Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [38]
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea. I asked her that same thing, when she gave me the keys, and she said it was …’ She paused and closed her eyes. ‘It was strange what she said.’ Vianello and Brunetti remained quiet to give her the time to remember. After a moment, she looked up and said, ‘She said something about its being a safe place to keep a key.’
She met their puzzled expression with one of her own. ‘No, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either, but that’s what she said, that it would be a safe place.’
‘When did she give you these keys, Signora?’
She was surprised by his question, as though it displayed some special power on his part. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Simple curiosity,’ Brunetti said. He had no idea how long either woman had lived there, so he had no idea how long it had taken before they trusted one another sufficiently to exchange the keys to their homes.
‘I’ve had a set of her keys for years, but a week ago she asked for them back for a day, said something about wanting to have copies made.’ She pointed to the keys as though looking at them would make the two men understand. Then she leaned over and touched them, saying, ‘But look at them. One’s red and one’s blue. They’re just cheap copies, probably doesn’t even cost a euro to have them made.’
‘And so?’ Brunetti asked.
‘And so why would she copy these when she has the master keys? When she gave them back to me, the third key was on the ring, too, and that’s when she said that, about its being a safe place to keep it.’ She looked at each of them in turn, searching for some sign that they found this as puzzling as she did.
‘Did she know where you kept them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Of course. I’ve kept them in the same place for years, and she knew where that was,’ she said, pointing towards a room that was probably the kitchen. ‘There. In the second drawer.’ Brunetti stopped himself from saying that was precisely where a competent housebreaker would look.
‘Do you have storerooms on the ground floor?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Is one of them hers?’
She shook the idea away. ‘No, they belong to the appliance store near the pizzeria and to one of the restaurants in the campo.’
He noticed that Vianello had silently managed to take out his notebook and was busy writing.
‘Could you give me some idea of the sort of life she led, Signora?’
‘Costanza?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was a retired teacher. I think she retired about five years ago. Taught little children. And now she visits old people who are in rest homes.’ As if suddenly aware of the dissonance between events and the present tense, she put her hand to her mouth.
Brunetti let the moment pass and then asked, ‘Did she have guests?’
‘Guests?’
‘People who came to stay with her. Perhaps you met them on the stairs, or perhaps she told you that you would see strangers coming in, just so you’d know and not be concerned.’
‘Yes, I’d see people on the steps, occasionally. They were always very polite.’
‘Women?’ Vianello asked.
‘Yes,’ she said casually, and then added, ‘Her son came to see her.’
‘Yes, I know. I spoke to him yesterday,’ Brunetti answered, curious about her reluctance to discuss the female visitors.
‘How is he?’ she asked with real concern.
‘When I spoke to him, he seemed battered by it.’ This was no exaggeration; Brunetti suspected it stated the reality that lay behind Niccolini’s reserve.
‘She loved him. And the grandchildren.’ Then, with a small smile, ‘And she was very fond of her daughter-in-law, too.’ She shook her head, as if at the discovery of some exception to the rule of gravity.
‘Did she speak of them often?’
‘No, not really. Costanza – you have to understand – was not by nature a talkative person. It’s only because I’ve known her for years that I know any of this.’
‘How many years?’ Vianello interrupted to ask and held up his notebook as if to suggest he was