an unhappy-looking woman in a wide starched ruff, her hair pulled severely back in a tight bun, looking out at the world in sharp disapproval of all she saw. He wondered who could have been so blind, or so cruel, to have such a portrait hanging in the house where Eleonora Filipetto lived.
Though he tried to stop himself, he found himself thinking the same thing when Eleonora Filipetto came into the room. Like the woman in the portrait, her hair was streaked with grey, but unlike hers, it hung limp and close to her head. Both women had the same tight, colourless Hps that could so easily be pulled together in dissatisfaction, as the living woman's were as she entered.
She recognized Brunetti, saw her husband, and chose to speak to Brunetti, ‘Yes? What is it?' Her voice aimed at briskness but succeeded in seeming only nervous.
‘I’ve come to ask you some questions about Claudia Leonardo, Signora’ he said.
She waited, looking at him, not asking why.
The last time we met, Signora, when I was asking about Claudia, you didn't tell me you knew her.'
'You didn't ask me’ she said, voice as flat as her bosom.
In such circumstances, you might have said more than that you recognized the name’ he suggested.
‘You didn't ask me’ she repeated as though he had not just commented on that same answer.
'What did you think of Claudia?' Brunetti asked. He noticed that Ford made no attempt to catch her attention. In fact, he gradually moved over to the front of the room and stood by the window. When Brunetti glanced in his direction he saw that Ford was standing with his back to them, looking across at the facade of the church.
She looked across the room at her husband, as if she hoped to find the answer written on his back. ‘I didn't think of her’ she finally said.
'And why is that, Signora?' Brunetti inquired politely.
'She was a young girl who worked in the Biblioteca. I saw her once or twice. Why should I think of her?' Though the words were defiant, her tone had become more hesitant and uncertain, and she asked it as a real question, not a sarcastic one.
Brunetti decided he was tired of games. 'Because she was a young woman, Signora, and because your husband has a history of finding young women attractive.'
'What are you talking about?' she demanded too quickly, glancing quickly at her husband.
'It seems simple enough to me, Signora. I'm talking about what everyone seems to know: your husband's tendency to betray you with younger women, more attractive women.'
Her face contorted, but not in pain or in any of the emotions he might have expected as a result of the remarks he had made sound as offhand and insulting as he could. If she looked anything, she looked startled, even shocked.
'What do you mean, that people know? How can they know about it?'
Keeping his voice entirely conversational, he said, 'In the reading room, when I was waiting, even the old men talked about it, about the way he was always grabbing at tits.' He looked pointedly at her chest and slipped from the precisely articulated Italian he had been speaking into the most heavily accented and vulgar Veneziano, ‘I can see why he told me he likes to get his' hands on a real pair of tits.'
She gasped so loud that Ford, who had understood nothing of what Brunetti had said in dialect, turned from the window. He saw his wife, hands clutched to her breast, staring open-mouthed at a calm and self-possessed Brunetti, who was leaning forward and saying politely, in precise Italian, 'Excuse me, Signora. Is something wrong?'
She stood, mouth still open, drawing immense gulps of air into her lungs. 'He said that? He said that to you?' she gasped.
Ford moved quickly away from the window. He had no idea what was happening as he came towards his wife, his arms raised as if to embrace her protectively.
'Get away from me,' she said, voice tight, struggling to speak. ‘You said that to him?' she hissed. 'You said that after what I did for you? First you betray me with that little whore and then you say that about me?' Her voice rose with every question, her face growing darker and more congested.
'Eleonora, be quiet,' Ford said as he drew even nearer. She raised a hand to push him away, and he put out one of his own to grab her arm. But she moved suddenly to the side, and his open hand came down, not on her wrist or her arm but on her breast.
She froze, and instinct or longing drove her forward, leaning into his hand, but then she pulled sharply back and raised a clenched fist. 'Don't touch me. Don't touch me there, the way you touched that little whore.' Her voice went up an octave. 'You won't touch her again, will you? Not with a knife in her chest where your hand was, will you?' Ford stood, frozen with horror. 'Will you?' she screamed, 'Will you?' Suddenly she pulled her fist back and brought it crashing down once, twice, three times, into his chest as the two men stood there paralysed in the face of her rage. After the third blow, she moved away from him. As suddenly as it had started, her rage evaporated and she started to cry, great tearing sobs. 1 did all of that for you, and you can still say that to him.'
'Shut up!' Ford shouted at her. 'Shut up, you fool.'
Tears streaming from her eyes, she looked up at him and asked, voice choking with sobs, 'Why do you always have to have pretty things? Both of you, Daddy and you, all you've ever wanted is pretty things. Neither of you ever wanted ...' Sobbing overcame her and choked off her last word, but Brunetti had no doubt that it was going to be 'me'.
Though Ford tried to stop Brunetti with loud bluster, insisting that he had no right to arrest his wife, the woman offered no resistance and said that she would go along with him. Ford in their wake, hurling threats and the names of important people at their backs, Brunetti led her to the front door. Behind it they found Vianello, lounging up against the wall, his jacket unbuttoned and, to Brunetti's experienced eye, his pistol evident in its holster.
Brunetti was in some uncertainty as to what to say to Vianello, as he wasn't at all sure that what he had just heard Signora Ford say could be construed as a confession of murder. There had been no witness, save for Ford, and he could be counted upon to deny hearing what she had said or insist she'd said something else entirely. It depended, then, on his getting her to repeat her confession in Vianello's hearing or, even better, on getting her to the Questura, where she could record it or speak it while being videotaped. He knew that a future case based on his word alone would be laughed at by any prosecuting magistrate with experience in the courtroom; indeed, it would be laughed at by anyone with experience of the law.
‘I’ve called for a boat, sir’ Vianello said quite calmly when he saw them. It should be here soon’
Brunetti nodded, as though this were the most normal thing in the word for Vianello to have done.
'Where?' he asked.
'At the end of the
'You can't do this’ Ford again insisted, putting himself at the top of the steps and blocking Brunetti's path. 'My father-in-law knows the Praetore. You'll be fired for this.'
Brunetti didn't have to say a word. Vianello went over to Ford, said,
The sun gleamed down, even though it was November and meant to be much colder. As they emerged from the building, Brunetti heard the motor of a boat from their right, and he led the silent woman down towards it. A police launch swept up to the steps at the end of the
Brunetti led her down to the cabin, uncertain whether to speak to her or wait for her to begin to speak on her own. His curiosity made silence more difficult, but he opted for that and, sitting across from one another, they rode silently back to the Questura.
Inside, he took her to one of the small rooms used for questioning and advised her that everything they said would be recorded. He led her to a chair on one side of the table, sat opposite her, gave their names and the date and asked if she would like to have a lawyer with her as she talked. She waved a hand at him in dismissal, but he repeated the question until she said, 'No. No lawyer.'
She sat silent, looking down at the surface of the table in which people had, over the course of the years,
