Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [40]
More calmly, she asked, ‘Is this an official investigation?’
He lapsed into the truth. ‘No, not really. Perhaps it’s for my peace of mind, or her son’s. But I’d like to exclude the possibility that she was … that she was forced or frightened into death. I want to know if someone menaced her in any way, and I thought you might know something.’
‘Does it make a difference?’ she asked instantly.
‘To what?’
‘Legally,’ she said.
Without telling her about those small marks on Signora Altavilla’s neck and shoulders, Brunetti had no answer to give her.
She got up and went over to the front window that looked into the campo and at the thrusting church. Back still to them, she said, ‘From down on the ground, when I go out the door, I see the church, and it looks one way: heavy, locked into the ground. But from up here, it looks almost as if it had wings.’ She paused for a long time; Brunetti and Vianello exchanged a glance.
‘Same church. Different angle,’ she said and again lapsed into silence.
‘Like Costanza,’ she said after a long pause, and Brunetti and Vianello exchanged a quicker glance. ‘When I first saw the women on the stairs, I had no idea who they were. I knew they weren’t cleaning women because we use the same one, Luba. But I couldn’t ask Costanza. Because she was such a private person. But they’d be there, and I’d see the same ones a few times. In the beginning, as I said, I really didn’t notice them. And then I did, but they never caused any trouble, were always very polite, so I just sort of got used to them.’
‘Until?’ Brunetti asked, sensing that he was meant to ask and that she needed help to tell this story.
‘Until I found one of them on the steps, well, on the landing in front of Costanza’s door: I was coming up the steps, and there she was. Costanza wasn’t home – I rang her bell – and this girl was lying there. At first I thought she might be drunk or something. I don’t know why I thought that; they’d always been very quiet.’ She looked away, and Brunetti could see her thinking about what she had just said. ‘Maybe it’s because they’d all looked poor, and it was my bourgeois prejudice coming out.’ They watched her shoulders rise in an unconscious shrug. ‘I don’t know.
‘I couldn’t just leave her there, so I tried to help her get up. She was moaning, so I knew she wasn’t unconscious. That’s when I saw her face. Her nose was pushed to one side, and there was a lot of blood down the front of her coat. At first I didn’t notice it because the coat was black and I hadn’t really seen her face until I got her to sit up.’
Signora Giusti turned around and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I asked her what had happened, and she said she had fallen on the street. So I said I was going to call an ambulance and take her to the hospital.’
‘Was she Italian?’ Vianello asked.
‘No, I don’t know where she was from. The East somewhere, I’d say, but I’m not sure.’
‘Did she speak Italian?’
‘Enough to understand what I said and to tell me about falling. “Cadere. Pavimento.” That sort of thing. And enough to understand “ospedale”.’
‘What did she do?’
‘When she heard me say that, she panicked. She grabbed my hand and said “Prego, prego,” again and again. “No ospedale.” Things like that.’
‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I heard – we both heard – the door open. The front door downstairs.’ She closed her eyes, remembering the scene. ‘The woman – she was really still a girl. Couldn’t have been much more than a teenager, really – she panicked. I’ve never seen anyone do this, just read about it. She crawled over to the corner and pushed herself into it. She pulled her coat up over her head as if she thought that would hide her or make her invisible. But she kept moaning, so anyone would know she was there.’
‘And then?’
‘And then Costanza came up. She didn’t say anything, just stopped at the top of the steps. The girl was moaning again by then, like an animal. I started to say something, but she held up a hand