children.’
‘They involved with the company?’
Guarino shook his head. ‘The son’s a doctor in Vicenza. The daughter’s an accountant and works in Rome. The wife’s a teacher, due to retire in a couple of years. With him gone, it all fell apart. The business didn’t survive him by a week.’ He saw Brunetti’s raised eyebrows. ‘I know it sounds incredible, in the age of the computer, but none of our people could find a list of orders, or routes, or pick-ups and deliveries, not even a list of drivers. He must have kept everything in his head. All of the records were a mess.’
‘So what did the widow do?’ Brunetti asked blandly.
‘She had no choice: she closed it down.’
‘Just like that?’ Brunetti asked.
‘What else could she do?’ Guarino answered, almost as if he were pleading with Brunetti to have patience with the woman’s inexperience. ‘I told you, she’s a teacher. Elementary school. She didn’t have a clue. It was one of those one-man businesses we’re so good at running.’
‘Until that one man dies,’ Brunetti said ruefully.
‘Yes,’ Guarino said and sighed. ‘She wants to sell it, but no one’s interested. The trucks are old, and now there aren’t any clients. The best she can hope for is that another company will buy up the trucks and she’ll be able to find someone to take over the lease for the garage, but she’ll still end up selling it all for nothing.’Guarino stopped speaking, almost as if he had given all the information he was prepared to give. He had not said a thing, Brunetti realized, about whatever might have passed between the two of them during the time they knew one another and, in a certain sense, worked together.
‘Am I correct in assuming,’ Brunetti asked, ‘that you discussed something other than the fact that he was cheating on his taxes?’ If not, then there was no reason for the man to be here, though he hardly had to point this out to Guarino.
Guarino measured out a single word. ‘Yes.’
‘And that he gave you information about something other than his tax situation?’ Brunetti found his voice growing tight. For God’s sake, why couldn’t the man just tell him what was going on and ask him whatever he wanted? For surely he had not come here to chat about the lovely silence of the city nor the charms of Signora Landi.
Guarino seemed content to say nothing further. Finally, making no attempt to disguise his irritation, Brunetti asked, ‘Perhaps you could stop wasting my time and explain why you’re here?’
3
It was obvious that Guarino had been waiting for Brunetti’s patience to expire, for his answer came without hesitation and quite calmly. ‘The police treated his death as a robbery that went bad and turned into murder.’ Before Brunetti could ask what the police made of the three shots, Guarino volunteered, ‘We suggested that approach. I don’t think they cared one way or the other. Doing it like that was probably easier for them.’
And, reflected Brunetti, probably ensured the murder’s swift passage out of the news, but instead of remarking on that, he asked, ‘What do you think happened?’
Again, that quick glance at the church, the flick at his knee, and then Guarino said, ‘I think whoever it was, one or more of them were waiting when he went in. There were no other signs of violence on his body.’
Brunetti imagined the waiting men, their unsuspecting victim, and their interest in learning what he knew. ‘Do you think he told them anything?’
Guarino’s glance was sharp, and he answered, ‘They could get it out of him without having to hurt him, you know.’ He paused, as if conjuring up the memory of the dead man, and added, with audible reluctance, ‘I was his contact, the person he talked to.’ This, Brunetti realized, explained Guarino’s edginess. The Carabiniere glanced away, as if uncomfortable at the memory of how easy it had been for him to make the murdered man talk. ‘He wouldn’t have been hard to frighten. If they had threatened his family, he would have told them whatever they wanted.’
‘And what would that have been?’
‘That he had been talking to us,’ Guarino said after only the faintest hesitation.
‘How did he get mixed up in this to begin with?’ Brunetti asked, fully aware that Guarino had not yet explained what it was the dead man had been involved with.
Guarino made a small grimace. ‘That was what I asked him the first time I talked to him. He said that