Donna Leon - A Question of Belief

The temperature of her voice lowered and she said, ‘My husband knew someone who told him about it.’

‘I see. Thank you,’ Brunetti said, and then asked, ‘How long have Signora Fontana and her son lived here?’

She glanced at one of the paintings, one that was distinguished by the thickness of the swath of yellow across its middle, then back at Brunetti, and said, ‘I think three or four years.’ She did not smile, but her face softened, either because she had decided she liked Brunetti or, just as easily, because he had moved away from the question of how they had found their apartment.

‘Did you know either of them well?’

‘Oh, no, not more than the way one knows one’s neighbours,’ she said. ‘We’d meet on the stairs or coming into the courtyard.’

‘Did you ever visit either one of them in their apartment?’

‘Heavens no,’ she said, obviously shocked by the very possibility. ‘My husband’s a bank director.’

Brunetti nodded, quite as though this were the most normal response he had ever heard to such a question.

‘Has anyone in the building, perhaps someone in the neighbourhood, ever spoken to you about either of them?’

‘Signora Fontana and her son?’ she asked, as if they had been speaking of some other people.

‘Yes.’

She glanced aside to another painting, this one with two vertical slashes of red running through a field of white, and said, ‘No, not that I can remember.’ She gave a small motion of her lips that was perhaps meant to serve as a smile or was perhaps the result of looking at the painting.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, deciding that to continue to speak to her was to continue to go nowhere. ‘Thank you for your time,’ he said in a terminal voice.

She stood in a single graceful motion, while both he and a visibly surprised Vianello had to push themselves up from the sofa by using the armrests.

At the door, pleasantries were kept to a minimum; as they started down the steps, they heard the door close behind them. No sooner had it done so, than Vianello said, voice expressing shocked disapproval, ‘ “Heavens no. My husband’s a bank director.” ’

‘A bank director with very good taste in decorating,’ added Brunetti.

‘Excuse me?’ came Vianello’s puzzled response.

‘No one who wore that blouse could have chosen those curtains,’ Brunetti said, adding to Vianello’s confusion.

On the first floor, he stopped at the door and rang the bell marked Marsano. After a long delay, a woman’s voice from inside asked who it was.

‘ Polizia ,’ Brunetti answered. He thought he heard footsteps moving away from the door and at last heard what sounded like a child’s voice asking, ‘Who is it?’ From behind the door, a dog started to bark.

‘It’s the police,’ Brunetti said in as kindly a voice as he could muster. ‘That’s what I told your mother.’

‘That wasn’t my mother: it’s Zinka.’

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Lucia,’ she said.

‘Lucia, do you think you can open the door and let us in?’

‘My mother says never to let anyone into the apartment,’ the girl said.

‘Well, that’s a very good thing for her to tell you,’ Brunetti admitted, ‘but it’s different with the police. Didn’t your mother tell you that?’

It took a long time for the little girl to answer. When she did, she surprised him by asking, ‘Is it because of what happened to Signor Araldo?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘It’s not about Zinka?’ There was a note of almost adult concern in her voice.

‘No, I don’t even know who Zinka is,’ Brunetti said, telling the truth.

At last he heard a key turn and the door opened. Standing in front of him was a girl who might have been eight or nine. She wore blue jeans and a white cotton sweater: she was barefoot. She stood a bit back from the door and looked at them with open curiosity. She was pretty in the way of little girls.

‘You don’t have uniforms,’ was the first thing she said.

Both men laughed, which seemed to convince the girl of their good will, if not of their profession.

Brunetti saw a motion at the end of the corridor, and a woman wearing a blue apron stepped out from one of the rooms. She had the potato body of an Eastern European and the round face and wispy pale hair that often went with it. He read it in an instant: she was illegal, working there as a maid or a babysitter, but even fear of the police could not keep her from coming out to make sure the child was safe.

Brunetti took out his wallet and removed his warrant card. He held it out to the woman and said, ‘Signora Zinka. I’m Commissario Brunetti, and I’m here to ask questions about Signor Fontana and his mother.’ He watched to see how much she understood. She nodded but did not move. ‘I am not interested in anything else, Signora. Do you understand?’ Her posture seemed to grow less rigid, so he stepped aside, still outside the door, and indicated Vianello, who stood beside him, also careful to remain in the hallway. ‘Nor is my assistant, Ispettore Vianello.’

Silently, she took a few hesitant steps in their direction. The child turned to her and said, ‘Come on, Zinka. Come and talk to them. They won’t hurt us: they’re policemen.’

The word stopped the woman’s forward motion, and the look that swept her face suggested that life had taught her to draw different conclusions about the behaviour of the police.

‘If you don’t want us to come in, Signora,’ Brunetti began, speaking slowly, ‘we can come back later this afternoon, or whenever you tell us Lucia’s mother will be home.’ She took another step closer to the child, though Brunetti had no idea of whether she was seeking or offering protection.

He looked down at the child. ‘What school do you go to, Lucia?’

‘Foscarini,’ she said.

‘Ah, that’s nice. My daughter went there, too,’ he lied.

‘You have a daughter?’ the little girl asked, as if this were not something policemen were meant to have. Then, as if this would catch him out, she asked, ‘What’s her name?’

‘Chiara.’

‘That’s my best friend’s name, too,’ the girl said, smiling broadly, and stepped back from the door. With surprising formality, she said, ‘Please come in.’

‘ Permesso ,’ they both said as they stepped inside. It was then that Brunetti became aware of the air conditioning, which fell on him with a sudden chill after the heat of the day.

‘We can go to my father’s office. That’s where he always takes visitors if they’re men,’ she said, turning away from them and opening a door on the right. ‘Come on,’ she encouraged them. Vianello closed the door to the apartment, and the two men followed the child down the chilly hall. At the entrance to the office, Brunetti said to the woman, ‘It would help us if we could talk to you, too, Signora, but only if you’re willing. All we want to know about is Signora Fontana and her son.’

The woman took another small step towards them and said, ‘Good man.’

‘Signor Fontana?’

She nodded.

‘You knew him?’

She nodded again.

The child went into the room and said, this time drawing the last word out, ‘Come on, silly.’ She crossed the room, hesitated beside a large desk, then pulled out the chair behind it and sat in it: her shoulders barely topped the desk, and Brunetti could not stop himself from smiling.

The woman saw his smile, looked across at the child, then back at Brunetti, and he watched her assess the scene and his response. ‘I really do have a daughter, Signora,’ he said and walked over to take one of the chairs in front of the desk. Vianello took the other one.

The woman came into the room but remained standing, halfway between the desk and the open door, a position that offered her the opportunity to try to snatch the child to safety, should that become necessary.