Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [62]
Brunetti allowed surprise, then indignation, to play across his face. Then he took a long look at this noisy old man, as if seeing or hearing him for the first time. He stood up straighter and took a step towards him; there was no menace in the movement; though the old man leaned back from him, he did not move from his position in front of the woman.
Brunetti waved the notebook in the air between them. ‘See this, Signore? See this notebook? It’s got her entire work record, all those years. But not 1988 and 1989, so they haven’t been credited to her account.’ An exasperated Brunetti allowed himself to glance at the woman. ‘So she’s not being paid for them.’ He allowed himself to sound as if, given the way this man had treated him, he was almost pleased with the fact.
‘I asked her about those years,’ Brunetti said, looking in her direction with an annoyance he tried, and failed, to disguise. He’d come all this way to try to solve a problem, and first the woman was mute, and now the man told him to go to hell. ‘Like talking to a statue.’ He leaned forward, and this time the old man did take one step backwards. ‘And then I have to listen to you,’ Brunetti said with angry disgust.
Brunetti drew a few deep breaths, as if enjoining himself to patience; but, like every bureaucrat, he had a point beyond which his patience was exhausted, and he had clearly passed it. ‘Try to help people, and all you get is abuse.’
As he spoke, his voice angrier with every sentence, Brunetti kept his eyes on the old man. If Brunetti had stuck him with a pin, he could not have deflated more quickly. Strangely enough, this time the other parts of his face flushed red, while his cheeks and his nose turned an unhealthy white. He cast a glance at the woman to see if she had been following, and Brunetti could almost smell his fear that she had heard and understood what his meddling had provoked.
The old man raised both hands in a placatory gesture towards Brunetti. ‘Signore, Signore,’ he said. All signs of aggression and anger had vanished. He pasted a thin smile on his face.
‘No,’ Brunetti said, snapping the notebook shut just under the other man’s nose and jamming it back in his pocket. ‘No. There’s no use wasting my time on the likes of you. No use ever trying to do anyone a favour.’ He forced his voice even louder and all but shouted, ‘You can wait for official notice, the way everyone else does.’
He turned and walked quickly towards the door. The old man took one tentative step towards him, hands still raised, now in near-supplication. ‘But Signore, I didn’t understand. I didn’t mean … She needs …’ he almost bleated in the tone of a citizen who sees himself losing the chance to receive a payment from a government office and who knows he will now have to wait for the bureaucracy to volunteer to make the payment.
Brunetti, enjoying his indignation, left the room and walked quickly down the corridor. He made his way to the front door and left the casa di cura without seeing either of the novices or any of the sisters.
18
Returned to the street and free of the role of irritated bureaucrat, Brunetti considered, and then regretted, the rashness of his behaviour. There had been no need for his charade, his heavy-handed impersonation, but something in him knew that the man should be prevented from suspecting that the authorities were taking an interest in the nursing home or any of the people in it, and so he had acted without thinking and given in to his impulse towards secrecy: should he ever have to deal with the old man in his official capacity as a representative of the law, the situation could be legally complicated by his original misrepresentation. He had seen cases destroyed by less.
But what was he doing, even thinking in terms of a case? All he had was a choleric old man shouting at him and a woman of uncertain lucidity warning him of trouble to come. When was trouble not coming?
The old man had foreseen trouble in the presence of an unknown