Donna Leon - The Golden Egg

‘Good morning, Signora,’ he said.

‘You’re the policeman, aren’t you?’ she asked. Her look was calm, lucid, disconcertingly so, at least to someone who was now curious to see how the viper might manifest itself.

He approached the bed, his face taut with a look of concern. He allowed himself a small smile, rich in every sign of relief. ‘I’m glad you recognize me, Signora.’

‘I recognized you the other time,’ she said, annoyed but not angry.

He broadened his smile. ‘I’m even happier to learn that, Signora. The doctor was worried about your fall and thought you might have a concussion.’ There it was: from the police. A fall.

She did not smile, but her face softened, as if she too felt relief. ‘I hit my head.’ Then, meaning it as a joke, ‘I suppose it was as hard as whatever it hit.’

Brunetti added a nod to his smile, radiating satisfaction at this happy circumstance. ‘Have they told you when you can go home?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ Brunetti said and turned, as if preparing to leave the room. What were she and Beni up to? he wondered. She had said nothing about having tripped, so perhaps she was not going to claim negligence on the part of the city, one of Beni’s standard cases. And since it was being treated as a fall, Beni was not going to bring a case of assault, as he had over many barroom shoves – even once against the owner of a bicycle over which a man had tripped.

His phone rang and, excusing himself to the woman, he answered it.

‘Lucrezia Lembo owns the house,’ Griffoni said.

‘I see.’

‘But Ana Cavanella’s son had the legal right to stay in it all of his life, after which it reverts to the owner or her heirs.’

‘I see,’ he repeated. ‘And when did this start?’

‘If you mean the contract, it was the the year she left her job at the Lembos’.’

‘Ah,’ was all Brunetti would permit himself to say. But then he thought of something else and asked, ‘And the expenses?’

‘Paid by Lucrezia Lembo: tax, gas, light, garbage.’ Then, before he could ask, ‘We’re checking Cavanella’s bank account.’

‘We?’

‘Signorina Elettra and I. She’s much better at these things than I am.’ True as that might be, Brunetti, who had recognized Signorina Elettra’s office telephone as the source of the call, had to admit that Griffoni was no slouch when it came to flattery.

‘Good. Let me know.’

‘Of course,’ Griffoni said and was gone.

‘Excuse me, Signora,’ he said. ‘My wife.’

‘Of course,’ she said in a warmer voice, as if he had become more human by having a wife.

‘If you need any help, Signora, in getting home, I’m sure we could send a launch, and I’m sure Pucetti would be glad to accompany you.’

‘He’s very kind, Roberto,’ she said.

‘He’s a good boy,’ Brunetti answered, meaning it. He was running out of things to say to keep him there long enough for Griffoni to call him again. It came to him. ‘I’m afraid there’s been no progress, Signora,’ he said.

‘In what?’ She sounded honestly confused.

‘In finding any identification for your son. Official,

that is.’

Her face hardened. ‘I told you. There was a robbery in my house, and they took all of the papers.’

His gaze was so level, his scepticism so palpable, that she said, ‘They took them. And my money. And my wedding ring. Everything.’ For a moment, it looked as though she were going to attempt to cry, but then she abandoned the idea and settled for putting a hand across her eyes.

His phone rang again. ‘Money’s been transferred into her account every month for the last forty years,’ Griffoni said. ‘From Lucrezia Lembo’s account.’

‘Really? And how much would that be?’

‘It started in lire and changed to Euros, but it’s always been the equivalent of a monthly salary.’

‘For what sort of work?’

‘Hardly for a maid. It’s now three thousand Euros.’

‘I see. Thanks. We can talk about it tomorrow,’ he said and replaced his phone in his pocket.

Brunetti waited until Ana Cavanella took her hand from her eyes and looked across at him, when, just as though he were asking her the time, he said, ‘What were you blackmailing the Lembo family about, Signora?’

26

Her mouth opened and stayed that way for a long time. Brunetti saw no expression on her face, only her once-beautiful eyes, frozen now, and the grey-red flush on the left side. This woman, he had been told, had once been thought to be a good girl: her patent fear suggested that Signora Ghezzi’s assessment might be closer to the truth.

‘What are you talking about?’

How many times had he been asked that? Short of a confession, it was as close to an admission of guilt as he had known many people to come. He had heard it said with indignation, incredulity, arrogance, menace; only rarely had he heard it asked in honest confusion: this was not one of those times.

‘Money has been transferred into your bank account for the last forty years, Signora. From Lucrezia Lembo.’

‘I work for her,’ she spat out, trying for indignation.

‘Doing what?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

Brunetti allowed himself a small smile. ‘Perhaps not, Signora.’ Then, after a slight pause, ‘Have you paid taxes on that money?’

He watched the once-beautiful eyes move from him to the window, to the door, as if she were looking for a way out of the room. Failing to find it, she said, ‘She pays the tax.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. Then, ever so casually, in the voice of the man who had once seemed genuinely concerned for her welfare, he asked, ‘Where are you going to live, Signora?’

This time, her confusion was real. ‘What?’

‘Where will you live now?’

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked so timidly that Brunetti had no doubt about her failure to understand.

‘It was Davide who had the usufrutto for the house.’ He saw she didn’t recognize the legal term. ‘He had the right to stay in it. Not you, Signora. You’ll have to leave.’

A friend of Paola’s often said her son had married a woman with ‘cash-register eyes’, but he had never understood the expression until he watched the calculation Ana Cavanella made in response to his statement.

She stared at the window behind him and to his left, and he had the sense that he had disappeared from the room, so far as she was concerned. She pulled her eyebrows together, pursed her lips, and worked at the problem for a long time. He saw the moment when she found her way free of it: her brows relaxed, and she gave a small, satisfied nod.

‘That won’t matter,’ she said, and he heard the steel in her voice and at the same time saw her face snap shut.

‘I’m sorry about your son,’ he said and left the room.

He walked from the hospital and went directly to Rosa Salva. He had seen the grey-haired woman behind the bar for at least twenty years, if not more. To Brunetti, she looked much the same as she always had, though that was impossible. He wondered if he looked the same to her, but could not ask, not after all these years of polite formality.

He did ask for a glass of white wine and two panini with ham, then added a tramezzino with ham and artichokes. He avoided looking at himself in the mirror, as he always did in bars.

Ana Cavanella had said it wouldn’t matter that she could no longer stay in the house where she and Davide had been living, and she had used the future tense, the grammar of gamblers, or dreamers. But she’d found her answer. Did this mean the blackmail would continue or that Ana Cavanella saw herself as headed for finer things?