Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [41]
‘And the girl?’ Vianello asked.
‘She stopped moaning, and Costanza went over and knelt down beside her.’ She looked at them, surprised to be remembering something now. ‘But she didn’t touch her. She just said her name a few more times and told her everything was fine and not to worry.’
‘Then what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I stood up and Costanza said, “Thank you,” as though I’d just given her a cup of tea or something. But it was clear that she was telling me to leave, so I did. I went back up to my apartment.’
‘Did you ever see the girl again?’
‘No. Never. Then, after a few months, there was another one, but I never spoke to any of them again – there might have been two or three more that I knew about.’
‘Did Signora Altavilla ever refer to it or say anything to you about it?’
‘No. Nothing. It was as though it had never happened, and after a time it felt that way, too. I’d say hello to her – Costanza – on the steps, or she’d ask me in for a cup of tea, or she’d come up here if I suggested it. But neither of us ever said anything about it.’ She looked back and forth between them, as if asking them to understand. ‘You know how it is. After a time, something that’s happened, even if it isn’t very nice, if you just don’t talk about it, it sort of goes away. Not that you forget about it, not really, but it isn’t there any more.’
Brunetti recognized the familiarity of this, and Vianello said, ‘It’s the only way life can go on, really, if you think about it.’
At this, Brunetti glanced at Signora Giusti and their eyes met. She nodded, and Brunetti found himself nodding in return. Yes, it was the only way life could go on.
12
‘Did you ever find out what she was doing?’ Brunetti finally asked.
‘It doesn’t take much to understand, does it?’
‘What do you mean?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I think she was using her apartment as some sort of safe house for … well, for women at risk.’ Then, before he could ask, she explained, ‘From their boyfriends or their husbands, or in the case of these women from the East, for all I know, from the men who own them.’
‘Own?’ Vianello asked.
‘You’re a policeman. You should be able to figure it out,’ she said, surprising them both with the blunt challenge. Then she went on in a calmer voice, ‘What else could they be, if not prostitutes? That woman, Alessandra or Alexandra, she wasn’t Italian, she barely spoke the language. I doubt she was anyone’s wife. But I know she was frightened, terrified that whoever broke her nose would come back and finish the job. That’s probably why she disappeared.’
‘Can you remember,’ Brunetti began, ‘anything that your neighbour said in all this time – since you noticed the women coming into the house – that would suggest she felt in danger?’
In a voice that strove for patience, she said, ‘I told you, Commissario, Costanza was a very private person. She wouldn’t say anything like that. It wasn’t her way, her style.’
‘Even as a joke?’ Vianello interrupted to ask.
‘People don’t joke about things like this,’ she said sharply.
Brunetti was of a different mind entirely, having had plenty of evidence of the human capacity to joke at anything, no matter how terrible. It seemed to him an entirely legitimate defence against the looming horror that could afflict us. In this, he was a great admirer of the British; well, of the British who were, with their wry humour in the face of death, their gallows humour – they even had a word for it – defiant to the point of madness.
‘Signora,’ Brunetti said in a voice meant to restore tranquillity, ‘did you draw conclusions on your own?’ Before she could ask, he said, ‘Here I’m asking for your general feeling or impression of what might have been going on.’
For some reason, his question calmed her visibly. Her shoulders grew less stiff. ‘She was doing what she thought was right and trying to help