Donna Leon - Beastly Things

‘Because we need to speak to you about your husband, Signora,’ Brunetti said, hoping the seriousness of his tone would warn her of what was coming.

‘He hasn’t done anything, has he?’ she asked, sounding more surprised than worried.

‘No,’ Brunetti said.

‘Then what is it?’ she asked, and he heard the mounting irritation in her voice.

‘I’d prefer to speak to you in person, if I might, Signora.’ This had dragged on too long, and it was now impossible for Brunetti to tell her on the telephone.

‘My son is here,’ she said.

That stopped Brunetti cold. How to distract a child while you tell his mother that her husband is dead? ‘One of my officers will be with me, Signora,’ he said, not explaining why this would make a difference.

‘How long will it take you to get here?’

‘Twenty minutes,’ Brunetti invented.

‘All right, I’ll be here,’ she said, clearly bringing the conversation to a close.

‘Could I confirm the address, Signora?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Via Enrico Toti 26,’ she said. ‘Is that the address you have?’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti confirmed. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ he said again, thanked her, and replaced the phone.

Turning to Vezzani, Brunetti asked, ‘Twenty minutes?’

‘Not even,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to come?’

‘Two of us is enough, I think. I’ll take Vianello because we’ve done these things together before.’

Vezzani got to his feet. ‘I’ll take you in my car. You can tell your driver to go back. This way, there won’t be a police car parked outside.’ Seeing Brunetti about to protest, he said, ‘I don’t want to come in with you. I’ll go across the street and have a coffee and wait for you.’

NUMBER 26 WAS one of the first in a row of duplex houses on a street leading away from a small cluster of shops on the outskirts of Mestre. They passed the house; Vezzani parked the unmarked car a hundred metres ahead. As the three men got out of the car, Vezzani pointed to a bar on the other side of the road. ‘I’ll be in there,’ he said.

Brunetti and Vianello walked along the row of houses and climbed the steps of number 26. There were two doors and two bells, beneath both of which were slots holding the names of the residents. One, the script faded by the light, bore the names ‘Cerulli’ and ‘Fabretti’; the other, handwriting fresh and dark, read ‘Doni’. Brunetti pressed that bell.

A few moments later, the door was opened by a dark-haired boy of about eight. He was thin and blue-eyed, his expression surprisingly serious for so young a child. ‘Are you the policemen?’ he asked. In one hand he held some sort of futuristic plastic weapon: a ray gun, perhaps. From the other hand hung a faded teddy bear with a large bald spot on his stomach.

‘Yes, we are,’ Brunetti said. ‘Could you tell us who you are?’

‘Teodoro,’ he said and stepped back from the door, saying, ‘My mamma is in the big room.’ They asked permission and entered; the boy closed the door behind them. At the end of a corridor that seemed to bisect the house, they entered a room that looked out on an explosively disordered garden. In this suburban setting, Brunetti expected to see gardens of military rigidity, with straight lines of growing things, whether flowers or vegetables, and, regardless of the season, everything kept well pruned and clean. This one, however, spoke of neglect, with vines overgrowing what might once have been neat rows of bushes or plants. Brunetti saw the wooden poles that had supported tomatoes and beans gobbled up and tipped aside by the slow invasion of vines and brambles, as if someone had abandoned the garden at the end of summer and had completely lost interest by springtime.

The room into which the boy led them, however, reflected none of this disorder. A machine-made Heriz covered most of the marble floor; a dark blue sofa stood against one wall. On a low table in front of it was a neat pile of magazines. Two easy chairs, covered in a flower print dominated by the same dark blue as the sofa, stood facing it. On the walls Brunetti saw dark-framed prints of the sort that are bought in furniture shops.

As the boy entered, he said, ‘Here are the policemen, Mamma.’ The woman got to her feet as they came in and took a step towards them, her hands at her sides. She was of moderate height, the rigidity of her posture making her appear taller than she was. She looked to be in her late thirties, with shoulder length dark hair. Rectangular glasses enforced the angularity of her face. Her skirt fell to just below her knee; her grey sweater might have been silk.

‘Thank you, Teodoro,’ she said. She nodded at them and said, ‘I’m Anna Doni.’ Her face softened, but she did not smile.

Brunetti gave both their names and thanked her for letting them come to speak with her.

The boy looked back and forth as the grown-ups talked. She turned to him and said, ‘I think you can go and do your homework now.’

Brunetti saw the boy begin to protest, then decide not to bother with it. He nodded and left the room without saying anything, taking both his weapon and his friend with him.

‘Please, gentlemen,’ the woman said, waving towards the sofa. She sat in one of the chairs, then rose halfway to straighten her skirt. When they were seated, she said, ‘I’d like you to tell me why you’ve come.’

‘It’s in relation to your husband, Signora,’ Brunetti said. He paused but she asked nothing. ‘Could you tell me the last time you saw him or heard from him?’

Instead of answering, she asked, ‘You know that we’re separated?’

Brunetti nodded as if he did know but did not ask about it. Eventually she said, ‘I saw him a bit more than a week ago when he brought Teodoro home.’ In explanation, she added, ‘He has visiting rights, and every second weekend he can take Teo to sleep at his house.’ Brunetti relaxed to hear her finally use the boy’s nickname.

‘Is yours an amicable separation, Signora?’ Vianello broke in to ask, signalling to Brunetti that he had decided to play the role of good cop, should that become necessary.

‘It’s a legal separation,’ she said tersely. ‘I don’t know how amicable they can ever be.’

‘How long were you married, Signora?’ Vianello asked with every sign of sympathy for what she had just said. Then, as if to suggest she had the right to refuse to answer, he added, ‘Excuse me for asking.’

That stopped her. She unfolded her hands and gripped the arms of her chair. ‘I think that’s enough, gentlemen,’ she said with sudden authority. ‘It’s time for you to tell me what this is all about, and then I’ll decide which of your questions I want to answer.’

Brunetti had hoped to delay telling her, but there was no chance of that now. ‘If you’ve read the papers, Signora,’ he began, ‘you know that the body of a man was found in the water in Venice.’ He paused for long enough for her to grasp what was bound to come next. Her hands tightened on the arms of her chair, and she nodded. Her mouth opened, as if the air around her had suddenly changed to water and she could no longer breathe.

‘It appears that the man was murdered. We have reason to believe that the man is your husband.’

She fainted. During all his years in the police, Brunetti had never seen a person faint. He had seen two suspects, a man and a woman and at separate times, pretend to faint, and both times he had known instantly that they were only trying to buy time. But she fainted. Her eyes rolled upwards; her head fell against the back of the chair. Then, like a sweater placed carelessly on a piece of furniture, she slithered to the floor at their feet.