Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [96]
Brunetti’s mind ran into a wall. Oddio, what if Madame Reynard’s will had not been falsified? What if the handwriting had indeed been hers, and she had really wanted her lawyer – who certainly would have been as courteous and helpful as Lucifer himself – to have it all? The fact that Cuccetti was a liar and a thief in the eyes of half of Venice meant nothing if the old woman had sincerely wanted him to inherit her estate. Must only the good be rewarded?
Why, then, the apartment, and whence the Dillis and the Tiepolos and the Salanthé? Brunetti looked at the old man, who appeared to have fallen asleep, and the desire swept over him to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he told the truth.
27
Silently, so as not to disturb the sleeping man, Brunetti pulled from his pocket Signora Altavilla’s key ring, which he had taken from the evidence room before leaving the Questura. He trapped it between his palms and used his thumbnail to prise open the metal ring, then slid the third key – the one that fitted neither door – towards the narrow opening. He slipped it along and slowly, slowly, urged it until it came free in his hand. Leaning forward, he laid the key on Morandi’s right thigh, then returned the key ring to his pocket, folded his arms, and pushed himself back in his chair.
He thought it invasive to look at the sleeping man, so he turned his eyes to the window and the wall on the opposite side of the canal while he thought about monkeys. He had recently read an article that explained experiments devised to test the inherent sense of justice in a species of monkey, Brunetti could not remember which. Once each member of the group was accustomed to receiving the same reward for the same action, they grew angry if one of their band received a greater reward than his peers. Though the cause of their agitation was nothing more than the difference between a piece of cucumber and a grape, it seemed to Brunetti that they were reacting in a very human way: unmerited reward was offensive even to those who lost nothing by it. Add to this the presumption of deceit or theft on the part of the winner of the grape, and the sense of outrage became stronger. In the case of Avvocato Cuccetti, all that had ever existed was the presumption of theft, nothing more, though he had been rewarded with considerably more than a grape. Enough time had passed, however, for there to be no legal consequences even if the presumption were confirmed. Even if he could be proven to have stolen the grape, there was to be no giving it back.
Morandi had not been surprised at the arrival of a policeman: he thought the police were bound to come because of what he had done. Because of Madame Reynard’s will? Because he went to see Signora Altavilla? Because he tried to reason against her terrible honesty? Or because he put his hands on her shoulders and tried to shake some sense into her? Or pushed her to the ground, having seen or not seen the radiator?
People occasionally rang the bell, and the Toltec went to open the door for them, but they were all preoccupied with other things and did not bother to look into the room. Had they done so, what would they have seen? Another of the residents of the home, fallen away from the worries of the day – and was that his son sitting with him?
‘What do you want?’ the old man asked in a dead level voice.
Brunetti looked at Morandi and saw that he was fully awake and held the key in one hand. He rubbed it between his