Donna Leon - Beastly Things

After some time, Vianello said, ‘Pity she didn’t listen to him.’

‘For her reasons or for ours?’ Brunetti asked.

Surprised by the question, Vianello answered, ‘For hers.’

THERE WAS NOTHING for them to do but wait for her to return. Keeping their voices low, they discussed what she had said and the possibilities it created for them.

‘We need to find this woman and see what was going on,’ Brunetti said.

Vianello’s look was easily read.

‘No, not that,’ Brunetti continued with a shake of his head. ‘She’s right: it’s a cliché, one of the oldest ones. I want to know if he was bothered by anything other than the affair he was having with her.’

‘You don’t think that’s enough to worry a married man?’ Vianello asked.

‘Of course it is,’ Brunetti conceded. ‘But most married men who are having affairs don’t end up floating in a canal with three stab wounds in their back.’

‘That’s true enough,’ Vianello agreed. Then, with a backward nod towards the door Signora Doni had used, he said, ‘If I had her to contend with, I think an affair would make me very nervous.’

‘What would Nadia do?’ Brunetti asked, not sure how much criticism of Signora Doni lay in Vianello’s question.

‘Take my pistol and shoot me, probably,’ Vianello answered with a small grin from which pride was not entirely absent. ‘And Paola?’

‘We live on the fourth floor,’ Brunetti answered. ‘And we have a terrace.’

‘Crafty, your wife,’ Vianello said. ‘Would she leave an unsigned note in the computer?’

‘I doubt it,’ Brunetti said. ‘Too obvious.’ Entering into the puzzle, he gave it some thought. ‘She’d probably tell people I’d been depressed for months and had recently talked about ending it all.’

‘Who would she persuade to agree with her and say they’d heard you say the same thing?’

‘Her parents.’ Brunetti spoke before he thought about it, then quickly amended this: ‘No, only her father. Her mother wouldn’t lie.’ Something occurred to him and he said it, his pleasure evident in his face and voice. ‘I don’t think she’d lie about me. I think she likes me.’

‘Doesn’t her father?’

‘Yes, but in a different way.’ Brunetti knew it was impossible to explain this, but he was much cheered at this sudden recognition of the Contessa’s regard.

They heard Signora Doni’s steps in the corridor and stood as she came back into the room. ‘I had to check on Teo,’ she said. ‘He knows something big is wrong, and he’s worried.’

‘You told him we were policemen?’ Brunetti asked, though the boy had told them so.

She met his gaze directly. ‘Yes. I thought you’d come in uniform, and I wanted him to be prepared for that,’ she said too quickly, as if she had been waiting for his question. Perhaps encouraged by their silence, she finally got to it: ‘And I was afraid when you asked about Andrea. He usually called once or twice during the week. But I hadn’t heard from him since he left.’ She placed her palms on her thighs and studied them. ‘I suppose I knew what you were going to tell me.’

Ignoring this, Brunetti said, ‘You told us that his behaviour changed after he started the other job.’ Brunetti knew he had to go carefully here, find a way to work himself through the tangle of her emotions. ‘You said that you and he were close, Signora.’ He paused to let that sink in. ‘Do you remember how soon after he began to work there he showed signs of being worried?’

He read in the stiffness of her mouth that she was close to the end of what she would accept and answer. She started to speak, coughed lightly, then went on: ‘He hadn’t been there long; maybe a month. But by then the disease had grown worse.

‘He’d started eating less to try to lose weight, and that made him cranky, I’m afraid.’ She frowned at the memory of this. ‘I couldn’t get him to eat anything except vegetables and pasta, and bread and some fruit. He said that would work. But it didn’t do any good: he kept getting bigger.’

‘Did he ever talk about a problem?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Other than the disease.’

She had grown visibly restless, so Brunetti forced himself into a more relaxed posture, hoping it would prove contagious.

‘He didn’t like the new job. He said it was hard to do both, especially now that the disease had got worse, but he couldn’t leave because we needed the extra money.’

‘That’s quite a burden for a man who isn’t in good health,’ Vianello offered sympathetically.

She looked at him and smiled. ‘That’s the way Andrea was,’ she said. ‘He worried about the people who worked for him at the clinic. He felt responsible and wanted to keep it open.’

Brunetti left this alone. Years ago, less versed in the ways of emotions, he might have pointed to the dissonance between her behaviour towards her husband and these remarks, but the years had worn away his desire to find consistency, and so he never assumed it nor questioned its absence. She was aboil with emotions: Brunetti suspected the most powerful of them might be remorse, not anger.

‘Could you tell us where his clinic is, Signora?’ Brunetti asked. Vianello pulled a notebook from his pocket.

‘Via Motta 145,’ she said. ‘It’s only five minutes from here.’ Brunetti thought she looked embarrassed. ‘They called me yesterday and told me Andrea hadn’t come in. I told them I didn’t… didn’t know where he was.’ In the manner of a person not accustomed to lying, she looked down at her hands, and Brunetti suspected she had also told them she didn’t care.

She forced herself to look at him and went on. ‘He was living in a small apartment on the second floor of the building. Should I call them and tell them you’re coming?’ she asked.

‘No, thank you, Signora. I think I’d like to go there unannounced.’

‘To see if anyone tries to run away when they hear you’re policemen?’ she asked, only half joking.

Brunetti smiled. ‘Something like that. Though if your husband hasn’t been there for two days, and we show up without an animal, they’ll probably guess who we are.’

It took a few moments for her to decide that he was exaggerating. She did not smile.

‘Is there anything else?’ she asked.

‘No, Signora,’ Brunetti said, then added, speaking with great formality, ‘I’d like to thank you for being generous with your time.’ Speaking as a father, he said, ‘I hope you can find a way to tell your son,’ unconsciously using the plural when he spoke.

‘He is, isn’t he?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Ours.’

Vezzani was waiting for them in the bar, watching an afternoon cooking programme, the Gazzettino open on the table in front of him, a coffee cup placed to its side.

‘Coffee?’ he asked.

They nodded, and Vezzani waved to the barman and asked for two coffees and a glass of water.

They came and sat at his table. He folded the newspaper and tossed it on the empty fourth chair. ‘What did she tell you?’

‘That he was having an affair with a woman at work,’ Brunetti answered.

Vezzani opened his mouth in a gasping O and held up both hands. ‘Well, who ever heard of such a thing? What’s the world coming to?’ The waiter approached with the coffees and a glass of water for Vezzani.

They drank and then Vezzani, in a more serious voice, asked, ‘What else?’

‘He was also working at the slaughterhouse,’ Vianello began.

‘The one at Preganziol?’ Vezzani asked.

‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Are there others?’

‘I think there’s one in Treviso, but that’s a different province. Preganziol’s the closest one to us.’