Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [95]
The anger or fear or whatever it was had disappeared. Here in the sunlight, Morandi was a quiet old man on a park bench. Perhaps, in the manner of a bodyguard, Morandi reacted only in defence of whom he was sent to guard and for the rest was content to sit and toss seeds to the little birds.
What then to make of his criminal record? After how many years did a record cease to matter?
‘Are you a policeman?’ Morandi surprised him by asking.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘How did you know?’
Morandi shrugged. ‘When I saw you there in the room, that was the first thing I thought, and now that you tell me you weren’t there for the pension, that’s what I go back to thinking.’
‘Why did you think I was a policeman?’ Brunetti wanted to know.
The old man glanced at him. ‘I thought you’d come. Sooner or later,’ he said, speaking in the plural. He shrugged, placed his palms on his thighs, and said, ‘I didn’t think it would take you this long, though.’
‘Why? How long has it been?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Since she died,’ Morandi answered.
‘And why did you think we’d come?’
Morandi looked at the backs of his fingers, at Brunetti, and then again at his hands. In a much softer voice, he said, ‘Because of what I did.’ That said, he stiffened his elbows and leaned forward, arms braced on his thighs. He wasn’t getting ready to get to his feet, Brunetti could see: he looked at the ground. Suddenly the birds were back, looking up at him and peeping insistently. Brunetti thought he didn’t see them.
The old man, with visible effort, pulled himself up and leaned against the back of the bench once again. He looked at his watch and abruptly got to his feet. Brunetti stood. ‘It’s time. I have to go and see her,’ Morandi said. ‘Her doctor came at five, and the sisters said I could see her after he spoke to her. But only for a few minutes. So she doesn’t have to worry about anything he said.’
He turned and walked in the direction of the casa di cura, just on the other side of the campo. The building had only the front door, so Brunetti could easily have waited in the campo, but he fell into step with Morandi, who seemed not to notice or, if he did, to mind.
This time, in deference to the other man’s age, Brunetti took the elevator, though he hated them and felt trapped inside. The Toltec waited in front of the elevator, smiled at Morandi, nodded to Brunetti, and took the old man’s arm to lead him through the door of the nursing home and down the corridor.
Left alone, Brunetti went into a small sitting room that had a view of the front door. He sat on a precarious chair and picked up the single magazine – Famiglia cristiana – that lay on a table. At a certain point, he found himself confronted with the need to choose between reading the Pope’s catechism lesson for the week or the recipe for a cheese and ham pie. The ingredients were just being slipped into the oven when he heard footsteps coming into the room.
One strand of Morandi’s hair had come loose and snaked down on to the shoulder of his jacket. He looked at Brunetti with stunned eyes. ‘Why do they have to tell the truth?’ he asked as he came in, voice harsh and desolate. Brunetti got quickly to his feet and took the man under the arm, holding him up and leading him to the overstuffed sofa.
Morandi sat in the centre, made his right hand into a fist, and pounded it a few times into the seat next to him. ‘Doctors. To hell with them all. Sons of bitches, all of them.’ With each phrase, his face grew more mottled as his fist came crashing down on to the cushion, and with each phrase he came more to resemble the man Brunetti had seen in Signora Sartori’s room.
Finally spent, he fell against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Brunetti returned to his chair, closed the magazine and put it back on the table. He waited, wondering which Morandi would open his eyes, the soft-hearted San Francesco or the enraged enemy of doctors and bureaucrats?
Time passed, and Brunetti used it to construct a scenario. Morandi expected