Authors: Donna Leon
‘There’s usually only one reason for that,’ Brunetti said.
Before Vianello could ask what he meant, Pucetti blurted out, ‘Because they all know whatever Ruffo does, and they don’t want us to talk to him.’
Once again, Brunetti graced the young man with an approving smile.
By three that afternoon, they were seated in an unmarked police car parked a hundred metres from the entrance to the home listed for Cadet Ruffo, a dairy farm on the outskirts of Dolo, a small town halfway between Venice and Padova. The stone house, long and low and attached at one end to a large barn, sat back from a poplar-lined road. A gravel driveway led up to it from the road, but the recent rains had reduced it to a narrow band of mud running between patches of dead grass interspersed with mud-rimmed puddles. There were no trees within sight, though stumps stood here and there in the fields, indicating where they had been cut. It was difficult for Brunetti, stiff and cold in the car, to think of a season different from this one, but he wondered what the cattle would do without shade from the summer sun. Then he remembered how seldom cows went to pasture on the farms of the new Veneto: they generally stood in their stalls, reduced to motionless cogs in the wheel of milk production.
It was cold; a raw wind was coming from the north. Every so often, Vianello turned on the motor and put the heat on high, until it grew so hot in the car that one or another of them was forced to open a window.
After half an hour, Vianello said, ‘I don’t think it makes much sense to sit here, waiting for him to show up. Why don’t we just go and ask if he’s there or not?’
Pucetti, as befitted his inferior position, both in terms of rank and, because he was in the back seat, geography, said nothing, leaving it to Brunetti to respond.
Brunetti had been musing on the same question for some time, and Vianello’s outburst was enough to convince him. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see if he’s there.’
Vianello turned on the engine and put the car into gear. Slowly, the wheels occasionally spinning in search of purchase, they drove through the mud and gravel and towards the house. As they drew nearer, signs of rustic life became more and more evident. An abandoned tyre, so large it could have come only from a tractor, lay against the front of a barn. To the left of the door of the house a row of rubber boots stood in odd pairings of black and brown, tall and short. Two large dogs emerged from around the side of the house and ran towards them, low and silent and, because of that, frightening. They stopped two metres short of the car, both on the passenger side, and stared, their lips pulled back in suspicion, but still silent.
Brunetti could recognize only a few well-known breeds, and he thought he saw some German Shepherd in these dogs, but there was little else he could identify. ‘Well?’ he asked Vianello.
Neither of the others said anything, so Brunetti pushed open his door and put one foot on the ground, careful to choose a patch of dried grass. The dogs did nothing. He put his other foot on the ground and pushed himself out of the car. Still the dogs remained motionless. His nostrils were assailed by the acidic smell of cow urine, and he noticed that the puddles in front of what he thought to be the doors of the barn were a dark, foaming brown.
He heard one car door open, then the other, and then Pucetti was standing beside him. At the sight of two men standing side by side, the dogs backed away a bit. Vianello came around the front of the car, and the dogs backed away even farther, until they stood just at the corner of the building. Vianello suddenly stamped his right foot and took a long step towards them, and they disappeared around the corner of the building, still without having made a sound.
The men walked to the door, where an enormous iron ring served as a knocker. Brunetti picked it up and let it drop against the metal plaque nailed into the door, enjoying the weight of it in his hand as well as the solid clang it created. When there was no response, he did it again. After a moment, they heard a voice from inside call something they could not distinguish.
The door was opened by a short, dark-haired woman in a shapeless grey woollen dress over which she wore a thick green cardigan that had obviously been knitted by hand, a clumsy hand. Shorter than they, she stepped back from the door and put her head back to squint at them. Brunetti noticed that there was a lopsided quality about her face: the left eye angled up towards her temple, while the same side of her mouth drooped. Her skin seemed baby soft and was without wrinkles, though she must have been well into her forties.
‘
Sì
?’ she finally inquired.
‘Is this the home of Giuliano Ruffo?’ Brunetti asked.
She might have been a speaker of some other language, so long did it take her to translate his words into meaning. As Brunetti watched, he thought he saw her mouth the word, ‘Giuliano’, as if that would help her answer the question.
‘
Momento
,’ the woman said, and the consonants caused her great difficulty. She turned away, leaving it to them to close the door. Or just as easily, Brunetti said to himself, walk off with everything in the house or, if they preferred, kill everyone inside and drive away undisturbed, even by the dogs.
The three men crowded into the hall and stood there, waiting for the woman to return or for someone to arrive better able to answer their questions. After a few minutes they heard footsteps come towards them from the back of the house. The woman in the green cardigan
returned
, and behind her was another woman, younger, and wearing a sweater made from the same wool but by more skilful hands. This woman’s features and bearing, too, spoke of greater refinement: dark eyes that instantly sought his, a sculpted mouth poised to speak, and an air of concentrated attention left Brunetti with a general impression of brightness and light.
‘
Sì
?’ she said. Both her tone and her expression made the question one that required not only an answer, but an explanation.
‘I’m Commissario Guido Brunetti, Signora. I’d like to speak to Giuliano Ruffo. Our records show that this is his home.’
‘What do you want to talk to him about?’ the second woman asked.
‘About the death of one of his fellow cadets.’
During this exchange, the first woman stood to one side of Brunetti, open-mouthed, her face moving back and forth from one to the other as he spoke to the younger woman, seeming to register only sound. Brunetti saw her in profile, and noticed that the undamaged side of her face was similar to that of the other woman’s. Sisters, then, or perhaps cousins.
‘He’s not here,’ the younger woman said.
Brunetti had no patience for this. ‘Then he’s in violation of his leave from the Academy,’ he said, thinking this might perhaps be true.
‘To hell with the Academy,’ she answered fiercely.
‘All the more reason for him to talk to us, then,’ he countered.
‘I told you, he’s not here.’
Suddenly angry, Brunetti said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ The idea of what life in the countryside was like came to him, the boredom of work relieved only by the hope that some new misery would befall a neighbour. ‘If you like, we can leave and then come back again with three cars, with sirens wailing and red lights flashing, and fill your courtyard and then go and ask all of your neighbours if they know where he is.’
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ she said, far more truthfully than she realized.
‘Then let me talk to him,’ Brunetti said.
‘Giuliano,’ said the first woman, surprising them all.
‘It’s all right, Luigina,’ the younger woman said, placing a hand on her forearm. ‘These men have come to see Giuliano.’
‘Giuliano,’ the older woman repeated in the same dull, uninflected tone.
‘That’s right,
cara
. They’re friends of his, and they’ve come to visit.’
‘Friends,’ the woman repeated with a crooked smile. She moved towards the bulk of Vianello, who was looming behind his colleagues. She raised her right hand and placed the open palm on the centre of his chest. She raised her face up to his and said, ‘Friend.’
Vianello placed his hand over hers and said, ‘That’s right, Signora. Friends.’
23
THERE ENSUED A
moment of intense awkwardness, at least for Brunetti, Pucetti and the younger woman. Vianello and Luigina remained linked by her hand on his chest, while Brunetti turned to the other woman and said, ‘Signora, I do need to speak to Giuliano. You have my inspector’s word: we’re friends.’
‘Why should I trust you?’ she demanded.
Brunetti turned partly towards Vianello, who was now softly patting the back of the other woman’s hand. ‘Because she does,’ he said.
The younger woman began to protest but let it drop even before she could pronounce the first word. As Brunetti watched, her face displayed her recognition of the truth of his remark. Her
body
relaxed and she asked, ‘What do you need to ask him?’
‘I told you, Signora. About the death of the cadet.’
‘Only about that?’ Her glance was as clear and direct as her question.
‘Yes.’ He could have left it at that, but he felt himself bound by Vianello’s promise. ‘It should be. But I won’t know until I speak to him.’
Luigina suddenly took her hand from Vianello’s chest. She turned to the other woman and said, ‘Giuliano.’ After she pronounced the name, she gave a nervous grin that tugged at Brunetti’s pity as it pulled at her mouth.
The younger woman stepped close to her and took her right hand in both of hers. ‘It’s all right, Luigina. Nothing will happen to Giuliano.’
The woman must have understood what she heard, for the grin expanded into a smile and she clapped her hands together in undisguised happiness. She turned towards the back of the house, but before she could move the younger woman placed a hand on her arm, stopping her. ‘But the gentleman needs to speak to Giuliano alone,’ she began, making a business of looking at her watch. ‘And while he’s doing that, you can feed the chickens. It’s time for that.’ Brunetti knew little about country life, but he did know that chickens didn’t get fed in the middle of the day.
‘Chickens?’ Luigina asked, confused by the abrupt change of subject.
‘You have chickens, Signora?’ Vianello asked
with
great enthusiasm, stepping forward until he was directly in front of her. ‘Would you show them to me?’ he asked.
Again, the lopsided smile, at the chance to show her friend the chickens.
Turning to Pucetti, Vianello said, ‘The Signora’s going to show us the chickens, Pucetti.’ Without waiting for Pucetti to respond, Vianello placed a hand on the woman’s arm and started to walk with her to the front door of the house. ‘How many …?’ Brunetti heard the Inspector begin, and then, as if he’d realized that the act of counting was probably well beyond this woman’s powers, he continued seamlessly, ‘… times have I wanted to see chickens.’ He turned to Pucetti. ‘Come on, let’s go see the chickens.’
When they were alone, Brunetti asked the woman, ‘May I ask who you are, Signora?’
‘I’m Giuliano’s aunt.’
‘And the other signora?’ he asked.
‘His mother.’ When Brunetti followed this with no inquiry, she added, ‘She was injured some years ago, while Giuliano was still a boy.’
‘And before that?’ Brunetti asked.
‘What do you mean? Was she normal?’ she demanded, attempting an angry tone but not fully succeeding.
Brunetti nodded.
‘Yes, she was. As normal as I. I’m her sister, Tiziana.’
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘You look very much alike, the two of you.’
‘She was the beautiful one,’ she said sadly. ‘Before.’ If this woman’s neglected beauty were any indication, then Luigina must indeed have been a wonder.
‘May I ask what happened?’
‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that mean you can’t repeat things?’
‘If they’re not related to the case I’m investigating, no.’ Brunetti failed to tell her that it was more a case of what he chose not to reveal than what he was forbidden to, but his answer satisfied her.
‘Her husband shot her. And then he shot himself,’ she said. When Brunetti made no comment, she continued, ‘He meant to kill her and then himself. But he failed, at least with Luigina.’
‘Why did he do it?’
‘He thought she was having an affair.’
‘Was she?’
‘No.’ Her answer left no doubt in Brunetti’s mind. ‘But he was a jealous man, always. And violent. We all warned her not to marry him, but she did.’ After a long pause, she added, ‘Love,’ as though asked to name the disease that had destroyed her sister.
‘How long ago did this happen?’
‘Eight years. Giuliano was ten.’ The woman suddenly folded her arms across her stomach, her hands grabbing at the opposite arms as though seeking security there.
When it occurred to him, the idea so shocked
him
that he spoke before he considered how painful the question would be for her. ‘Where was Giuliano?’
‘No, he wasn’t there,’ she answered. ‘At least he didn’t do that to him.’
Brunetti wanted to know the full extent of the damage to the other woman, but he recognized this as the prurient curiosity it was, and so he forbore to ask. The evidence in Luigina’s behaviour and asymmetrical face sufficed to indicate what was left: this woman’s vitality was enough to suggest what had been taken.
As they were walking across to the back of the house, Brunetti asked, ‘Why did he leave the school?’
‘He said …’ she began but then stopped, and Brunetti sensed that she was sorry not to be able to explain it to him. ‘I think it would be better if you asked Giuliano that.’
‘Was he happy there?’
‘No. Never.’ Her answer was instant and fierce.
‘Then why did he go, or why did he stay?’
She stopped and turned to face him, and he noticed that her eyes, which had at first appeared dark, were in reality flecked with amber and seemed to glow, even in the dim light of the hall.
‘Do you know anything about the family?’
‘No. Nothing,’ he said, at once regretting that he had failed to ask Signorina Elettra further to invade their privacy and ferret through their secrets. All of this would then have been far less
surprising
, and he would have known what information to try to get out of her.