Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [71]
‘Did she meet him?’ Brunetti asked.
She said, face still hidden, ‘Yes.’
Realizing that it mattered little where their meeting had taken place, Brunetti asked, ‘What did he want?’
She put her hands on the table, and clenched them into fists. ‘He said he wanted to warn her.’
The verb surprised Brunetti. His mind leaped ahead. Did this young man have a perverse belief in some crazy Sicilian idea of personal honour and want to warn this old woman out of the line of fire? Or did he want to invent some story about the woman in her home?
‘What happened?’ he asked in a voice he made as calm as if he were asking her the time.
‘She said that’s what he did: warned her.’
‘About himself?’ Brunetti interrupted to ask, running ahead with his wild scenario.
Her surprise was evident. ‘No, about her.’
‘The woman?’ Brunetti asked. ‘The one in her apartment?’
‘Yes.’
Like a rugby player who dropped the ball for an instant, Brunetti picked it up, switched sides, and began to run in the opposite direction. ‘What did he tell her?’
She looked away from him towards a noise that came from the door, which was just then pushed open by two men. They stood there for a moment, were joined by a third, who tossed a lighted cigarette into the street, then the three of them went to the bar and ordered coffee. The sound of their voices came across the room, the gruff friendliness of workers on their break.
‘Signora?’ he said, calling back her attention.
‘That she was a thief and she shouldn’t have her in her house.’ It upset her, he could see, to repeat this. Brunetti could understand: Signora Orsoni had dedicated her energies to saving women in danger from violence. And now this.
‘What happened?’
She looked trapped. At first she did not answer, but then she said, ‘It was true.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He had copies of newspaper articles, police reports.’ Seeing his surprise, she said, ‘She met him outside down in the campo.’
‘What did the reports say?’ Brunetti asked.
‘That this was her tactic. She’d move to a city, start an affair with a man, either move in with him or have him come to her place. Then she’d start an argument with him, and she’d see that it got violent. And when the police came –’ she drew her fists up and pushed them into her eyes, either from shame or to prevent her seeing his expression ‘– he said that was the most effective: when the neighbours called the police.’
Voice tight and reckless, she continued, ‘She’d be the victim, and the police would get in touch with one of the groups that helps battered women, and she’d be placed in a home, and she’d stay there until she had her own key and knew what was in the house. Then she’d disappear with as much as she could carry.’
As her voice choked off in disgust, Brunetti heard the clink of cups on saucers, hearty laughter, the sound of coins dropping, and then the door opened and closed and the workmen were gone.
Her voice came back to the restored silence of the bar. ‘He told Costanza this, and he showed her the reports, and begged her to believe him.’
‘What about the burns?’ Brunetti asked. When she seemed not to understand, he said, ‘From the pasta water?’
She ran her fingernail up and down one of the deep furrows in the wood of the tabletop. ‘Costanza said he still limped, but he didn’t say anything about it.’
She got to her feet, then walked to the bar and came back with two glasses of water, set one in front of him, and sat down again.
‘When was this, Signora?’ he asked.
She drank half of the water and set the glass on the table. She gave Brunetti a long look before saying, ‘The day before Costanza died.’
‘How do you know about this?’ he asked, ignoring the glass in front of him.
‘She called me. Costanza. She called me when she went home after talking to the man, and she asked me – told me, really – to come to her place.’ Her breathing grew quicker again. ‘I went there, and she made me read the articles and look at the police reports.’
‘Where did the