by Donna Leon
‘She told me … she told me she’d spoken to him.’ She glanced at Brunetti, saw that he didn’t follow her, and said, ‘Her boyfriend.’
‘The Sicilian? How did she find him?’
She put her elbows on the table and sank her head into her hands. She shook it back and forth a few times and, looking at the surface of the table, said, ‘He found her. The woman called him from the house, and then later when he called the number back Costanza answered with her name, and he asked if he could speak with her.’ It took Brunetti a moment to work his way through the pronouns, but it seemed pretty clear that the woman staying with Signora Altavilla had been foolish enough to call her boyfriend from Signora Altavilla’s home phone, a phone that let him read the number from which the call was coming. Easy enough then for him to call that number to see if she was living there.
‘Did he threaten her?’
She moved her hands closer together, until they meshed in a shield over her forehead, covering her eyes. She shook his question away.
‘What did he want?’
After a long time she said, ‘He told her that all he wanted to do was talk to her. She could pick the place and he would meet her there. He told her he’d meet her at a police station or at Florian’s: any public place where she’d feel safe.’ She stopped talking, but she did not remove her hands from her face.
‘Did she meet him?’ Brunetti asked.
She said, face still hidden, ‘Yes.’
Realizing that it mattered little where their meeting had taken place, Brunetti asked, ‘What did he want?’
She put her hands on the table, and clenched them into fists. ‘He said he wanted to warn her.’
The verb surprised Brunetti. His mind leaped ahead. Did this young man have a perverse belief in some crazy Sicilian idea of personal honour and want to warn this old woman out of the line of fire? Or did he want to invent some story about the woman in her home?
‘What happened?’ he asked in a voice he made as calm as if he were asking her the time.
‘She said that’s what he did: warned her.’
‘About himself?’ Brunetti interrupted to ask, running ahead with his wild scenario.
Her surprise was evident. ‘No, about her.’
‘The woman?’ Brunetti asked. ‘The one in her apartment?’
‘Yes.’
Like a rugby player who dropped the ball for an instant, Brunetti picked it up, switched sides, and began to run in the opposite direction. ‘What did he tell her?’
She looked away from him towards a noise that came from the door, which was just then pushed open by two men. They stood there for a moment, were joined by a third, who tossed a lighted cigarette into the street, then the three of them went to the bar and ordered coffee. The sound of their voices came across the room, the gruff friendliness of workers on their break.
‘Signora?’ he said, calling back her attention.
‘That she was a thief and she shouldn’t have her in her house.’ It upset her, he could see, to repeat this. Brunetti could understand: Signora Orsoni had dedicated her energies to saving women in danger from violence. And now this.
‘What happened?’
She looked trapped. At first she did not answer, but then she said, ‘It was true.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He had copies of newspaper articles, police reports.’ Seeing his surprise, she said, ‘She met him outside down in the campo.’
‘What did the reports say?’ Brunetti asked.
‘That this was her tactic. She’d move to a city, start an affair with a man, either move in with him or have him come to her place. Then she’d start an argument with him, and she’d see that it got violent. And when the police came –’ she drew her fists up and pushed them into her eyes, either from shame or to prevent her seeing his expression ‘– he said that was the most effective: when the neighbours called the police.’
Voice tight and reckless, she continued, ‘She’d be the victim, and the police would get in touch with one of the groups that helps battered women, and she’d be placed in a home, and she’d stay there until she had her own key and knew what was in the house. Then she’d disappear with as much as she could carry.’
As her voice choked off in disgust, Brunetti heard the clink of cups on saucers, hearty laughter, the sound of coins dropping, and then the door opened and closed and the workmen were gone.
Her voice came back to the restored silence of the bar. ‘He told Costanza this, and he showed her the reports, and begged her to believe him.’
‘What about the burns?’ Brunetti asked. When she seemed not to understand, he said, ‘From the pasta water?’
She ran her fingernail up and down one of the deep furrows in the wood of the tabletop. ‘Costanza said he still limped, but he didn’t say anything about it.’
She got to her feet, then walked to the bar and came back with two glasses of water, set one in front of him, and sat down again.
‘When was this, Signora?’ he asked.
She drank half of the water and set the glass on the table. She gave Brunetti a long look before saying, ‘The day before Costanza died.’
‘How do you know about this?’ he asked, ignoring the glass in front of him.
‘She called me. Costanza. She called me when she went home after talking to the man, and she asked me – told me, really – to come to her place.’ Her breathing grew quicker again. ‘I went there, and she made me read the articles and look at the police reports.’
‘Where did the man go?’
‘She told me he said he just wanted to warn her and show her the danger, and once he did that he thanked her for listening to him and left. That was all. It was enough for him to see that she believed him. He said many people didn’t because he’s Sicilian.’ She allowed, as did Brunetti, a long silence to stretch out after this until finally she said, ‘She told me he seemed like a kind man.’
Her face was leaden and Brunetti had the sense not to say anything. Instead, he asked, ‘What happened?’
‘Costanza told me to call the woman and tell her I had to talk to her.’
‘And did you?’
Her anger flashed out. ‘Of course I did. I didn’t have any choice, did I?’ She got herself under control and continued. ‘I’d got her a day job spending time with an old woman. Not doing anything, really, just preparing her lunch and being there in case anything happened.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘And then?’
‘I asked her to come back when the old woman’s daughter got home from work at four, and she said she would.’
‘And?’
‘When she came back, I told her we had to move her to another city.’
‘Did she believe you?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What happened?’
‘She went to her room and packed.’
‘Did you go with her?’
‘No. We stayed in the living room. She went to her room and packed her suitcase.’ She started to say something else, but whatever she read in Brunetti’s face appeared to silence her.
‘She didn’t suspect anything?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘She came in with her suitcase, said goodbye to Costanza, gave her the key, and we left the apartment.’
‘Then what?’
‘We took the vaporetto to the train station and went to the ticket window together, and I asked her where she wanted to go.’
‘So she realized by then what had happened?’
‘I suppose so,’ Signora Orsoni said, and Brunetti felt a surge of irritation at her evasiveness.
‘And?’
‘And I got her a ticket on the last train to Rome. It leaves just before seven-thirty.’
‘Did you see her get on the train?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you wait until it left?’
She
made no attempt to disguise her mounting anger. ‘Of course I did. But she could have got off in Mestre for all I know.’
‘But she’d given the key back?’
‘Costanza didn’t even have to ask for it,’ she said, then added, almost with satisfaction, ‘but she could have had a copy made.’
Brunetti said nothing about this.
‘What’s her name?’ he asked.
He watched her hesitate, and he knew he’d take her in for questioning if she refused to answer. Before she could say anything, he added, ‘And the man’s. The Sicilian.’
‘Gabriela Pavon and Nico Martucci.’
‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said and got to his feet. ‘If I need any other information, I’ll call you and ask you to come to the Questura.’
‘And if I refuse?’ she asked.
Brunetti didn’t bother to answer her question.
21
Brunetti was relieved to be quit of her, accepting only then how little he had warmed to this woman. Her half-truths, delays, and attempts to manipulate him had annoyed him; worse, she seemed concerned with Signora Altavilla’s death only to the degree that it was a source of guilt for herself or potential danger for her ridiculously named Alba Libera. How little they care about people, those people who wanted to help humanity.
He mulled over these things while starting on his way back to the Questura, but then, as if emerging from a dream, he suddenly noticed how much light had departed the day. He glanced at his watch and was astonished to see that it was almost five. He judged it foolish to return to the Questura but did not change the direction of his steps, seeing himself from above as he plodded along like an animal on its way back to the barn. At the Questura, he went to Signorina Elettra’s office and found her at her desk, reading what appeared to be the same book he had noticed the last time. She looked up when she heard him come in and casually closed it and slid it aside. ‘You have the look of someone who has brought more work,’ she said, smiling.
‘I just spoke to the leader of Alba Libera,’ he said.
‘Ah, Maddalena. What did you think of her?’ she asked with complete neutrality, offering no clue to what her own opinion might be.
‘That she likes helping people,’ Brunetti answered with equal neutrality.
‘That certainly seems a worthy desire,’ Signorina Elettra allowed.
Brunetti wondered when one of them would give in and express an opinion.
‘She reminds me a bit of those women in nineteenth-century novels, interested in the moral improvement of their inferiors,’ she said.
For a moment, Brunetti weighed the possibility that more than a decade’s exposure to his view of the world had affected hers, but then he realized how self-flattering this was: Signorina Elettra surely had her own ample reserves of scepticism.
Suddenly impatient with sparring, he said, ‘One of the women she helped was staying with Signora Altavilla up until the evening before her death, but it turns out this woman has stayed in other houses, in similar circumstances …’
‘And has made off with the silver?’ Signorina Elettra joked.
‘Something like that.’ He watched her surprise register and liked the fact that she was surprised.
‘Her name?’ she enquired.
‘Gabriela Pavon, though I very much doubt it’s her real name. And the man from whom she was supposedly hiding is Nico Martucci, a Sicilian. That probably is his real name. Lives in Treviso.’ When she began to write down the names, Brunetti said, ‘Don’t bother. I’ve got a friend in Treviso who can tell me. It’ll save time.’
He turned to leave but she said, pointing to some papers on her desk, ‘I’ve found out a few things about Signora Sartori and the man she lived with.’
‘So they aren’t married?’ he asked.
‘Not in the records of the nursing home. Her entire pension goes directly to them, and her companion Morandi pays the rest.’ Then, seeing his surprise, she added, ‘He wouldn’t have to pay, since they’re not married. But he does.’ Brunetti thought of the red-faced man he had met in Signora Sartori’s room.
‘What does it cost?’ Brunetti asked, thinking of what he and his brother had had to pay for their mother for all those years.
‘Two thousand, four hundred a month,’ then, when he raised his eyebrows, she said, ‘It’s one of the best in the city.’ She raised a hand and let it fall. ‘And those are the prices.’
‘How much is her pension?’ he asked.
‘Six hundred euros. She left four years early, so she isn’t eligible for the whole pension.’
Before he tried the maths, Brunetti asked, ‘And his?’
‘Five hundred and twenty.’ Together, their pensions covered barely half of the cost.
The man had not seemed wealthy; nor, Brunetti had to admit, had she. If he was what he seemed, a pensioner in need of paying utilities, rent, and food, where did he find the money for the nursing home?
She picked up the papers and handed them to him; he was surprised to find more than a few sheets. What could two old people like that have done in their lives?
‘What’s in here?’ he asked, holding it up with deliberate exaggeration.
With her most sibylline look, Signorina Elettra observed, ‘Their lives have not been without event.’
Brunetti allowed himself to relax into a smile for what seemed the first time that day. He waved the papers, saying, ‘I’ll have a look.’ She nodded and turned her attention to her computer.
In his office, he first dialled his home number.
Paola answered with a ‘Sì’ so devoid of patience as to discourage even the most hardened telephone salesman or to frighten her children into hurrying home to clean their rooms.
‘“And the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land,”’ he could not stop himself from saying.
‘Guido Brunetti,’ she said, voice no more friendly than it had been with that impersonal ‘Sì’, ‘don’t you start quoting the Bible at me.’
‘I read the Song of Songs as literature, not as a sacred text.’
‘And you use it as a provocation,’ she said.
‘Merely following in the tradition of two thousand years of Christian apologists.’
‘You are a wicked, annoying man,’ she said in a lighter voice, and he knew the danger was past.
‘I am a wicked, annoying man who would like to take you to dinner.’
‘And lose out on turbanti di soglie, eaten in peace at your own table, in the midst of the joyous harmony of your family?’ she asked, leaving him uncertain whether the thought of his presence or of the meal had changed her mood.
‘I’ll try to be on time.’
‘Good,’ she said, and he thought she was about to hang up, but she added, ‘I’m glad you’ll be here.’ Then she was gone, and Brunetti was left feeling as though the temperature of the room had just risen or the light had somehow increased. More than twenty years, and she could still do this to him, he thought; he shook his head, hunted for the number of his friend in Treviso, and called.
As he had suspected, the woman’s name was not Gabriela Pavon: the Treviso police could give him six aliases used by the woman whose fingerprints were all over the apartment she had shared with her companion, but they could not supply him with her real name. The Sicilian – Brunetti told himself he had to stop calling him that and, more importantly, thinking of him as that – taught chemistry in a technical school, had no criminal record, and was, at least according to the police there, the victim of a crime. There was no trace of the woman, and his friend was resigned enough to suspect that there would be none until she committed the same crime again in some other part of the country.
Brunetti told him what the woman was probably planning to do in Venice and was asked by his weary friend to send a report, ‘not that it’s going to make any difference. She didn’t commit a crime.’
When he hung up, Brunetti turned his attention to the papers Signorina Elettra had given him. Signora Maria Sar
tori had been born in Venice eighty years ago; Benito Morandi, eighty-three. The man’s first name struck Brunetti: well he understood what sort of family would name their son Benito in those years. But the sight of the two names joined together prodded Brunetti’s memory, as if Ginger had suddenly rediscovered her Fred. Or Bonnie her Clyde. He looked away from the papers, focusing his memory and not his eyes, and followed the meandering stream of recollection. Something about an old person, but not one of them; some other old person, and when they were not old. It was a memory from his life before work, before Paola and all that came from knowing her. His mother would remember, he caught himself thinking, his mother as she had once been.
He dialled Vianello’s telefonino number. When the Inspector answered, Brunetti asked, ‘You downstairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come up for a minute, would you?’
‘I’m on my way.’
Staring helped. Brunetti went to the window, looked across the canal, letting the names rumble around in his mind, hoping that putting them together and then separating them would nudge his memory.
Vianello found him like that, hands clasped behind his back, deep in contemplation of either the façade of the church or the three-storey house for vagrant cats that had been built in front of the façade.
Rather than speak, Vianello sat in one of the chairs in front of his superior’s desk. And waited.
Without turning, Brunetti said, ‘Maria Sartori and Benito Morandi.’
There was silence from Vianello, the sound of his heels sliding across the floor as he stretched his legs. More time passed, and then came the long sigh of dawning memory. ‘Madame Reynard,’ he said and permitted himself a smile at having got there first.
Any Venetian, at least one their age, would have remembered sooner or later. Now that Vianello had given him the name, Brunetti also had the memory. Madame Marie Reynard, already a legendary beauty, had come to Venice with her husband almost – could it be? – a century before. They had had five years or so before he died a spectacular death. Brunetti couldn’t recall the means: car, boat, aeroplane. The totality of her grief had cost her their unborn child, and upon her recovery she had lapsed into widowhood and seclusion in their palazzo on the Canal Grande.
