handing him a glass of water. 'Drink it slowly,' she said. Take small
sips.'
Still shaking with the attempt to control himself, he took the glass
with a nod of thanks and put it to his lips. He waited for the spasms
to subside and took a small sip, and then another and another until all
of the water was gone and he could breathe freely again. Occasionally,
puffs of air rushed from his lungs, but the worst was over. He leaned
down and set the glass on the floor. 'Thank you,' he said.
'It's nothing,' she answered, taking her place in the chair opposite
him. He saw her reach instinctively to the right, towards the pack of
cigarettes that lay on the table, and then lower her hand to her lap.
She looked over at him and asked, 'Nerves?'
He smiled. 'I think so, though I don't think I'm supposed to say
so.'
'Why not?' she asked, sounding interested.
'Because I'm the policeman, and we're not supposed to be weak or
nervous.'
That's ridiculous, isn't it?'
He nodded, and in that instant recalled that she was a psychologist.
He cleared his throat and asked, 'Could we begin again, Signora?'
Her smile was minimal, a ghost of the one on her face in the photo that
still lay on his desk. 'I suppose we have to. What is it you'd like
to know?'
'I'd like to ask you about your accident, Signora/
Her confusion was visible, and he could understand its
cause. Her son was recently dead in circumstances that had yet to be
officially determined, and he was asking her about something that had
happened more than two years ago. 'Do you mean in Siena?' she finally
asked.
'Yes.'
'Why do you want to know about that?'
'Because no one seemed curious about it at the time.'
She tilted her head to one side as she considered his answer. 'I see
she finally said, then added, 'Should they have been?'
That's what I'm hoping to learn, Signora.'
Silence settled in between them and Brunetti, having no option, sat and
waited to see if she would tell him what had happened. In the minutes
that passed, she glanced aside at the cigarettes twice, and the second
time he almost told her to go ahead and smoke, that it wouldn't bother
him, but he said nothing. As the silence lengthened, he studied the
few objects he could see in the room: her chair, the table, the
curtains at the window. All spoke of a taste far different from the
casual wealth he had observed in Moro's home. There was no attempt to
suit style to style or do anything more than provide furniture that
would meet the most basic needs.
'I'd gone down to our friends on the Friday morning,' she said,
surprising him when she finally began to speak. 'Fernando was supposed
to get there on the last train, at about ten that night. It was a
beautiful day, late autumn but still very warm, so I decided to go for
a walk in the afternoon. I was about a half a kilo metre from the
house when I heard a loud noise it could have been a bomb for all I
knew and then I felt a pain in my leg, and I fell down. It wasn't as
if anyone had pushed me or anything: I just fell down.'
She glanced across at him, as if to establish whether he could possibly
find any of this interesting. He nodded and she went on. 'I lay
there, too stunned to do anything. It didn't even hurt all that much
then. I heard noises from the woods
that I had been walking towards. Well, not really woods, perhaps an
acre or two of trees. I heard something moving around in there and I
wanted to shout for help, but then I didn't. I don't know why, but I
didn't. I just lay there.
'A minute or two must have passed, and then, over from where I'd come
from, two dogs came running toward me, barking their heads off, came
right up to me and started jumping around, barking all the time. I
shouted at them to shut up. My leg had started to hurt then, and when
I looked at it, I realized I'd been shot, so I knew I had to do
something. And then there were these hunting dogs, barking and dancing
around me like crazy things.'
She stopped talking for so long that Brunetti was forced to ask, 'What
happened then?'
The hunters came. The men whose dogs they were, that is. They saw the
dogs and they saw me on the ground and they thought the dogs had
attacked me, so they came running and when they got to us they started
kicking the dogs away and hitting at them with the ends of their guns,
