A Question of Belief - By Donna Leon Page 0,22

said so innocently that Brunetti began to suspect there was perhaps more behind those dark eyes than he had originally believed.

‘Spying,’ he clarified. ‘Pucetti’s very good at it, but Signorina Elettra’s better.’

‘Signorina Elettra’s the best,’ Pucetti said as he flicked the screen back into life.

On his way to that person’s office, Brunetti decided to restrain himself from repeating Pucetti’s praise. When he entered, Signorina Elettra was just emerging from the office of her superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta. Today she wore a black T-shirt and a pair of loose black linen slacks and, below them, a pair of yellow Converse sneakers, sockless. She gave a welcoming smile. ‘Have a look,’ she said, moving to her chair and pointing to the screen of her computer. Perhaps as a concession to the heat, her hair was tied back from her face by a green ribbon.

He came to stand behind her and looked at the screen. On it he saw what looked like a page from a catalogue of computers, neat row after neat row and all of them, to Brunetti, looking identical. Were they, he wondered, finally going to order one for him to use in his office? There was no other reason she would bother to show him such things, was there? He was touched by her thoughtfulness.

‘Very nice,’ he said, in a noncommittal voice from which all trace of personal greed had been removed.

‘Yes, they are, aren’t they? Some of them are almost as good as mine.’ Pointing to one of the computers on the screen, she said something about numbers Brunetti could understand, like ‘2.33’ and ‘1333’, and words like ‘mega-hertz’ and ‘giga-bytes’, that he could not.

‘Now look at this,’ she said and scrolled down the screen to a list of prices that were keyed to the models shown above them. ‘See the price of that one?’ she asked, pointing to the third number.

‘One thousand, four hundred Euros,’ he read. She made a noise of assent, saying nothing, so he asked, ‘Is that a good price?’ He was complimented by the thought that the Ministry of Justice might be willing to spend that much on him, but modesty sealed his lips.

‘It’s a very good price,’ she said. She hit a few keys; the image disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a long list of names and numbers. ‘Now look at this,’ she said, pointing to one of the items on the list.

‘Is that the same computer?’ he asked when he read the model name and number.

‘Yes.’

Brunetti ran his eyes over to the number at the right. ‘Two thousand, two hundred?’ he asked. She nodded but did not comment.

‘Where did the first price come from?’

‘An on-line company in Germany. The computers come fully programmed in Italian, with an Italian keyboard.’

‘And the others?’ he asked.

‘The others have been ordered and paid for already,’ she said. ‘What I showed you is the purchase order.’

‘But that’s crazy,’ Brunetti said, unconsciously using the word and tone his mother habitually used to comment on the price of fish.

Saying nothing, Signorina Elettra scrolled back to the top of the list, where she arrived at the letterhead: ‘Ministro del Interno’.

‘They’re paying eight hundred Euros more?’ he asked, not sure whether to be astonished or outraged, or both.

She nodded.

‘How many did they buy?’

‘Four hundred.’

It took him only seconds. ‘That’s three hundred and twenty thousand Euros more,’ he said. She said nothing. ‘Haven’t these people ever heard about buying in quantity? Isn’t the price supposed to come down when you do?’

‘If the government is doing the buying, I think the rules are different, sir,’ she answered.

Brunetti took a step back from the computer and walked around to the front of her desk. ‘In a case like this, who’s doing the buying? Who specifically, that is?’

‘Some bureaucrat in Rome, I’d assume, sir.’

‘Does anyone check what he does? Compare prices or offers?’

‘Oh,’ she said with audible negligence, ‘I’m sure someone does.’

Time passed, during which Brunetti considered the possibilities. The fact that one person could order an item that cost eight hundred Euros more than an identical item did not mean that another person would object to the higher price, especially when it was government money that was being spent, and especially when only those two people were privy to the bidding process.

‘Isn’t anyone concerned about this?’ Brunetti heard himself asking.

‘Someone must be, Commissario,’ she answered. Then, with almost militant brightness, she asked, ‘What was it you wanted to see me about?’

He explained quickly about Vianello’s aunt and the withdrawals she