‘Doesn’t it matter to you, Signora?’
‘No, it doesn’t matter. It never did. He’s dead, and there’s no bringing him back. What do I care who did it, or why?’
‘Don’t you have any desire for vengeance?’ he asked before he remembered that she wasn’t Italian.
She tilted her head back and peered at him through the smoke of her cigarette. ‘Oh, yes, Commissario. I have a great desire for vengeance. I have always had that. I believe that people should be punished for the evil things they do.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing as vengeance?’ he asked.
‘You’re in a better position to judge that than I am, Dottor Brunetti.’ She turned away from him.
Before he realized it, he spoke out of his lack of patience. ‘Signora, I’d like to ask you some questions, and I’d like to get honest answers for them.’
‘Then ask your questions, by all means, and I shall give you answers to them.’
‘I said I would like honest answers.’
‘All right. Honest answers, then.’
‘I’d like to know about your husband’s opinion of certain kinds of sexual behavior.’
The question obviously startled her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been told that your husband particularly objected to homosexuality.’
He realized that this was not the question she had been expecting. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘Do you have any idea of the reason for that?’
She stabbed out her cigarette and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. ‘What is this, psychology? Next are you going to suggest that Helmut was really a homosexual and, all these years, disguised his guilt in the classic way, by hating homosexuals?’ Brunetti had seen this often enough in his career, but he didn’t think it was the case here, so he said nothing. She forced herself to laugh in contempt of the idea. ‘Believe me, Commissario, he was not what you think he was.’
Few people, Brunetti knew, ever were. He remained silent, curious to hear what she would say next. ‘I don’t deny that he disliked homosexuals. Anyone who worked with him would soon know that. But it was not because he feared that in himself. I was married to the man for two years, and there was nothing homosexual in him, I assure you of that. I think he objected because it offended some idea he had of order in the universe, some Platonic ideal of human behavior.’ Brunetti had certainly heard stranger reasons than this.
‘Did his dislike extend to lesbians as well?’
‘Yes, but he tended to be more offended by males, perhaps because their behavior is often so outrageous. I suppose, if anything, he took a prurient interest in lesbians. Most men do. But it’s not a subject we ever discussed.’
During his career, Brunetti had spoken to many widows, interrogated many, but few of them managed to sound as objective about their husbands as this woman did. He wondered if the reason for that resided in the woman herself or in the man she seemed not to be mourning.
‘Were there any men, any gay men, against whom he spoke with special dislike?’
‘No,’ she answered immediately. ‘It seemed to depend on whom he was working with at the moment.’
‘Did he have a professional prejudice against them?’
‘That would be impossible in this milieu. There are too many. Helmut didn’t like them, but he managed to work with them when he had to.’
‘And when he worked with them, did he treat them any differently from the way he treated other people?’
‘Commissario, I hope you aren’t trying to construct a scenario here of a homosexual murder, someone who killed Helmut because of a cruel word or a canceled contract.’
‘People have been murdered for far less.’
‘That’s not worth discussing,’ she said sharply. ‘Have you anything else to ask?’
He hesitated, himself offended by the next question he had to put to her. He told himself that he was like a priest, a doctor, and that what people told him went no further, but he knew that wasn’t true, knew that he would respect no confidence if it would lead him to find the person he was looking for.
‘My next question is not a general one, and it is not about his opinions.’ He left it at that, hoping she would understand and volunteer some information. No help came. ‘I refer specifically to your relations with your husband. Were there any peculiarities?’
He watched her fight down the impulse to leave her chair. Instead she ran the middle finger of her right hand over her lower lip a few times, elbow propped on the arm of her chair. ‘I take it you are referring to my sexual relations with my husband.’ He nodded. ‘And I suppose I could become angry and demand what do you mean, in this day and age, by “peculiarities.” But I will simply tell you that, no, there was nothing “peculiar” about our sexual relations, and that is all I choose to tell you.’
She had answered his questions. Whether he now had the truth was another issue entirely, one he chose not to deal with then. ‘Did he seem to have any particular difficulty with any of the singers in this production? Or with anyone else involved in it?’
‘No more than the usual. The director is a known homosexual, and the soprano is currently rumored to be so.’
‘Do you know either one of them?’
‘I’ve never spoken to Santore, other than to say hello to him at rehearsals. Flavia I do know, though not well,
