Donna Leon - The Golden Egg

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How was she?’ Brunetti asked.

After a moment, Forti said, ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean, sir.’

‘How did she behave? Was she crying? Did she have trouble talking?’

The pilot was slow to answer Brunetti’s questions. Finally he said, ‘You have to understand, sir, that we answer all sorts of calls. Death hits people differently. You never know how it’ll affect them.’

Brunetti waited.

‘She was upset: you could see that. She said she had gone into his room and found him, and he was dead, and she called 118, and they told her we’d come.’

‘And so?’ Brunetti asked, trying to sound interested and not impatient.

‘She was crying. She let us in and took us up to the apartment and back to his room. And he was in his bed, just like she said. It was pretty ugly: it always is when they die like that, sir. So we covered him and put him in the carrier, and we took him down to the boat and to the hospital. For Dottor Rizzardi.’

‘Did she ask to go with you?’ Brunetti asked.

‘No, sir. She just stood there while we took him out, and then she closed the door before we took him to the boat.’

‘Do you remember what the room looked like?’ Brunetti asked.

Forti paused to remember and then said, ‘It was awfully small, sir, and with only one tiny window, and the house opposite is very close, so there wasn’t much light. Not that there would be, not that early.’ He glanced at Brunetti, then added, ‘It’s in my report, sir.’

‘Did the Carabinieri send a squad, do you know?’

‘Probably not, sir. We called them and told them it looked like an accident, so I doubt they’d bother.’

On the tip of Brunetti’s tongue was the temptation to remind Forti that doing one’s job – and checking the scene of an unaccounted death was included in that – was not dependent on whether it was a bother or not, but instead he thanked him for his information and hung up.

He found the phone number of the dry cleaner’s in his notebook and dialled; the phone was picked up on the fifth ring. ‘ Lavasecco ,’ a woman’s voice answered, not bothering with the name.

‘ Buon dì, Signora, ’ he said, ‘This is Commissario Brunetti.’

Instead of greeting him, she said, ‘Your wife’s jacket and three pairs of your slacks are ready, Commissario. But your grey jacket has a stain on the right sleeve that didn’t come out, so we’re putting it through again.’

‘Ah,’ said a momentarily confused Brunetti. ‘Thank you, Signora, but that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.’

‘Davide?’

‘Yes. I saw him in your shop over the years, and I wanted to come by and talk to you about him, you and your colleague.’

‘Renata doesn’t come in until after lunch, Commissario, if you want to talk to us both. This is a slow period for us: everyone’s got their winter things back already, and it’s too soon for them to be wearing them again. All we get these days is linen. People mostly wash their summer things themselves. Must be the financial crisis.’

In recent months, criminals had taken to blaming their activities on the financial crisis. The Euro sank; salaries remained the same. What else could I do but rob the bank? Brunetti wondered what next would be blamed on the financial crisis. Bad taste?

‘Of course, Signora. Thank you,’ Brunetti said, checked his watch, spent an hour reading through some of the papers on his desk, and then went home for lunch.

8

Clouds gathered as they were having lunch, so before leaving to go to the dry cleaner’s, Brunetti took a grey pullover from his drawer and slipped it on under his jacket. As he kissed Paola goodbye, she asked, ‘Is this the first sign of winter?’

‘A bit early for that, I’d say,’ Brunetti answered. ‘But I think it’s the hardening up of autumn.’

‘Nice phrase,’ she said, stepping back from him and studying his face. ‘Did you make it up?’

Puzzled, Brunetti had to think about that. ‘I must have,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember having heard anyone say it.’

‘Not bad,’ she commended him and moved towards her study.

As he opened the door to the calle , Brunetti felt that autumn had grown even harder while they were at lunch. He was glad of the sweater and wished he had thought to take a scarf, as well. He didn’t have to think about

how to get to the dry cleaner’s but followed what he thought of as his own GPS – Guido’s Personal System – and was there in ten minutes.

When he entered, he was enveloped in the familiar smell: slightly sharp, vaguely chemical, but so familiar as not to cause alarm. Two women clients stood in front of the counter, the owner behind it, making change from the cash register. A paper-wrapped parcel lay flat on the counter between them. Half visible behind the curtain that separated the back room stood the tall woman he had seen ironing there for years. Her short hair was as well coloured as it was cut, the same blonde it might once have been. Surely more than sixty, her body had remained thin and agile, perhaps due to the bending and lifting her job required of her.

‘God knows what his mother’s suffering,’ he heard the woman who was paying say just as he walked in.

The woman to her left made a puffing noise, as if lifting a heavy weight, but said no more. The first woman turned towards her, and Brunetti watched her decide to say no more. She took her change, thanked the woman behind the counter, and picked up her parcel.

As she reached the door, the owner said, ‘Next Tuesday, Signora.’

Her parcel rustled as she opened the door, and then she was gone.

When the door was closed, the second client said, ‘God knows if the mother’s suffering, I’d say.’ She was full-bodied and round-faced, with plump red cheeks: in a fairy tale, she’d be the good grandmother.

As if she had not heard the remark, the owner said, ‘It was a green silk suit, wasn’t it? And your husband’s brown jacket?’

The woman accepted the change of subject and asked, ‘How do you do it, Signora? How do you remember everything? I brought them here in April.’

‘I like the suit,’ she answered. ‘And your husband’s

had that jacket for a long time.’ Before her client could interpret that as a criticism, she added, ‘You never see quality like that any more: it’ll last another ten years.’ She went to take the clothing from the racks at the back of the shop.

The client smiled, placed a pink receipt on the counter, and opened her purse.

The owner came back, folded the suit and the jacket, wrapped them in light blue paper, and taped the parcel neatly closed. She took the money from the woman and after a polite exchange of goodbyes, the woman left.

Her comment remained in the space left by her departure. Before Brunetti could speak, the curtain was pulled fully open and Renata, whose name Brunetti had learned only some hours before, emerged.

She nodded to him but spoke to her colleague. ‘I heard her. How could she say something like that? The poor boy isn’t buried yet, and she’s talking like that about his mother. She doesn’t deserve that.’

‘People have always talked about her like that,’ her colleague answered with heavy resignation. ‘But with her son dead, you’d think they could stop it.’

As though only mildly curious, Brunetti asked, ‘Like what?’

The women exchanged a long look; in it Brunetti read the struggle between the desire to remain silent out of some sort of female solidarity and the urge to gossip.

Renata opted for gossip by leaning forward and grasping the edges of the narrow counter. Bracing her weight on stiff arms, she settled in for the long haul.