A Question of Belief

there?’

‘I picked it up with my handkerchief after she went back upstairs. I didn’t know what would happen, but I wanted there to be some. .’

‘Some what?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Something that would show what had happened.’

‘Would you tell me what that was?’

Fulgoni moved closer to the door, perhaps in search of cooler air. Both of them were sweating heavily, and the birdcages, since being disturbed by Fulgoni, emanated a foul, dusty odour.

‘Araldo and I had use of one another. I suppose you could say it that way. He seemed to like things to be quick and anonymous, and I had no choice but to settle for that.’ Fulgoni sighed, and in the process must have drawn in some of the air disturbed by the cages, for he started to cough. The force of it bent him forward, and he covered his mouth with his hand, smearing the rust stains further.

When the coughing stopped, he stood upright and continued. ‘We would meet here. Araldo called it,’ he said with conscious melodrama and a wave of his arm at the low ceiling, the dust-tinged beams, ‘our own little love nest.’ He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped at his face, spreading the rust, but lighter now, across his forehead.’My wife knew, I suppose. My mistake was to think she didn’t care.’

He said nothing more for so long a time that Brunetti asked, ‘And that night?’

‘It was almost as my wife told you, except that it was her sweater that was dropped. A red cotton sweater. I said I’d go out and look for it. It wasn’t as far as Santa Caterina, but just on the other side of the first bridge. When I went out, I saw that the door to Fontana’s mailbox was open: that was the signal we used. If I saw it when my wife and I came home together, I’d make some excuse about going out for a walk, and I’d come downstairs and ring his doorbell from out in the calle, so he’d have an excuse to go out. And when he came down, we would retreat to our bower of love.’

‘Is that what happened?’

‘Yes. I put the sweater on the railing of the staircase, where it would be safe. And then Araldo came down. It never took long. Araldo didn’t want to waste time on talk or anything like that. When we were finished, he always went out first: we were careful about that.’

‘But not always?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Signor Marsano, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

Fulgoni shook his head at the memory. ‘We were in the courtyard one time when he opened the door. It’s not that we were doing anything, but it must have been obvious to him.’ Fulgoni shrugged. ‘It was another reason we were careful. After that, I mean.’

‘And that night?’

‘Araldo left first and was crossing the courtyard, when I heard her voice. The light was out in here, so I thought if I just stayed quiet maybe everything would be all right. And then I’d stop. I always wanted to stop,’ he said, voice wistful. ‘But I knew I wouldn’t.’

Fulgoni wiped his face again, and Brunetti was about to suggest they go out into the courtyard when the other man continued. ‘So I stayed in here, trapped, and listened to them argue. I’d never heard her talk like that before, never heard her lose control.’ Fulgoni turned and started to nudge the birdcages into line. As they fell or slipped into place, dust rose from them and he started coughing again.

When the coughing stopped, he went on. ‘Then I heard a noise. Not a voice, but a noise, and then more noises and then a voice, but very short, and then more noises. And then I didn’t hear anything more.’

Fulgoni pointed to the sofa. ‘I was there, lying there with my pants down around my ankles, so it took me time to go and see what had happened.’ Then, in a voice he forced to be stronger, he said, ‘No, that’s not the reason. I was afraid of what I would find.

‘I heard footsteps going up the staircase, but I still waited. When I finally got to the door. . there,’ he said, pointing to the door that still closed them off from the courtyard, ‘the light was on and I saw him on the ground. But the light’s on a timer and it went out. So I had to walk back to the switch and turn it on again, walking through the dark, knowing he was there, on the ground.’ He stopped for what seemed a long time.

‘When I came back, I saw what she had done. She must have seen the sweater on the railing when she came down, so she knew I was here. And then she saw him coming out, and it was. .’

‘And the sweater?’

‘It was lying beside him. She must have had it in her hands when she. .’ For a moment, Fulgoni looked as though he would be sick, but that passed and he went on. ‘I took out my handkerchief. I’d realized how things would look or could look. I didn’t want anything to happen to her.’ Then, like a man discovering honesty, or courage, he added, ‘or to me.’

He took two deep breaths after saying that, then said, ‘So I wrapped my hand in my handkerchief and brought the sweater back in here and put it in the cage. I moved it around to flatten it out a little.’

‘What did you do then, Signore?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I locked up this room and went back upstairs and went to bed.’

30

Paola, who did not have the legitimacy conferred by the possession of a driver’s licence but who did have the security conferred by a husband who was a commissario of police, drove down to the railway station in Malles to pick Brunetti up, risking not only her own life to do so, but that of their children, as well. They went directly to La Posta in Glorenza, where the children gave evidence of having spent most of the day walking in the mountains by devouring a platter of Speck the size of an inner tube, tagliatelle with fresh finferli, and apricot strudel with vanilla cream.

Both Raffi and Chiara were comatose by the time they drove up to the farmhouse and had to be prodded out of the car and into the house, where they disappeared into their rooms, though Chiara did drape her arms around him and mumble something about being happy to see her father.

Later, stretched in front of the open fire, Brunetti sipped at a whisper of Marillen schnapps while Paola disappeared to get them sweaters. When she came back, she put it over his shoulders, but he insisted on standing to pull it on.

‘Tell me,’ she said, sitting down beside him.

He did. His glass remained untouched as he described the events of that morning, the funeral of Signora Montini, attended by himself, Vianello and Doctor Rizzardi, as well as two or three people who had worked with her in the lab.

Paola asked no questions, hoping the momentum of his story would carry him along.

‘They held it at San Polo, though she went to church at the Frari. The pastor there didn’t want to say Mass over her.’ He turned and leaned against the arm of the sofa, the better to see her. ‘It was miserable. We sent flowers, but the rest of the church was bare. The priest looked at his watch twice during the Mass, and he spoke a bit faster after he did.’ And Brunetti, sitting in the church, hot and exhausted from a sleepless night, could not keep his thoughts from returning to the scene, less than two weeks before, when he stood in the campo not far from the church, waiting for Vianello’s aunt to emerge from this woman’s house.

He saw the plain coffin, the three wreaths, smelled the incense. ‘But at least it was short,’ he told Paola. ‘Then they took her to San Michele.’

‘And you came up here?’ she asked.

Brunetti hesitated for some time and then said, ‘I did a favour for Vianello first.’

‘What?’

‘I talked to his aunt.’

Paola could not hide her surprise. ‘But I thought she was away for two weeks with her son.’

Brunetti got up and tossed a log on to the fire, poked it into place with the end of another one, and went back to the sofa. ‘Why do we love fires so much?’ he asked.