Donna Leon - Drawing Conclusions

Brunetti considered himself the least superstitious of men and took pride in his intense respect for reason and good sense and all the virtues he associated with the proper functioning of the mind. This, however, in no way prevented him from accepting the possibility of less tangible phenomena – he had never been able to find a clearer way to express it. Something that, though unseen, left traces. He felt those traces here: this was a troubled death. Not necessarily violent or criminal: only troubled. He sensed it, though vaguely and fleetingly, and as soon as the sensation rose to the level of conscious thought, it vanished, to be dismissed as nothing more than a stronger than usual response to the sight of sudden death.

He quickly scanned the room and registered furniture, two floor lamps, a row of windows, but his intense awareness of the woman at his feet made it difficult for him to concentrate on anything else.

He returned to the corridor. There was no sign of Vianello, but the pathologist waited a few steps away. ‘She’s in here, Ettore,’ Brunetti said. As the doctor approached, Brunetti was distracted by the sound of footsteps from below. He heard men’s voices, a deep one followed by a lighter tone, and then a door closed.

The footsteps continued towards the apartment, and then Marillo, the assistant lab technician, appeared at the open door, two men close behind him carrying the cases of their trade. Marillo, a tall, thin Lombard who seemed incapable of understanding anything save the simple, literal truth of any statement or situation, greeted Brunetti then came into the apartment, moving forward to allow his own men to enter behind him. The last man closed the door and Marillo said, ‘Man downstairs wanted to know what all the noise was about.’

Brunetti greeted the men, but when he turned back to where Rizzardi had been, he realized the pathologist had gone into the other room. He told the men Vianello would tell them where to begin photographing and dusting for prints. He found Rizzardi bent over the woman’s body, his hands carefully stuffed into the pockets of his trousers. He stood upright as Brunetti approached and said, ‘It could have been a heart attack. Perhaps a stroke.’

Brunetti pointed silently to the small circle of blood, and Rizzardi, who had been in the room long enough to take a careful look around, pointed in his turn to a radiator that stood below a window not far from where the woman lay.

‘She could have fallen against it,’ Rizzardi said. ‘I’ll have a better idea when I can turn her over.’ He took a step back from the woman’s body. ‘So let’s get them to take the photos, all right?’ he asked.

With any other doctor, Brunetti might have lost patience at his refusal to read the bloodstain as a sign of violence, but he was familiar with Rizzardi’s insistence that he concern himself only with the immediately evident physical cause of death and only when he saw it or could prove it for himself. On occasion, Brunetti had managed to get the doctor to speculate, but it was no easy task.

Brunetti allowed his attention to drift away from the doctor and the woman at his feet. The room seemed to be in order save for two sofa cushions on the floor and a leather-bound book lying face down beside them. There was a wardrobe, but both doors were closed.

The photographer entered, saying, ‘Marillo and Bobbio are dusting for prints, so I came down here to do her first.’ He walked past Brunetti, towards the body, right hand fiddling with a knob on his camera.

Brunetti left him to it. He heard the low murmur of Rizzardi’s voice behind him but ignored it as he walked back along the corridor.

In the larger bedroom, Vianello, wearing thin plastic gloves, stood in front of the open drawers of the chest. He was leaning forward to examine some papers that lay on the top of the chest. As Brunetti watched, Vianello slid the top sheet to the side with the tip of his finger, then read the one below before shifting it aside to read the last one.

Reacting to Brunetti’s silent presence, Vianello said, ‘It’s a letter from a girl in India. “To Mamma Costanza.” Must be one of those organizations that let you sponsor a child.’

‘What does she say?’ Brunetti asked.

‘It’s in English,’ Vianello answered, waving at the papers. ‘And it’s handwritten. From what I can make out, she’s thanking her for the birthday gift and telling her that she’ll give it to her father so that he can buy rice for the spring planting.’ Nodding to the papers, Vianello added, ‘She’s included her school report and a photo.’

Carefully, Vianello patted the sheets of paper back into place. ‘You think they’re legitimate, all these charities?’ he asked.

‘I hope so,’ Brunetti said. ‘Or else a lot of money has been going to the wrong places for a long time.’

‘Do you do it?’ Vianello asked.

‘Yes.’

‘India?’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, feeling something close to embarrassment. ‘Paola takes care of it.’

‘Nadia does, too,’ Vianello said hastily. ‘But why we’re giving money to places like India and China is something I don’t understand. Can’t pick up a newspaper without reading how powerful they are economically, how the world is going to belong to them in a decade. Or two. So what are we doing, supporting their children?’ Then Vianello added, ‘At least that’s what I ask myself.’

‘If Fazio is to be believed,’ Brunetti said, naming his friend who worked for the Frontier Police, ‘what we shouldn’t be doing is buying their clothing and toys and electronic equipment. Doesn’t hurt to give a couple of hundred euros to send a kid to school, though.’

Vianello nodded. ‘Kids there still have to eat, I suppose. And buy books.’ He stripped off the gloves and put them into the pocket of his jacket.

Just then the photographer came to the door and told Brunetti that Rizzardi wanted to see him. The dead woman had been turned on to her back, both arms at her sides: looking at her, Brunetti could not recapture the feeling conveyed to him by the first sight of the body. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, her spirit fled. There could be no hope that a spirit still lingered near this body. One might choose to debate where it had gone, or even if it had ever existed, but there could be no question about the absence of life here.

Above the corner of her right eye, just above the eyebrow, Brunetti saw a cut, the flesh around it swollen and discoloured. The cut had leaked a dark paste, similar in consistency to sealing wax, into her hair and was obviously the source of the blood on the floor. Her cardigan was unbuttoned, and her yellow shirt had been pulled to one side when she was turned on to her back, exposing an oblong smudge on the outer left-hand side of her collarbone.

Unconsciously, Brunetti moved his hands close together in front of his thighs, fingers bent, to measure the distance between his thumbs. When he glanced at Rizzardi, he saw that the doctor was staring at his hands.

‘Her eyes would be bloodshot,’ Rizzardi said, reading the message of violence in his hands.

From behind him, Brunetti heard someone let out a long stream of breath. He turned to see Vianello, whom he had not heard arrive. The Inspector’s face wore a look of practised neutrality.

Brunetti looked back at the dead woman. One of her hands was clenched tight, as if frozen in the act of trying to keep her spirit from leaving: the other lay open, the fingers loose, encouraging the spirit to depart.

‘Can you do it tomorrow morning?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Will you take a look at everything?’

Rizzardi’s response was a sigh, followed by ‘Guido,’ said in a low voice, in which could be heard an effort at patience.