‘That there is a certain amount of talk about him.’
He did not interrupt to ask what sort of talk: even if the man was a bank director, gossip would most likely centre on his sexual life.
‘What speculation exists — at least this is what two people have told me — concerns his sexual preference.’ Before Brunetti could comment, she added, ‘Both of these people told me they’d heard others say they thought he was gay, but no one seems able to provide any evidence of this.’ She shrugged, as if to suggest how common this situation was.
‘Then why is there talk?’ Brunetti asked.
‘There’s always talk,’ she answered immediately. ‘All a man has to do is behave a certain way, make a particular remark, and someone will start to talk about him. And once it starts, it can only get worse.’ She looked across at him. ‘The fact that there are no children is used as evidence.’
Brunetti closed his eyes for a moment, then asked, ‘Has he ever approached anyone at the bank?’
‘No. Never, at least not that my friends have heard about.’ She thought for a moment and then added, ‘If anything had actually happened, everyone would know about it. You have no idea how conservative bankers are.’
Brunetti steepled his fingers and pressed his lips against them. ‘The wife?’ he asked.
‘Rich, socially ambitious, and generally disliked.’
Brunetti decided to keep to himself the observation that this would describe the wives of many of the men he dealt with.
‘One gets the sense, listening to people,’ she permitted herself to say, ‘that the third would be true of her, even without the first two.’
‘Have you met her?’ he asked.
She shook the question away and said, ‘But you have.’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I can see why people might not like her.’
Signorina Elettra did not bother to ask for an explanation.
‘Maybe we’re asking the wrong people for information about him,’ Brunetti finally said, giving in to the temptation that had nagged at him since his conversation with Patta.
‘And we should be asking rent boys, instead of bankers?’
‘No. We should be asking the Fulgonis directly.’ He realized, as he said it, that his soul was tired of backstairs gossip, tired of listening from the eaves and consorting with informers. Ask them directly and have done with it.
Brunetti, as a kind of anticipatory punishment for going against Patta’s direct warning not to persecute the Fulgonis, submitted himself to the flagellation of the sun as he walked to their apartment. As he passed the wall relief of the Moor leading his camel, Brunetti was tempted to consult with him on how best to treat the Fulgonis, but all the Moor had wanted to do for centuries was to lead his pack-laden beast off that
He announced himself to Signora Fulgoni, who buzzed him into the courtyard without question or protest. Before starting towards the stairs, Brunetti made a half-circle of the courtyard; the chalked outline of Fontana’s body had long since been washed away, leaving behind only a wispy grey trail that ran off into the small drain holes in the middle of the courtyard. The scene of crime tape had disappeared, but the heavy chains still sealed closed the storerooms.
As she had the last time, Signora Fulgoni awaited him at the door to the apartment, and again she made no attempt to take his outstretched hand. Seeing her, hair perfectly brushed into place, looking even more like a caryatid with pink lipstick, Brunetti wondered if she had perhaps found a way to keep herself vacuum packed for days at a time. He followed her down the corridor and into the same room, which conveyed the same impression of being for display rather than for use.
‘Signora,’ he said, when they were seated opposite one another, ‘I’d like to ask you a few further questions about the evening of Signor Fontana’s death. I’m not sure we’ve understood everything you told us.’ He did not waste a smile after saying this.
She looked surprised, almost offended. How could a policeman have misunderstood what she said? And how could anyone, regardless of his rank, think of questioning the accuracy of her statements? But she would not ask: she would wait him out.
‘You said that, just as you and your husband turned off Strada Nuova, while you were taking a walk to escape the heat of the evening, you heard the bells of La Madonna dell’Orto ringing midnight. Are you sure it was midnight, Signora, and not, perhaps, the half-hour or perhaps even as much as an hour later?’ Brunetti’s smile was even blander than the question.
As the mistress of the dacha would gaze at the serf who questioned her word about the proper spoons to use for tea, Signora Fulgoni stared at Brunetti for long seconds. ‘Those bells have been ringing for generations,’ she said with indignation she was too polite to make fully manifest. ‘Are you suggesting I would not recognize them or that I would not understand the time they were ringing?’
‘Certainly not, Signora,’ he said with a self-effacing smile. ‘Perhaps you mistook the bells of some other church that are less accurate?’
She allowed small cracks to appear in the wall of her patience. ‘I
‘Of course, of course,’ Brunetti said neutrally, surprising her, perhaps, by the fact that her last words had not caused him to fall off his chair and crawl towards the door. ‘You said, Signora, that you and your husband had no familiarity with the dead man.’
‘That is correct,’ she said primly, folding her hands on her knees to enforce the words.
‘Then how can it be,’ he began, deciding to take a stab, ‘that traces of both Signor Fontana and your husband were found in the same place in the courtyard?’
Had he really stabbed her, Brunetti could have caused no greater shock. Her mouth opened, and she raised a hand to cover it. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time and not liking what she saw. But in an instant she had gained control and wiped away all sign of surprise.
‘I’ve no idea how that could be possible, Commissario.’ She devoted some moments to this mystery and then volunteered, ‘Of course, my husband might have met Signor Fontana in the courtyard and not thought it important enough to mention it to me. Helped him move something, perhaps.’
It was not in Brunetti’s experience that bank directors aided with the moving of heavy objects, but he let her remark pass with a pleasant nod suggestive of belief.
‘And your husband didn’t leave the apartment without you that evening, Signora? Perhaps to get some fresh air? Or to get some wine from your storeroom?’
She sat up straighter and said, voice tight, ‘Are you suggesting that my husband had something to do with that man’s death?’
‘Of course not, Signora,’ Brunetti — who was suggesting exactly that — said calmly. ‘But he might have seen something unusual or something out of place, and mentioned it to you and then perhaps forgot about it himself: memory is a very strange thing.’ He watched this idea work its way into her mind.
She looked at one of the paintings on the far wall, studied it long enough to memorize its strict horizontality, and then looked back at him. She pressed her lips together and looked down, then up at him with a look of embarrassed surprise, ‘There was one thing. .’
‘Yes, Signora?’
‘The sweater,’ she said, as though she expected Brunetti to understand what she was talking about.
‘Which sweater, Signora?’ he asked.
‘Ah,’ she said, as if suddenly coming back to the room and recalling the circumstances of the conversation. ‘Of course. The light green sweater. It was a Jaeger he bought years ago, a V-neck. He bought it when we were in London on vacation. And he had the habit of putting it over his shoulders whenever we went out for a walk.’ Then, before Brunetti could ask, ‘Yes, even in this heat.’ Her voice grown suddenly softer, she went on, ‘It had become a sort of talisman for him, well, for both of us when we went out in the evening.’
‘And what happened with the sweater, Signora?’
