Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon Page A

to the second, and the left again hunted down the page of the phone book. Satisfied with whatever he was finding, Vianello grunted and moved his right finger. This process continued until he got to the fourth item on the list, at which he looked up at Brunetti and smiled.
    â€˜Well?’ Brunetti asked.
    Vianello turned the book around and pushed it across the desk. On the right-hand page Brunetti saw, in capital letters, BAR, followed by the first few dozen names of the alphabetical listing of the hundreds of bars in the city. Vianello’s broad forefinger passed into his field of vision and drew his attention to the left-hand page. He understood instantly: BANCHE. Of course, banks. So the list was a series of abbreviations of their names, followed by the account numbers.
    â€˜I also know a three-letter Cambodian monetary unit beginning with K, sir,’ Vianello said.

8
    AFTER A FEW minutes’ discussion, Brunetti went downstairs and made a few photocopies of the paper. When he came back, he and Vianello wrote out the full names of the banks beside each of the abbreviations. When they had them all, Brunetti asked, ‘Are you good enough to get into them?’ leaving it to Vianello to infer that he meant with a computer and not with a pickaxe and crowbar.
    Regretfully, Vianello shook his head and said, ‘Not yet, sir. She let me try it once, with a bank in Rome, but I left a trail so broad that a friend of hers sent her an email the next day to ask her what she thought she was doing.’
    â€˜He knew she did it?’ Brunetti asked.
    â€˜The man told her he recognized her techniquein the way I first entered the system.’
    â€˜Which was?’ Brunetti asked.
    â€˜Oh, you wouldn’t understand, sir,’ Vianello said in a haunting echo of the cool, objective tone Signorina Elettra used and which the inspector had probably learned from her. ‘She started me off using an opening code, then she let me try to find a specific piece of information.’
    â€˜Which was?’ Brunetti said, adding, ‘if I might ask.’
    â€˜She wanted me to see if I could discover how much money had been transferred into a particular account from a numbered account in Kiev.’
    â€˜Whose account?’ Brunetti asked.
    Vianello pressed his lips together, considering, and then named the Assistant Minister in the Department of Commerce who had been most active in arranging government loans to the Ukraine.
    â€˜Did you find out?’
    â€˜Alarm bells,’ Vianello began, then explained, ‘figuratively, that is – began to sound. So I got out as quickly as I could, but not before I’d left very obvious signs that I’d been in there.’
    â€˜Why would she want to know something like that?’ Brunetti mused.
    â€˜I think she already knew, sir,’ Vianello said, then added, ‘In fact, I’m sure she did. That’s how she knew how to help me get in.’
    â€˜Did she explain to her friend?’ Brunetti asked.
    â€˜Oh, no, sir. That would just have made itworse, if he knew she was helping the police.’
    â€˜You mean none of these people she asks for help knows where she works?’ asked an astonished Brunetti.
    â€˜Oh, no. That would be the end of it, if they did.’
    â€˜Then where do they all think she’s working?’ He had some vague idea that any messages she sent must be traceable to the Questura. They all had email addresses: he’d even used his a few times, and he knew it was perfectly clear that it was at the Venice Questura.
    â€˜I think she reroutes things, sir,’ Vianello said cautiously.
    Though Brunetti wasn’t clear how this could be done, the verb made it clear that it had been done. ‘Reroutes it how, through what?’
    â€˜Probably her last working address.’
    â€˜The Banca d’Italia?’ asked an astonished Brunetti. At Vianello’s nod, Brunetti demanded, ‘Do you