A Question of Belief

‘The Ispettore spoke to them for me,’ she said. ‘And told them I was not interested, which I am not.’ She brought her lips together in an expression of prim disapproval, but her eyes were careful to watch for Brunetti’s response.

He nodded in open approval, giving her what he thought she wanted.

‘It won’t change what they write,’ Vianello interrupted to say, ‘but of course they won’t be able to use family photos.’

‘At least not from my side of the family,’ Signora Fontana said with more than a touch of asperity.

Brunetti let it pass as though he had not heard and asked, ‘Have you any idea who might have wanted to hurt your son, Signora?’

She shook her head furiously, but not a single lock of her permed hair fell out of place. ‘No one could want to hurt Araldo. He was such a good boy. He was always a good boy. His father raised him that way, and then when his father died, I tried to do the same.’

Griffoni placed her hand on Signora Fontana’s arm and said something Brunetti could not hear, but it had no effect whatsoever on the woman. Indeed, it seemed to spur her on. ‘He was hard-working and honest and devoted to his work. And to me.’ She put her face in her hands and her shoulders moved convulsively, but for some reason Brunetti was not persuaded of the sincerity of her grief until she took her hands away from her face and he saw the tears. Like Saint Thomas, he was convinced then that she did mourn her son, but still he was left uneasy by the manner in which she showed it, as though the round-faced part of her was being instructed by those guarded eyes to behave in a fashion that would persuade.

When she had stopped crying and her handkerchief was clutched in her left hand, Brunetti said, ‘Signora, was it unusual for your son not to return home in the evening?’

She gave him an offended look. Had not her tears washed away the possibility that she would have to answer such questions? ‘I never knew when he returned home, Signore,’ she said, either having forgotten, or choosing to ignore, Brunetti’s rank. ‘He was fifty-two years old, please remember. He had his own life, his own friends, and I tried to interfere as little as I could.’

Griffoni muttered something appreciative of suffering motherhood, and Vianello nodded in approbation of Signora Fontana’s self-sacrifice.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, then asked, ‘Did you usually see one another in the morning, before he went to work?’

‘Of course,’ she insisted. ‘I wouldn’t let my boy go off in the morning without caffe latte and some bread and jam.’

‘But this morning, Signora?’ Vianello asked.

‘The first thing I knew was Signor Marsano, banging on the door and telling me something was wrong. I was still in my nightgown so I couldn’t go out, but by the time I was dressed the police were here and they wouldn’t let me go down.’ She glanced at the circle of sympathetic faces surrounding her and said, ‘They wouldn’t let a mother go to her only son’, and again Brunetti had the feeling that the whole thing was being orchestrated for some purpose he could not understand.

When Signora Fontana seemed a bit calmer, Griffoni asked, ‘Did he tell you where he was going last night, Signora?’

The woman looked away from the question and from the person who had asked it and addressed Brunetti. ‘I go to bed early, Signore. Araldo was here when I did. We’d had dinner together.’

None of the police officers said anything, so she suggested, ‘He must have gone out for a walk. Perhaps he couldn’t sleep in this heat.’ She glanced at their faces in turn, as if to see which one of them believed her.

‘Did you hear him go out?’ Griffoni asked.

Signora Fontana looked stricken. ‘Why do you ask me all these things? I told you: Araldo had his own life. I don’t know what he did. What else do you expect me to tell you?’ Her voice had reached a point familiar to Brunetti, perhaps to all three of them, where the person being interviewed begins to see himself as a victim of persecution. It was but a step from there to anger and from anger to a truculent refusal to answer more questions.

Turning to Griffoni, Brunetti said, in a voice into which he pumped the tones of reprimand, ‘I think the Signora has answered more than enough of your questions, Commissario. This is a moment of unbearable grief, and I think she should be spared more questions.’

Griffoni, no fool, lowered her head and said something contrite.

Then, quickly, before Signora Fontana could respond, Brunetti addressed her directly, saying, ‘If there is anyone from your family you’d like to have here with you, Signora, please tell us and we’ll do what we can to contact them for you.’

The old woman shook her head, and again her curls did not move. As if barely able to force out the words, she said, ‘No one. No. I think to be alone is what I want.’

Brunetti got quickly to his feet, followed by Vianello and Griffoni. ‘If there is any way we can be of help to you, Signora, you have only to call the Questura. And, speaking personally, I join my prayers to yours that il Signore will help you find the way to get through this terrible time.’

He led the other two — who had the good sense not to say anything — from the room and out into the corridor.

16

‘That was close,’ Vianello said as they walked down the stairs. Brunetti was glad the Inspector had chosen to speak: had he done so himself, it might have sounded as if he had meant his reproach to Griffoni.

‘Clever of you to look so penitent, Claudia,’ Vianello added.

‘It’s a survival skill I’ve developed in the job, I think,’ she said.

When they stepped into the courtyard, Brunetti’s heart lifted to be again in the sunlight, regardless of the residual heat of the late afternoon. ‘What did you make of her answers?’ he asked Griffoni.

It took her a moment to formulate an answer. ‘I think she’s suffering terribly. But I also think she knows more about his death than she’s letting us know.’

‘Or letting herself know,’ continued Vianello.

‘What do you mean?’ Brunetti asked, remembering that the Inspector had had time alone with the woman before their arrival.

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that she loved him,’ the Inspector said. ‘But I’d also say that she knows something she’s not telling us and that she feels guilty about whatever it is.’

‘But not guilty enough to tell us?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Quite the opposite,’ Vianello answered immediately. ‘I have the feeling she knows something about him that would interest us in some way.’ He thought about this and continued, ‘I let her talk, asked her questions about what sort of boy he’d been, how he did at school, that sort of thing. It’s what mothers always want to tell you about their children.’

Brunetti, having done his fair share of it, thought it must be true of all parents, not just mothers, but he said nothing.

‘Whenever I got away from that or asked about what he was doing in recent years, whether he was successful at work, she always managed to pull the conversation back into the past and talked about when he was a little boy or a student.’

‘She certainly didn’t want to talk about last night,’ Griffoni said.

Vianello slipped a white envelope from the pocket of his shirt and opened it. He pulled out a small photo, full face, the sort of thing that would be used for a passport or carta d’identita, and showed it to them. A man in sober late middle age looked back at the three of them. His hair was thinning, he had a few age spots on his left cheek, and had the sort of unremarkable face that would make a viewer assume immediately that the subject was a civil servant with a long history of working at the same job. His face was expressionless, as though he’d grown tired of waiting for the picture to be taken and had forgotten about his smile.

‘What a sad man,’ Griffoni said with real compassion. ‘To be so sad and then to die like that. God, it’s unbearable.’ This last she said with real passion.