Donna Leon - Drawing Conclusions

‘Right,’ Patta said, restored to his good humour. ‘Let me know what Rizzardi tells you as soon as you see him.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘And find her son. His name is Claudio Niccolini.’

Brunetti wished the Vice-Questore good morning and went to the outer office to speak to Signorina Elettra, certain that she would easily find a veterinarian of the name Claudio Niccolini somewhere in the Veneto.

It proved far easier than he had imagined: all Signorina Elettra did was enter ‘Veterinarian’ and search the Yellow Pages for both cities, and she quickly found the number of the office of Dott. Claudio Niccolini in Vicenza.

Brunetti went back to his office to make the call, only to learn that the doctor was not in the office that day. When he gave his name and rank and explained that he had to speak to the doctor about the death of his mother, the woman with whom he was speaking said that Dr Niccolini had already been informed and was on his way to Venice, in fact was probably already there. The reproach in her voice was unmistakable. Brunetti offered no explanation for the delay in his call and, instead, asked for the doctor’s telefonino number. The woman gave it to him and hung up without further comment.

Brunetti dialled the number; a man answered on the fourth ring. ‘ Sì? ’

‘Dottor Niccolini?’

‘ Sì. Chi parla? ’

‘This is Commissario Guido Brunetti, Dottore. First, I want to offer my condolences for your loss,’ Brunetti said, paused, and then added, ‘I’d like to speak to you about your mother, if I might.’ Brunetti had no idea what his authority was, since he had gone to the woman’s home almost by default, and he had certainly not been given any formal assignment to look into the circumstances of her death.

The other man took a very long time to answer, and when he did he blurted out, ‘Why…’ and then stopped. After yet another seemingly interminable pause, he said, fighting to control his uneasiness, ‘I didn’t know the police were involved.’

If that’s what he thought, Brunetti decided it was best to let him go on believing it. ‘Only because the first call came to us, Dottore,’ Brunetti said in his blandest bureaucratic voice. Then, switching registers to that of the beleaguered official, much put upon by the incompetence of others, he added, ‘Usually the hospital would send a team, but because the person who reported the death called us, instead, we were obliged to go.’

‘Ah, I see,’ Niccolini said in a calmer voice.

Brunetti then asked, ‘May I ask where you are, Dottore?’

‘I’m at the hospital, waiting to speak to the pathologist.’

‘I’m already on my way there,’ Brunetti lied effortlessly, then added, ‘There are some formalities; this way I can attend to them and also speak to you.’ Without bothering to wait for Niccolini’s reply, Brunetti said, ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ and snapped his phone closed.

He didn’t bother to check if Vianello was in the officers’ squad room but left the Questura quickly and started towards the hospital. As he walked, he mulled over Niccolini’s tone as much as his words. Fear of involvement with the police was a normal response in any citizen, he realized, so perhaps the nervousness he had heard in the man’s voice was to be expected. Added to this, Dottor Niccolini was speaking from the hospital, where the body of his dead mother lay.

The beauty of the day interrupted his reflections. All it needed was the tang of burning leaves to recreate in his memory those lost days of late-autumn freedom when he and his brother, as children, had roamed at will on the islands of the laguna , sometimes helping the farmers with the last harvests of the year and wildly proud to be able to take home bags filled with the fruit or vegetables with which they had been paid.

He crossed Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo, conscious of how perfect the light would be today for the stained-glass windows of the basilica. He went into the Ospedale. The vast entrance hall devoured most of the light, and though he passed through courtyards and open spaces on the way to the obitorio , the enclosing walls destroyed the sense that he was in the open air.

A man stood in the waiting room outside the morgue. He was tall and heavy-boned, with the body of a wrestler at the end of his career, muscle already beginning to lose its tone but not yet turned to fat. He looked up when Brunetti came in, saw but failed to acknowledge the arrival of another person.

‘Dottor Niccolini?’ Brunetti asked and extended his hand.

The doctor was slow in registering Brunetti, as if he had first to clear his mind of other thoughts before he could accept the presence of another person. ‘Yes,’ he finally said. ‘Are you the policeman? I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your name.’

‘Brunetti,’ he said.

The other man took Brunetti’s hand more from habit than desire. His grip was firm but definitely fleeting. Brunetti noticed that his left eye was minimally smaller than the other, or set at a different angle. Both were deep brown, as was his hair, already greying at the temples. His nose and mouth were surprisingly delicate in a man of his stature, as though designed for a smaller face.

‘I’m sorry to meet you in these circumstances,’ Brunetti said. ‘It must be very difficult for you.’ There should be some formulaic language for this, Brunetti thought, some way to overcome awkwardness.

Niccolini nodded, tightened his lips and closed his eyes, then turned quickly away from Brunetti, as if he had heard something from the door to the morgue.

Brunetti stood, his hands behind him, one hand holding the other wrist. He became aware of the smell of the room, one he had smelled too many times: something chemical and sharp that tried, and failed, to obliterate another, this one feral and warm and fluid. Across from him, on the wall, he saw one of those horror posters that hospitals cannot resist displaying: this one held grossly enlarged pictures of what he thought were the ticks that carried encephalitis and borreliosis.

Speaking to the man’s back, Brunetti could think of nothing but banalities. ‘I’d like to express my sympathies, Dottore,’ he said before he remembered that he had already done so.

The doctor did not immediately answer him, nor did he turn. Finally, in a quiet, tortured voice, he said, ‘I’ve done autopsies, you know.’

Brunetti remained silent. The other man pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers, wiped his face and blew his nose. When he turned, his face looked for a moment like the face of a different man, older somehow. ‘They won’t tell me anything – not how she died or why they’re doing an autopsy. So all I can do is stand here and think about what’s happening.’ His mouth tightened into a grimace, and for a moment Brunetti feared the doctor was going to start to cry.

There being no suitable rejoinder, Brunetti allowed some time to pass and then went over and, without asking, took Niccolini’s arm. The man stiffened, as though Brunetti’s touch was the prelude to a blow. His head whipped around and he stared at Brunetti with the eyes of a frightened animal. ‘Come, Dottore,’ Brunetti said in his most soothing voice. ‘Perhaps you should sit down a moment.’ The other man’s resistance disappeared, and Brunetti led him over to the row of plastic chairs, released his arm slowly and waited while the doctor sat down. Then Brunetti angled another chair to half face him and sat.

‘Your mother’s upstairs neighbour called us last night,’ he began.

It appeared to take Niccolini some time to register what Brunetti was saying, and then he said only, ‘She called me this morning. That’s why I’m here.’