Drawing Conclusions (21 page)

‘She called our office in Treviso about three weeks ago. That was after the police said there was nothing they could do.’ She looked at Brunetti, who lifted his chin in enquiry. ‘The boyfriend. She said there was trouble from the start. That he was jealous. And violent: he roughed her up a few times, but she was afraid to call the police.’ She sighed and raised her hands and shoulders in exasperation.

‘This time she thought he was going to kill her: that’s what she told them. They were in the kitchen when it happened, and to protect herself she poured the pasta water on him.’ He thought she seemed unusually passive in describing this.

‘And?’

‘And she got out and called the police.’

‘What happened then?’

‘They went to the apartment to talk to him, but they didn’t do anything.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it was his word against hers. He said she had started the argument and all he’d tried to do was defend himself.’ Though she tried, she failed to disguise scorn of the police and anger at male prejudice as she recounted this. She went on, finally expressing an opinion, ‘Besides, she’s a woman and he’s a man.’ Brunetti was surprised she failed to add, ‘And he’s a Sicilian.’

In the face of Brunetti’s silence, she continued, ‘They were living in Treviso and, as I said, she called our office there. They thought she’d be safe here in the city: it’s far enough away.’

After considering what she had told him, Brunetti asked, ‘Did the police tell you this?’

Her features appeared to contract. ‘I spoke to someone in our office, and that’s what they told me.’

After some time, Brunetti asked, ‘Signora Altavilla helped you for several years, you said?’

It was evident that the question displeased her, but eventually she said, ‘Yes.’

‘Putting herself at some risk.’ When he saw her begin to protest, he added, ‘Theoretical risk. But she was still willing to do it.’

She nodded, looked away, then back at him.

‘This woman, you say she isn’t there any more,’ Brunetti said. ‘And there was no sign of her in the apartment.’

Again Signora Orsoni nodded.

‘Could she have gone back to the apartment?’

Voice level, emotionless, she said, ‘She had nothing to do with this.’

‘How do I know that’s true?’ he asked.

‘Because I’m telling you so.’

‘And if I choose not to believe you?’

As he waited for her to respond Brunetti saw the moment when she decided to leave, saw it in her eyes and then heard it as she drew her feet under her chair. He raised a hand to catch her attention.

‘Your organization is fairly well known, isn’t it?’ he asked mildly.

She smiled involuntarily at what she took to be a compliment. ‘I’d like to think so,’ she said.

‘And I imagine the city gives you what support it can. And private donors.’

Her smile was small but gracious. ‘They realize, perhaps, how much good we do.’

‘Do you think bad publicity would change that?’ Brunetti enquired in the same mild fashion and with every appearance of real interest.

It took a moment for her to register what he had said. ‘What do you mean? What bad publicity?’

‘Come now, Signora. No need to be disingenuous with me. The sort of bad publicity that would come when the papers wrote about how your society put a woman in the home of a widow – no, make that a Venetian widow – and when the Venetian woman dies in strange circumstances, the woman you put there is nowhere to be found.’ He smiled and said, voice amiably conversational, ‘The word “risk” can’t help coming to mind, can it?’

Then, far more serious, he went on with his reconstruction of events and how they might be perceived, adding some details to strengthen his case: ‘The circumstances of her death are unclear, and the police are unable to find this woman who was put there by Alba Libera.’ He put his elbow on the table and propped his chin in his hand. ‘That’s the kind of bad publicity I’m talking about, Signora.’

She rose to her feet and Brunetti thought she was going to walk out. But she stood and stared at him for some time. Then she pulled out her
telefonino
and held up a hand for him to wait. She moved over to stand beside the door, but then looked back at Brunetti and went outside. She tapped in a number.

Brunetti called over for a glass of mineral water and, though he drank it slowly, nudging the plate containing the uneaten panini farther away from him, when he finished the water she was still holding the phone, still punching in numbers.

There was a copy of
Il Gazzettino
on the next table, but Brunetti did not want to offend her by such a blatant sign of impatience. He pulled out his notebook and wrote down a few phrases that would bring the conversation back to him. Busy with this, he did not hear her approach the table and was not aware of her return until she said, ‘She isn’t answering her phone.’

Brunetti stood to pull her chair out for her. She sat, placing her
telefonino
in front of her. ‘I don’t know why she doesn’t answer. She can see who’s calling,’ she said, sounding to Brunetti forced and artificial.

He resumed his seat and reached for his glass, only to see that it was empty. He pushed it to the side and said, ‘Of course.’ He looked at the ugly slab of sandwich and then at Signora Orsoni.

His face was implacable; he said nothing.

‘She called me,’ Signora Orsoni said.

‘Who?’ Brunetti asked. She failed to answer, and so he asked again, ‘Who called you, Signora?’

‘Signora … Costanza. She called me.’

Brunetti weighed her weakness and asked, ‘Why?’

‘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.

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.