He made no further attempt to speak to her, sat quietly and waited for whatever would happen. She took her place on the chair next to him, surprised by how little need she felt to make conversation with him or be socially correct. She sat. Ten minutes passed. Gradually, her head fell back against the top of the chair and she drifted off to sleep, then yanked awake when her head fell forward. She glanced at her watch. Eleven thirty. He had been there an hour.
‘Has she been awake?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, but only for a few minutes. She didn’t say anything.’
‘Did she see you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she know who you are?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good.’
After a long pause, he said, ‘Signora, would you like to go home for a while? Perhaps get something to eat? I’ll stay here. She’s seen me with you, so she won’t be afraid if she wakes up and I’m here.’
Hours ago, Flavia had felt gnawing hunger; now all sign of it had disappeared. But the combination of fatigue and dirt lingered with her, and at the thought of a shower, clean towels, clean hair, clean clothes, she almost gasped with yearning. Brett was asleep, and who safer to leave her with than a policeman? The idea grew too strong. ‘Yes,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I won’t be long. If she wakes up, please tell her where I’ve gone.’
‘Certainly,’ he said, standing as Flavia gathered her bag and took her coat from behind the door. At the door, she turned in farewell and gave him the first real smile she had ever given him, then left the room, careful to close the door quietly after her.
* * * *
When Signorina Elettra had handed him the robbery report that morning, he had barely glanced at it, especially when he saw that it was being handled by the uniformed branch. When she saw him place it to the side of his desk, Signorina Elettra had said, ‘You might want to take a look at that, Dottore,’ before going back down to her office.
The address had meant nothing to him, but addresses were relatively meaningless in a city with only six separate mailing addresses. The name had jumped up from the page: Brett Lynch. He had no idea she was back from China, had forgotten about her in the years that had elapsed since their last meeting. It was the memory of that meeting and all that preceded it that had brought him to the hospital.
The beautiful young woman he had met some years ago was unrecognizable, could easily have changed places with any of the scores of battered and beaten women he had seen during his years with the police. Looking at her, he drew up a list of the men he knew to be capable of this sort of violence towards a woman — not one they knew, but one they met in the commission of a crime. It turned out to be a very short list: one of them was in jail in Trieste, and the other was in Sicily or believed to be. The list of those who would do it to women they knew was much longer, and some of them were in Venice, but he doubted that any of those men would know her or, if they did, would have cause to do this.
Robbery? Signora Petrelli had told the two policemen who interviewed her that the two men who had come to the apartment had no idea that anyone else was there, so the beating made no sense. If they had come to rob Brett’s apartment, they could have tied her up or locked her in a room and then taken whatever they wanted at their leisure. None of the thieves he knew in Venice would have done something like this. If not a robbery, then what?
Because she didn’t open her eyes, her voice, when she spoke, surprised him.
Startled, he moved closer to her.
‘Water,’ she asked.
On the table beside the bed he saw a plastic carafe and a cup with a plastic straw. He filled the cup and held the straw to her lips until she had drunk all the water. Behind her lips, he saw the cage of wires that bound her jaws together. That accounted for the slurred speech, that and the drugs.
Her right eye opened, a brighter blue than the flesh around it. ‘Thank you, Commissario.’ The single eye blinked, stayed open. ‘Strange place to meet again.’ Because of the wires, her voice sounded as if it issued from a badly tuned radio.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, smiling at the absurdity of her remark, at its banal formality.
‘Flavia?’ she asked.
‘She’s gone home for a moment. She’ll be back soon.’
Brett moved her head on her pillow, and he heard the sudden intake of breath. After a moment, she asked, ‘Why are you here?’
‘I saw your name on the crime report, so I came to see how you were.’
There was the faintest motion of her lip, a smile, perhaps, cut off by pain. ‘Not very good.’
Silence stretched out between them. Finally, he asked, though he had told himself he wouldn’t, ‘Do you remember what happened?’
She made a noise of assent and then began to explain. ‘They had papers from Dottor Semenzato, at the museum.’ He nodded, familiar with both the name and the man. ‘I let them in. Then this. . .’ Her voice trailed off, then she said, ‘Started this.’
‘Did they say anything?’
Her eye closed and she lay silent for a long time. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to remember or deciding
