later, the judge postponed a hearing because the file on the case was missing,’ he said and stopped.

‘And where was it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘On her desk, buried under some others. Araldo found it when he went back in the afternoon to retrieve the case files.’

‘Did he speak to her?’

‘Yes. And she apologized and said she hadn’t seen it there, that it must have been stuck inside one of the others.’

‘And this time?’ It was Vianello who asked.

‘He still thought nothing of it. Or that’s what he told me.’

‘And then?’ Brunetti asked.

‘And then he stopped telling me about it.’

‘How do you know there was anything to tell?’

‘I told you, Commissario. We went to liceo together. Forty years. You learn to know what a person is thinking in that time, when something’s bothering them.’

‘Did you ask about it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, a few times.’

‘And?’

‘And he told me to leave him alone, that it was something at work and he didn’t want to talk about it.’ Penzo returned his attention to his abandoned sandwich. This time, he used his thumbnail to score an X in the lingering fingerprint, then returned to Brunetti.

‘So I left the subject alone, and we tried to go on as if nothing were wrong.’

‘But?’

Penzo took the tall glass and swirled the remaining water around a few times, then drank the last of it. ‘You have to understand that Araldo was an honest man. A good man, and an honest man.’

‘Meaning?’ asked Brunetti.

‘Meaning that the idea that a judge was lying to him or lying about something would upset him. And then anger him.’

‘What would he do about it?’ Brunetti asked.

Penzo gave a shrug. ‘What could he do? He was in the honeytrap, wasn’t he? His mother was as happy as she was capable of being. Would he want to take that away?’

‘Was he sure they’d lose the apartment?’

Penzo did not bother to answer this.

‘Was the apartment that important to her?’

‘Yes,’ Penzo answered instantly. ‘Because she had the address and could invite her friends – the few she had – to come and visit her there and see how well she was doing, she and her son who was only a clerk. And not a lawyer.’

‘And so?’ Brunetti asked.

‘And so he didn’t talk about it. And I didn’t ask about it.’

‘And that was that?’ Brunetti asked.

Penzo’s glance was sudden and sober, as if he were deciding whether to be offended or not. ‘Yes. That was that,’ he said. In this heat, a light coating of perspiration lay upon everyone’s face and arms, so Brunetti at first did not notice that tears had begun to run down Penzo’s cheeks. He seemed not to notice them himself, certainly made no attempt to wipe them away. As Brunetti watched, they began to drip off his chin, splashing into invisibility on his white shirt.

‘I will go to my grave wishing I’d done something. Made him talk. Made him tell me what he was doing. What she was asking him to do,’ Penzo said and wiped at the tears absently. ‘I didn’t want to cause trouble.’

‘Did you see him that day?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Or speak to him?’

‘You mean the day he was killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, I was in Belluno, seeing a client, and I didn’t get back until the following morning.’

‘Which hotel?’ Vianello asked mildly.

Penzo’s face froze, and it cost him an effort to turn to the Inspector. ‘Hotel Pineta,’ he said in a tight voice. He reached down and picked up his briefcase and walked out of the bar so quickly that neither Brunetti nor Vianello, had they had the will, would have had time to stop him.

23

Brunetti went over to the bar and was quickly back with two more glasses of white wine. He handed one to Vianello and drank some of his own.

‘Well?’ he asked Vianello.

The Inspector picked up the toothpick he had used to eat an artichoke and absently began to break it into small pieces, laying them one after the other on the plate beside Penzo’s uneaten sandwich. ‘Well,’ he finally said, ‘it looks like we have to examine his life.’

‘Fontana’s or Penzo’s?’

Vianello glanced up quickly. ‘Both, really, but we’ve already started with Fontana. First we find that he’s gay, and then we have a tearful account of his sad life from someone who may well turn out – unless I’m misreading all the signs – to have been his lover. So it might be wise to find out where Penzo was the night Fontana was killed.’

‘Does that mean you’re not persuaded by his