistic heritage of the country, neither could be exported, at least not legally, from Italy.
    A mere four hours after the discovery of the paintings, Augusto Perulli had called the
carabinieri
to report their theft. No proof could be found that Perulli had been informed of their discovery – a possibility that would raise the unthinkable idea of police corruption – and so it was decided that Brunetti, who had gone to school with Perulli and had remained on friendly terms with him for decades, should be sent to talk to him. That decision had not been taken until the day after the paintings were found, by which time the man who was transporting them had somehow been released from police custody, though the precise nature of the bureaucratic oversight permitting that error had never been explained to the satisfaction of the Italian police.
    When Brunetti finally did talk to his old schoolfriend, Perulli said that he had become aware of the paintings’ disappearance only the day before but had no idea how it could have happened. When Brunetti asked how it could be that only two paintings had been taken, Perulli prevented all further questioning by giving Brunetti his word of honour that he knew nothing about it, and Brunetti believed him.
    Two years later, the man who had been detained with the paintings was again arrested by the Swiss, this time for trafficking in illegal aliens, and this time in Zurich. In the hope of making a deal with the police, he admitted that he had indeed been given those paintings by Perulli, and asked to take them across the border to their new owner, but by then Perulli had been elected to Parliament and was thus exempt from arrest or prosecution.
    ‘
Ciao
, Guido,’ Perulli said when he opened the door to Brunetti, extending his hand.
    Brunetti was conscious of how theatrical was his own hesitation before he took Perulli’s hand: Perulli was equally conscious of it. Neither pretended to be anything but wary of the other, and both were open in studying the other for signs of the years that had passed since their last meeting.
    ‘It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’ Perulli said, turning away and leading Brunetti into the apartment. Tall and slender, Perulli still moved with the grace and fluidity of the youth he had shared with Brunetti and their classmates. His hair was still thick, though longer than he had worn it in the past, his skin smooth and taut, rich with the afterglow of a summer spent in the sun. When was it that he had begun searching the faces of the acquaintances of his youth for the telltale signs of age? Brunetti wondered.
    The apartment was much as Brunetti remembered it: high-ceilinged and well-proportioned, sofas and chairs inviting people to sit at their ease and speak openly, perhaps indiscreetly. Portraits of men and women from former eras hung on the walls: Perulli, he knew, spoke of them casually, suggesting that they were ancestors, when in reality his family had for