by Donna Leon
Brunetti did not hesitate at the door but went directly into the apartment. The first thing he saw was her hand, fingers clutched in a death grip among the pieces of fringe at the end of a dark red carpet. A Turkoman, its centre field was filled with hexagonal white ghuls on a deep red field. The design was neat and geometrical, the stylized flowers arranged in rows, white bars creating a border at top and bottom. The pattern was interrupted at one end, where her blood had flowed into the carpet, staining the white with a red just a bit lighter than the red of the carpet. Brunetti saw that one of the flowers had been blotted out; blotted out with her life.
He moved his eyes to the left and saw the back of her head and her neck, white and defenceless. She was turned away, so he walked around to the other side of the room, careful where he set his feet, until he could look down and see her face. It too was white and seemed strangely relaxed. No expression’ could be read on it, just as no expression could be read on the face of a person who was sleeping. Brunetti wished there were some way he could make this make a difference.
Standing still, he looked around the apartment for signs of violence, but he saw none. A plate holding a few slices of apple, darkened and dry now, stood in the centre of a low table to one side of a print-covered easy chair. On one arm, a book lay face down. Brunetti moved over to the chair and glanced down at the title: The Faustian Bargain. It meant nothing to him, as meaningless as the apparent calm with which she had met her death.
‘This was no robbery,’ Vianello said.
‘No, it wasn’t, was it?’ Brunetti agreed. ‘Then what?’
‘Lovers’ quarrel?’ Vianello offered, though it was obvious he didn’t believe this. There had been no quarrel here.
Brunetti went over to the door and asked the young officer there, ‘Did the flatmate say anything about the door? Was it open or closed?’ He noticed that the young man had nicked his chin shaving, though he seemed barely old enough to need to shave.
‘I don’t know, sir. When I got here, one of the neighbours had already taken her downstairs.’
Brunetti nodded in acknowledgement, then asked, ‘The knife? Or whatever it was?’
‘I didn’t see anything, sir,’ he said apologetically, then added, ‘Maybe it’s under her.’
‘Yes, that could be,’ Brunetti said and turned back toward Vianello. ‘Let’s take a look at the other rooms.’
Vianello stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers; Brunetti did the same. Both had forgotten to bring along disposable gloves but knew they could get them when the medical examiner showed up.
The bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom gave up no information other than that one of the girls was much neater than the other and that the neat one was a reader: Brunetti was in little doubt as to which would turn out to be which.
Back in the living room, Vianello asked, ‘The flatmate?’
Again Brunetti went to the door. Pausing only long enough to tell the officer to come down and get him as soon as the medical examiner arrived, Brunetti led the way downstairs.
Obviously they were anticipated, for an elderly woman stood at the open door to one of the apartments below. ‘She’s in here, sir,’ she said, stepping back and leaving room for Brunetti, and then Vianello, to enter.
Seeing that they were in a small foyer, Brunetti asked softly, ‘How is she?’
‘Very bad, sir. I’ve called for my doctor, and he’ll come as soon as he can.’ She was a short woman, somewhat given to stoutness, with light blue eyes and skin that looked as though it would be as cool and dry as a baby’s to the touch.
‘Have they lived here long?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Claudia came three years ago. The apartment’s mine, and I rent it to students because I like to have the sound of them around me. Only to girls, though. They keep their music lower, and they stop in sometimes for a cup of tea in the afternoon. Boys don’t,’ she said in final explanation.
Brunetti had a son at university, so he knew all there was to know about the volume at which students liked to keep their music as well as the unlikelihood that they would stop in for a cup of tea in the afternoon.
Brunetti knew he would have to talk to this woman at length, but he wanted to speak to the girl first, to see if there was anything that would help them begin to look for the killer. ‘What’s her name, Signora?’ he asked.
‘Lucia Mazzotti,’ she said. ‘She’s from Milano,’ she added, as if this would help Brunetti in some way.
‘Will you take me to her?’ he asked, making a small signal with his hand for Vianello to stay behind. Even though Vianello no longer wore his uniform, his size might be enough to make the girl nervous.
The old woman turned and, favouring her right leg, led Brunetti back through a small sitting room, past the open door of the kitchen and the closed door of what must be the bathroom, to the one remaining door. ‘I made her lie down, the woman said. ‘I don’t think she’s asleep. She wasn’t just a few minutes ago, when I heard you on the stairs.’
She tapped lightly on the door and, in response to a sound from inside, pushed the door open. ‘Lucia,’ she said softly, ‘there’s a man to see you, a policeman.’
She made to step aside, but Brunetti took her arm and said, ‘I think it would be better if you stayed with us, Signora.’
Confused, the old woman froze, glancing from Brunetti into the room. ‘I think it would be easier for her,’ Brunetti whispered.
Persuaded, but still not fully agreeing, the woman stepped into the room and stood to one side of the door, allowing Brunetti to enter.
A young woman with bright red hair lay on top of the covers, leaning back on a plump pillow. Her hands extended on either side of her, palms upwards, and she stared at the ceiling.
Brunetti approached the bed, pulled a chair towards him, and sat, making himself smaller. ‘Lucia,’ he said, ‘I’m Commissario Brunetti. I’ve been sent to find out what happened. I know that you found Claudia, and I know it must have been terrible for you, but I need to talk to you now because you might be able to help us.’
The girl turned her head and looked at him. Her fine-boned face was curiously slack. ‘Help you how?’ she asked.
‘By telling us what happened when you came home, what you saw, what you remember.’ Before she could say anything, he went on, ‘And then I’ll need for you to tell me anything you can about Claudia that you think might be in some way related to what’s happened.’
‘You mean to her?’
Brunetti nodded.
The girl rolled her head away from him and returned her gaze to the yellow lampshade that hung suspended from the ceiling.
Brunetti allowed at least a full minute to pass, but the girl continued to stare at the lamp. He turned back to the old woman and raised his eyebrows interrogatively.
She came to stand beside him, putting a firm hand on his shoulder and pushing him back into the chair when he attempted to stand. ‘Lucia,’ she said, ‘I think it would be a good thing if you’d speak to the policeman.’
Lucia turned towards the old woman, then towards Brunetti. ‘Is she dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did someone kill her?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
The girl considered this for some time and then said, ‘I got home at about nine. I spent the night in Treviso and came home to change and get my books. I have a class this morning.’ She blinked a few times and looked out the window. ‘Is it still morning?’ she asked.
‘It’s about eleven,’ the old woman said. ‘Would you like me to get you something to drink, Lucia?’
‘I think I’d like some water,’ the girl said.
The woman gripped Brunetti’s shoulder again and left the room, again favouring her right leg.
When she was gone, the girl went on, ‘I got back and went upstairs and opened the door to the apartment and went in, and I saw her on the floor. At first I thought she’d fallen or something, but then I saw the rug. I stood there and I didn’t know what to
do. I think I screamed. I must have because Signora Gallante came up and brought me down here. That’s all I remember.’
‘Was the door locked?’ Brunetti asked. ‘The door to your apartment?’
She considered this for a moment, and Brunetti could sense her reluctance in having to keep returning to the memory of that scene. Finally she said, ‘No, I don’t think it was. That is? I don’t remember using my key.’ There was a long silence, and then she added, ‘But I could be wrong.’
‘Did you see anyone outside?’
‘When?’
‘When you got home.’
‘No,’ she said with a quick shake of her head. ‘There wasn’t anyone.’
‘Even people you know, neighbours,’ Brunetti asked and then, at her quick, suspicious glance, he explained, ‘They might have seen someone.’
Again she shook her head. ‘No, no one.’
These questions, Brunetti knew, were probably less than useless. He’d seen the colour of the blood on the carpet and knew it meant Claudia had been dead for a considerable time. The medical examiner would be able to tell him more accurately, but Brunetti would not be surprised to learn that she had lain there all night. He needed to establish in this girl’s mind the importance of answering his questions so that, when he got to the ones that might lead to whoever had done this, she would answer without thinking of the consequences, perhaps for someone she knew.
Signora Gallante came back into the room, saying, ‘The doctor’s here, sir.’
Brunetti got to his feet and said something he tried to make comforting to the girl, then left the room. Signora Gallante went in with a glass of water in her hand. Behind her came a man who looked far too young to be a doctor, the only proof that he was, the black leather bag, obviously new, that he carried in his right hand.
* * * *
10
After a few minutes, Signora Gallante came out of the bedroom and approached Brunetti and Vianello. ‘The doctor suggested she stay here with me until her parents can get here from Milano and take her home.’
‘Have you called them?’
‘Yes. As soon as I called you.’
‘Are they coming?’
‘I spoke to her mother. She’s been here a few times to visit Lucia, so she knew who I was. She said she’d call her husband at work, and then she called back and told me they were leaving immediately to come here.’
‘How?’
‘I didn’t ask,’ Signora Gallante said, surprised at such a question. ‘But the other times they came by car, so I suppose that’s how they’ll come this time.’
‘How long ago did you speak to them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, half an hour, perhaps an hour ago. It was right after I went up and found Lucia and brought her down here. I called the police first, and then I called her parents.’
Though this would limit the time Brunetti would have to speak to Lucia and complicate all future contact with her, he said, ‘That was very kind of you, Signora.’
‘I tried to think of what I’d want to happen if it were one of my granddaughters, and then it was easy.’
Brunetti couldn’t stop himself from glancing towards the door of the bedroom. ‘What did the doctor say?’
‘When I told him that her parents were coming, he said he wouldn’t give her a sedative, but he asked me to give her some linden tea with lots of honey. To work against the shock,’ she added.
‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ Brunetti said, hearing footsteps outside the apartment and eager to speak to the medical examiner. ‘Perhaps the Ispettore can stay here with you while you do that,’ he said, with a significant glance at Vianello, who needed no urging to see to questioning Signora Gallante about Claudia or about anyone who might have visited her in her apartment.
With a polite goodbye, Brunetti left the apartment and went back upstairs. Dottor Rizzardi was already kneeling beside the dead girl, plastic-gloved fingers wrapped around her out-thrust wrist. He glanced up when he heard Brunetti come in and said, ‘Not that there’s any hope, but it’s what the regulations require.’ He looked down at the dead girl, removed his hand, and said, ‘She’s dead.’ He allowed silence to expand from those terrible words, then got to his feet. A photographer, who had come in with the doctor, stepped close to the body and shot a few pictures, then moved in a slow circle around her, taking photos from every angle. He moved away and took one last shot from the doorway, then slipped his camera inside its case and went outside to wait for the doctor.
Knowing Rizzardi better than to suggest anything or to point to the colour of the dried blood, Brunetti asked, ‘When would you say?’
‘Probably some time last night, but it could have been almost any time. I won’t know until I have a look at her.’ Rizzardi meant ‘inside her’. Both of the men knew that, but neither of them could or would say it.
Looking at her again, the doctor asked, ‘Presumably, you want to know what did it?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, moving automatically to stand beside the doctor. Rizzardi handed him a pair of transparent gloves and waited while Brunetti slipped them on.
Working together, the two men knelt and slid their hands under her body. Slowly, with the sort of gentleness with which large men usually handle babies, they raised her shoulder and then her hip and turned her over on to her back.
No knife, no instrument or implement, lay beneath her body, but the sticky holes in the front of her cotton blouse made the cause of death shockingly visible. There were, Brunetti thought at first, four of them, but then he noticed another higher up, near her shoulder. The wounds were all on the left side of her body.
Rizzardi opened the two top buttons of her shirt and pulled it aside. He glanced at the wounds, actually pulled one of them open, reminding Brunetti of some perverse poem Paola had once read to him about the wounds in Christ’s body looking like lips. ‘Some of these look bad enough,’ Rizzardi said. ‘Once I’ve done the autopsy, I’ll be able to tell you for sure, but there’s little doubt.’ He closed the blouse and carefully rebuttoned it. He nodded to Brunetti and they got to their feet.
‘I know it’s only stupid superstition, but I’m glad her eyes are closed,’ Rizzardi said. Then, with no preparation, ‘I’d say you’re looking for a person who isn’t very tall, not much taller than she was.’
‘Why?’
‘The angle. It looks as if they went in more or less horizontally. If it had been a taller person, they would have gone downward at an angle, depending on how tall the killer was. I can make a rough calculation after I measure them, but that’s my first guess.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s precious little, I’m afraid.’
Rizzardi moved towards the door, and Brunetti followed in his wake. ‘There won’t be much more to tell you, but I’ll call your office when I’m finished.’
‘Do you have the number of Vianello’s telefonino?’
‘Yes,’ Rizzardi answered. ‘Why don’t you have your own?’
‘I do. But I keep leaving it at work or at home.’
‘Why doesn’t Vianello just give you his?’
‘He’s afraid I’ll lose it.’
‘My, my, hasn’t the sergeant come up in the world since he became an ispettore?’ Rizzardi asked, but affection glistened through the apparent sarcasm.
‘It took long enough,’ Brunetti said with the residual anger he felt at the years it had taken Vianello to be given what he had so long deserved.
‘Scarpa?’ Rizzardi asked, naming Vice-Questore Patta’s personal assistant and showing just how intimate he was with the real workings of the Questura.
‘Of course. He managed to block it for years, ever since he got here.’
‘What changed things?’
Brunetti gazed away evasively and began to say, ‘Oh, I’ve no...’ but Rizzardi cut him short.
‘What did you do?’
‘I threatened Patta that I’d ask for a transfer to Treviso or Vicenza.’
�
��And?’
‘He caved in.’
‘Did you think that would happen?’
‘No, quite the opposite. I thought he’d be happy to have the chance to get rid of me.’
‘And if Patta had refused to promote him, would you have gone?’
Brunetti raised his eyebrows and pulled up the corner of his mouth in another evasion.
