few months,’ was all the answer Flavia gave.
He sipped again and looked out over the water, suddenly conscious of the dance of light on its rippled surface. Three tiny sparrows came and landed at his feet, hopping about in search of food. Slowly, he reached forward and took a fragment of the brioche that still lay on a plate in front of Flavia and tossed it to them. Greedily, they pounced on it and tore it into pieces, then each flew off to a safer place to eat.
‘Her career?’ he asked.
Flavia nodded, then shrugged. ‘I’m afraid she takes it far more seriously than . . .’ she began, but then she trailed off.
‘Than you take yours?’ he asked, not ready to believe it.
‘In a way, I suppose that’s true.’ Seeing that he was about to protest, she placed her hand on his arm and explained. ‘Think of it this way, Guido. Anyone at all can come and listen to me and shout his head off, and he doesn’t have to know anything about either music or singing. He just has to like my costume, or the story, or perhaps he just shouts
‘But think about what Brett does. Very few people know anything about her work except the people who really know what she’s doing; they’re all experts, so they understand the importance of her work. I suppose the difference is that she can be judged only by her peers, her equals, so the standards are much higher, and praise really means something. I can be applauded by any fool who chooses to cheer.’
‘But what you do is beautiful.’
She laughed outright. ‘Don’t let Brett hear you say that.’
‘Why? Doesn’t she think it is?’
Still laughing, she explained, ‘No, Guido, you misunderstand. She thinks what she does is beautiful, too, and she thinks the things she works with are as beautiful as the music I sing.’
He remembered then that there had been something unclear in Brett’s statement and he had wanted to ask her about it. But there had been no time: she’d been in the hospital and then had left Venice immediately after signing a formal statement. ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ he began and then laughed outright when he realized how very true that was.
Her smile was tentative, questioning. ‘What?’
‘It’s about Brett’s statement,’ he explained. Flavia’s face relaxed. ‘She wrote that La Capra had shown her a bowl, a Chinese bowl. I forget what century it was supposed to be from.’
‘The third millennium before Christ,’ Flavia explained.
‘She told you about it?’
‘Of course she did.’
‘Then maybe you can help me.’ She nodded and he continued. ‘In her statement, she said that she broke it, that she let it fall to the floor, knowing it would break.’
Flavia nodded. ‘Yes, I talked to her. That’s what she said. That’s what happened.’
‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ Brunetti said.
‘What?’
‘If she loves these things so much, if she’s so devoted to them, to saving them, then the bowl had to have been a false one, didn’t it, another of those fakes that La Capra bought, thinking that they were real?’
Flavia said nothing and turned her head away to stare off towards the abandoned mill that stood at the end of the Giudecca.
‘Well?’ Brunetti insisted.
She turned and faced him, sun shining down on her from the left and chiselling her profile against the buildings across the canal. ‘Well what?’ she asked.
‘It had to be a fake, didn’t it, for her to destroy it?’
For a long time, he thought she was going to ignore him or refuse to answer him. The sparrows came back and, this time, Flavia tore the remaining heel of brioche into tiny fragments and tossed it down to them. They both watched as the small birds swallowed the golden crumbs and looked up towards Flavia for more. At the same time, they glanced up from the peeping birds, and their eyes met. After a long moment, she glanced away from him and off down the embankment, where she saw her children coming back towards them, ice cream cones in their hands.
‘Well?’ Brunetti asked, needing an answer.
They both heard Vivi’s hoots of laughter ring out over the water.
Flavia leaned forward and put her hand on his arm again. ‘Guido,’ she began, smiling. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’
