Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [7]
Brunetti knew this could be easily checked and so asked only, ‘You went into Signora Altavilla’s apartment to …?’
‘To get my post.’ She turned and walked into the room behind her, a large open space with a peaked ceiling that indicated the room had – how many centuries before? – originally been an attic. Brunetti, following her in, glanced up at the twin skylights, hoping to see the stars beyond them, but all he saw was the light reflected from below.
At a table she picked up a piece of paper. Brunetti took it from her outstretched hand: he recognized the beige receipt for a registered letter. ‘I had no idea what it could be and thought it might be something important,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to find out, so I went down to see if the letter was there.’
In response to Brunetti’s inquisitive glance, she continued. ‘If I’m away, she gets my post, and then leaves it out when I come home, or I go down and get it from her.’
‘And if she’s not there when you get home?’ Brunetti asked.
‘She gave me the keys, and I go in to get it.’ She turned to face the windows, beyond which Brunetti saw the illuminated apse of the church. ‘So I went down and let myself in. And the letters were where she always put them: on a table in the entrance.’ She ran out of things to say, but Brunetti waited.
‘And then I went and looked in the front room. No reason, really – but there was a light on – she always turns them out when she leaves a room – and I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me. Though that doesn’t make any sense, does it? And I saw her. And touched her hand. And saw the blood. And then I came back up here and called you.’
‘Would you like to sit down, Signora?’ Brunetti asked, indicating a wooden chair that stood against the nearest wall.
She shook her head, but at the same time took a step towards it. She sat down heavily, then gave in to weakness and leaned against the back. ‘It’s terrible. How could anyone …’
Before she could finish her question, the doorbell rang. He went to the speaker phone and heard Vianello announce himself, saying he was with Dottor Rizzardi. Brunetti pushed the button to release the downstairs door and replaced the phone. To the seated woman he said, ‘The others are here, Signora.’ Then, because he had to ask, he said, ‘Is the door locked?’
She looked up at him, confusion spread across her face. ‘What?’
‘The door downstairs. To the apartment. Is it locked?’
She shook her head two, three times and seemed so unconscious of the gesture that he was relieved when she stopped it. ‘I don’t know. I had the keys.’ She searched the pockets of her jacket but found no keys. She looked at him, confused. ‘I must have left them downstairs, on top of the post.’ She closed her eyes, then, after a moment, said, ‘But you can go in. The door doesn’t lock on its own.’ Then she raised a hand to catch his attention. ‘She was a good neighbour,’ she said.
Brunetti thanked her and went downstairs to find the others.
3
Brunetti found Vianello and Rizzardi waiting in front of the door to the apartment. Vianello and he exchanged nods, having seen one another only that afternoon, and Brunetti shook hands with the pathologist. As always, the doctor was turned out like an English gentleman emerging from his club. He wore a dark blue pinstripe suit with the conspicuously invisible signs of hand tailoring. His shirt looked as though he had put it on while starting up the stairs to the apartment, and his tie was what Brunetti vaguely classified as ‘regimental’, though he had no certain idea of what that meant.
Though he knew the doctor had recently returned from a vacation in Sardinia, Brunetti thought Rizzardi looked tired, which he found unsettling. But how to ask a doctor about his health?
‘Good to see you, Ettore,’ he said. ‘How …’ Brunetti started to ask, quickly changing his question to the less intrusive, ‘… was your vacation?’
‘Busy. Giovanna and I had planned to spend our time