Drawing Conclusions

by Donna Leon

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I oversaw his thesis. It was brilliant, about the use of the imagery of light in the late novels.’ Suddenly alert, Brunetti realized this was the moment crucial for intervention. If he did not act immediately, head her off, stop her, he was faced with a yet-to-be-determined period of time listening to what a student had written, under the direction of his lady wife, about the use of light imagery in the late novels of Henry James. Considering the fact that he had recently endured a meeting with Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta and yesterday had had only three tramezzini – one stolen – for lunch, he decided that no time was to be lost.

  ‘How many bottles did he send you?’ he asked, stalling for time.

  ‘A few cases.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A few cases. Three or four, I don’t remember.’

  This, Brunetti knew, was the consequence of being born into a noble family that was possessed not only of pedigree but of great wealth: you lost count of the cases of Moët that a student sent you.

  ‘That’s a bribe,’ he declared in his bad cop voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A bribe. I’m shocked you’d accept it. I hope you didn’t give him a high grade on this thesis.’

  ‘As high as I could. It was brilliant.’

  Brunetti buried his face in his hands and moaned. He pulled out one of the bottles and took two glasses from the cabinet. He put the glasses on the table, making a lot of noise as he set them down, then turned his attention to the bottle, ripping off the gold foil. He aimed the cork at the far corner and pushed it off: the explosion shot through the house and warmed his heart.

  He had disturbed the bottle, and so the champagne foamed out and ran across his hand. Quickly, he poured some into the first glass, which it overran, then into the second, where the same thing happened. Two small puddles spread round the glasses.

  ‘Quick, quick,’ he said, handing her a glass. Saying nothing else, he tapped his glass against hers, said ‘Cin, cin,’ and drank deep. ‘Ah,’ he said, at peace with the world once more. With another quick swig, he emptied the glass.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Paola asked, then picked up her glass and took a sip after she said it. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Destroying the evidence.’

  ‘Oh, you are a fool, Guido,’ she said, but she laughed while she said it and the bubbles went up her nose and made her cough.

  Lunch was, perhaps because of the bubbles or the laughter or some combination of the two, an easy, comfortable meal. Chiara seemed satisfied when her mother assured her that the chicken was a free range, bio chicken, that it had lived a healthy, happy life, and Brunetti, a man sworn to keep the peace, did so by not enquiring just how one was meant to tell if a chicken had been happy or not.

  Chiara, of course, did not eat any of the chicken, but her vegetarian principles were sufficiently assuaged by her mother’s assurances as to the lifestyle of the chicken to cause her not to provoke the other members of the family with her comments upon the profoundly disgusting act they were engaged in by eating said chicken. Her brother Raffi, unconcerned as to the chicken’s happiness, cared only for its flavour.

  Later, when they went into the living room to drink their coffee, Brunetti, profoundly happy that no one had asked him about Signora Altavilla, asked, ‘What do they do to those chickens?’

  ‘Not the one we ate, I hope you understand,’ Paola said.

  ‘So it wasn’t a lie?’

  ‘What wasn’t?’

  ‘That it was a bio chicken?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Paola said, not indignant but perhaps ready to be, if provoked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the others are filled with hormones and chemicals and antibiotics and God knows what, and if I get cancer, I want it to be because I drank too much red wine or ate too much butter, not because I ate too much factory meat.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ he asked, curious, not sceptical.

  ‘The more I read,’ she began, turning on the sofa to face him, ‘the more I believe much of what we eat is contaminated in some way.’ Before he could comment, she said it for him. ‘Yes, Chiara’s a bit gone on the subject, but she’s right in principle.’

  Brunetti closed his eyes and slid down on the sofa. ‘It’s exhausting, always worrying about these things,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Paola agreed. ‘But at least we live in the North, so we’re less at risk.’

  ‘“At risk”?’ he asked.

  ‘You read the articles, you know what they’ve been doing down there,’ she said. He glanced aside and saw her pick up her glasses and, apparently unwilling to talk about such things so soon after lunch, return her attention to the book she had brought from her study.

  He sat up again and returned his attention to his own book, Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome, a book he had not read for at least twenty years. And which he was now reading with the attention of a man a generation older than the one who had read it last. The savagery of much of what Tacitus described seemed fitted to the times in which Brunetti found himself living. Government sunk in corruption, power concentrated in the hands of one man, public taste and morals debased almost beyond recognition: how familiar it all sounded.

  His eyes fell upon this sentence: ‘Fraudulence, attacked by repeated legislation, was ingeniously revived after each successive counter-measure.’ He replaced his bookmark and closed the book. He decided that he would not return to work that afternoon but would instead engage in an act of fraudulence and go for a long walk, perhaps in the company of his lady wife.

  13

  The next morning, Paola brought him coffee in bed and gave him that day’s edition of the Gazzettino, she equally persuaded of its lesser toxicity when confined to paper. Brunetti sipped at his coffee then set it on his night table, the better to free his hands for the reading of the paper. Sometime in the last years, even the Gazzettino had given in to the necessities of cost and was printed in the reduced size most newspapers now favoured. Even though the smaller-sized edition was easier to read in bed, Brunetti – just as he missed the typeface he had read for decades – missed the older, full-sized paper that demanded it be read with outstretched arms. He recalled the many times his reading of that invasive larger edition had provoked angry nudges and comments from the people sitting beside him on the vaporetto. But still he missed it, perhaps because its very size made the reading of it a quasi-public act: there was no way to limit its encroaching on the space of other people. This new version was too private an affair.

  The story about Signora Altavilla’s death had all but disappeared from the papers. Elderly woman found dead of a probable heart attack: what sort of news was that? The best the editors could do was work it for some residual pathos: they mentioned her widowhood as well as the son and three grandchildren she left. He turned to the notices of mourning and found two, one from her son and family and one from the Alba Libera organization.

  He read a few more articles and then, interest in the paper exhausted, got up, shaved and showered, and went into the kitchen, where he found Paola with La Repubblica spread on the table in front of her, chin propped in her palms.

  Hearing him come in, she said, ‘I was never able to read Pravda, but I wonder if all other newspapers are simply variations on it.’

  ‘Probably,’ he said, going over to the sink to refill the coffee pot.

  ‘When I was studying in England,’ she went on, ‘I got accustomed to newspapers that had a part for news and a separate part for editorials.’ She saw she had his attention, so she picked up the paper from the bottom and flapped the pages, as if she were trying to shake crumbs off a tablecloth. ‘There’s no difference here. It’s all editorializing.’

  ‘The other one’s no better,’ he said. ‘And remember, La Repubblica has a good reputation.’

  She shrugged this away and said, her disappointment real, ‘I’d expect better from it.’

  ‘That’s fo
olish,’ Brunetti said and put the coffee pot on the stove.

  ‘I know it is, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping.’ Then, folding the paper closed, she said, ‘The pan’s in the sink,’ leaving it to him to heat the milk for his coffee.

  ‘You find out anything about that woman’s death?’ she asked as the coffee began to plunk against the top of the pot.

  ‘Rizzardi says the physical cause was a heart attack,’ he said, knowing Paola would jump on his prevarication.

  ‘And La Repubblica has a good reputation,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked, though he suspected he knew.

  ‘In logic, the error is called the Appeal to Authority,’ she confused him by saying. ‘You tell me Rizzardi says it was a heart attack with the same voice you say it’s a good newspaper. You’re citing authorities, but you don’t believe them.’ She waited for him to comment, but when he did not, she added, ‘Something’s bothering you; my guess is it’s this woman’s death, and that means you probably don’t believe Rizzardi, or, more likely, he’s being more Jesuitical than usual, and you know it.’ She smiled at him and held out her cup for more coffee. ‘That’s what it’s supposed to mean.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, pouring more coffee for her, and then for himself. He added milk and spooned in some sugar, then came to sit opposite her. When he saw that he had her attention, he said, ‘There were what look like bruises on her throat and shoulders.’ He reached his hands towards her to show her what he meant.

  ‘Squeezing someone’s shoulder doesn’t cause them to have a heart attack,’ she said calmly, as if this were an entirely normal conversation to have over coffee and the morning paper.

  ‘It does if that person has a history of heart fibrillation and is taking propafenone.’

  ‘Which is what?’ Paola asked.

  ‘A medicine against it.’ He allowed her a few moments and then added, ‘So, if a person were taking that for heart trouble, being grabbed and roughed around might cause them to go into fibrillation, and that’s what Rizzardi thinks might have caused her death. But the vertebrae were injured.’ He realized he was slanting the argument, and so he said, ‘She fell and hit her head, as well. Against a radiator. That could have done it.’

  ‘Could have?’

  He gave her a level glance and took a few sips of coffee. ‘The chicken or the egg,’ he could not stop himself from saying, then added reluctantly, ‘The fibrillation. The other is only a possibility, a speculation.’

  ‘Yours or his?’ she asked.

  ‘Both.’

  Paola sipped at her cup in turn, then swirled the coffee around a few times and drank the last of it. ‘What does Patta say?’

  Brunetti had the grace to smile. ‘Nothing new there. He wants it settled, and I’m sure he’s happy as a lark with the obvious explanation: heart attack. And that’s the end of that.’

  ‘But it’s not for you?’ she asked.

  This time it was Brunetti who toyed with his cup. He got up and emptied the pot into it, added sugar and milk, and drank it quickly. ‘I don’t know. I can’t say that, not really. There’s something about it that makes me uncomfortable. It looks like she was giving refuge to women who were running away from dangerous men, and the nun at the casa di cura where she worked was overly discreet when talking about her.’

  ‘Guido,’ she said with every sign of patience, ‘there doesn’t exist the cleric you think capable of telling the simple truth.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ he shot back. Then, more slowly, ‘There have been some.’

  ‘Some,’ she repeated.

  ‘You’ve never trusted them, either,’ he added.

  ‘Of course I don’t trust them. But I don’t question them in situations where people might lie: dead people or what might have killed them, please remember. I discuss the weather with them when I meet them at my parents’ place. The rain is an especially fascinating topic: too much or too little. They like absolutes. But it’s not the same thing.’

  ‘And do you trust them when they talk about the weather?’ he asked.

  ‘If I’m near a window and look outside,’ she answered, got to her feet and said she had to go to the university.

  After she was gone, Brunetti glanced through the newspaper she had left on the kitchen table, but he was unable to concentrate on anything he read. He mulled over what he had just said to Paola, aware that his instinctive remarks reflected his real feelings about the death of Signora Altavilla. The nun knew more than she had said, and he needed to find out more about Alba Libera.

  He went into the living room and dialled Signorina Elettra’s office number. But then he remembered that it was Tuesday and she would still be at the Rialto Market, selecting the flowers for Vice-Questore Patta’s office, and for her own. He dialled her telefonino number. She answered with a languid ‘Sì, Commissario?’ and Brunetti was again struck by the unfair psychological advantage given to the person who could see who was calling.

  ‘Good morning, Signorina,’ he said blandly. ‘I’d like to ask you to do something for me.’

  ‘Certainly, Signore, as soon as I get to the office.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t you there?’ he asked with false surprise.

  ‘No, sir, I’m at the market. It’s Tuesday, you know.’ He was her superior; she was not at work and was not likely to be there for another hour, at best. She had probably requisitioned a police launch to take her to the market to buy flowers, or had arranged for one to pick her up and carry her – and the flowers – back to the Questura, a clear violation of the rules concerning the abuse of office. It was his responsibility to reprimand her and see that this abuse of office would not be repeated.

  ‘If I got there in five minutes, could you give me a ride to work?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Or I could have Foa stop at the end of your calle and pick you up there.’

  It took a second for Brunetti to regain his breath, and then all he said was, ‘No, that’s too much trouble. I’ll meet you at the flower stalls.’ He replaced the phone, went back into the bedroom to get his jacket, and left the apartment.

  It took him only a few minutes to get to the market, past the fish on his left, their tangy smell something he had always loved. When he glanced up from a large squid, he saw Signorina Elettra standing, arms filled with flowers, just in front of the stand, which really wasn’t a stand, just a line of large plastic buckets set in a row and each one bursting with flowers. Buying the flowers at the stall instead of at Biancat, the florist, was Signorina Elettra’s contribution to Vice-Questore Patta’s latest demand that all unnecessary spending at the Questura be stopped.

  Brunetti had never been good at remembering the names of flowers. Iris he knew because he so often bought them for Paola, and carnations and roses were easy to spot. But those small ones with the bright crinkly petals: he’d forgotten their name, so too the bold round ones the size of oranges with the thousands of spiky petals. Gladioli he recognized, but that had never made him like them, and the scent of lilies always made him feel faintly ill.

  ‘Good morning, Commissario,’ she said with a bright smile when she saw him approach. She wore a cobalt blue silk jacket, and against it the red and yellow flowers seemed somehow brighter. She handed him three bouquets, which were quickly replaced in her arms by more from the woman selling them. While he waited, Signorina Elettra detached an arm for long enough to pass her some notes. No receipt was given in return: second crime of the morning.

  ‘Office equipment?’ he asked, nodding at her flowers, trying to ignore his own.

  ‘Oh, Commissario,’ she said with every indication of surprise, ‘you know I couldn’t live with myself if I thought for an instant that I was doing something improper with regard to the finances of the Questura.’ When she realized that Brunetti was not going to play straight man, she said, ‘I just happen to have a receipt for some colour cartridges for a printer. I’ll submit it: the amount is about the same.’
>
  He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know. This way, the flower seller did not pay taxes on the sale, and someone gave Signorina Elettra a receipt for some private purchase, and the Questura paid for the flowers, magically transformed into colour cartridges. Before he got on to the boat and also made improper use of it, Brunetti decided to stop counting crimes.

  Foa appeared from the left and took the flowers from Signorina Elettra. Sure enough, on the other side of the market, a police launch was moored to the riva, motor running, another uniformed officer at the wheel. Foa handed the flowers to his colleague, jumped down into the boat and helped Signorina Elettra take her place, then reached up and accepted the flowers from Brunetti, leaving him to step into the boat himself.

  Brunetti held open the door of the cabin, then joined her inside. When they were seated and the boat was heading under the Rialto, he said, ‘Signorina, do you know anything about an organization called Alba Libera?’

  Her eyes widened in dawning understanding. ‘Of course, of course. I just didn’t think of them.’

  He nodded in response and said, ‘She was a member; well, at least a supporter. And from what her neighbour said, she had women stay with her.’

  ‘That explains the underwear,’ she said.

  Brunetti allowed time to pass before he asked, ‘Do you know anything about them?’

  She gave him a level look, then let her eyes drift off to the buildings they were passing. Finally she looked back at him and said, ‘A bit.’

  ‘Might I ask you what that bit is?’

  ‘Just as you said, Signore, they provide safe places for women to stay.’

  ‘Women at risk?’ he asked.

  ‘Any woman who contacts them and is in need.’

  ‘Is that all she has to say?’

  ‘I’m sure they ask for proof.’

  ‘What would that be?’ he enquired in a level voice.

  ‘Police reports,’ she said. A long pause, and then, ‘Or hospital reports.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You sound familiar with them.’ He tried to speak in a judicious, neutral tone.