That's all they said?' he asked, surprised at his own ingenuousness at
thinking this unusual.
'Of course. The Naval police investigated, and a Naval doctor did the
autopsy. Luigina wasn't even badly hurt by the bullet. It hit her in
the arm. But she fell and hit her head. That's what did the
damage.'
'Why are you telling me this?' Brunetti asked.
'Because Giuliano doesn't know what really happened.'
'Where was he?' Brunetti asked. 'When it happened, I mean.'
There. But in a different part of the house, with his grandparents.'
'And no one's ever told him?'
She shook her head. The don't think so. At least, not until now.'
'Why do you say that?' he asked, sensitive to a sudden lessening of
confidence in her tone.
She raised her right hand and rubbed at her temple, just at the
hairline. 'I don't know. He asked me about it when he came home this
time. I'm afraid I didn't handle it well. Instead of just telling him
what we've always told him, about the accident, I asked him why he was
asking.' She stopped speaking, glancing at the floor, her fingers
still busy at the edge of her hair.
'And?' Brunetti prodded.
'And when he didn't answer me, I told him that he already knew what
happened, that there was a terrible accident and his father was
killed.' She stopped again.
'Did he believe you?'
She shrugged the question away like a wilful child refusing to deal
with an unpleasant subject.
Brunetti waited, not repeating the question. Finally she t>aid,
raising her eyes to meet his, I don't know if he did or not.' She
stopped, considering how to explain this, then went on, 'When he was
younger, he used to ask about it. It was almost like a fever: it would
grow and grow on him until he couldn't do anything except ask me about
it again, no matter how many times I'd told him what happened. And
then he'd be all right for a time, but then it would start again, and
he'd refer to his father or ask questions about him, or about his
grandfather, until he couldn't stand it any more, and then he'd ask
about his father's death.' She closed her eyes, letting her hands fall
to her sides. 'And I'd tell him the same old lie again. Until I was
sick of hearing it.'
She turned away from him and started towards the back of the house
again. Following her, Brunetti risked one last question: 'Did he seem
different this time?'
She kept walking, but he saw the sudden rise and fall of her shoulders
as she shrugged the question away. After a few more steps, she stopped
just in front of a door but did not turn to face him. 'Every time he
asked, he was calmer for a while after I told him what had happened,
but this time he wasn't. He didn't believe me. He doesn't believe me
any more.' She didn't explain why she thought this, and Brunetti
didn't think it necessary to ask: the boy would be a far more reliable
source.
She opened a door that gave on to another long corridor, then stopped
at the second door on the right and knocked. Almost immediately it
opened, and Giuliano Ruffo came out into the corridor. He saw his aunt
and smiled, then turned to Brunetti and recognized him. The smile
disappeared, flared up for a hopeful moment, then died away again.
'Zz'a,' he named her. 'What is it?' When she didn't answer, the boy
said to Brunetti, 'You're the man who came to my room.' At Brunetti's
nod, he asked, 'What do you want now?'
The same thing I did last time, to talk about Ernesto Moro.'
'What about him?' Giuliano asked neutrally. Brunetti thought the boy
should have been more disturbed to have the police pursuing him to his
home to ask about Ernesto Moro. Suddenly he was conscious of the
awkwardness of their situation, the three of them standing in the
unheated corridor, the woman silent while Brunetti and the boy circled
one another with questions. As if sensing his thoughts, the woman
said, indicating the room behind her nephew, 'Shall we go somewhere
warmer to talk?'
If it had been a command, the boy could not have responded more
quickly. He went back inside, leaving the door open for them to
follow. Entering, Brunetti was reminded of the unnatural orderliness
of Giuliano's room at the Academy, but reminded only because here he
saw its antithesis: clothing lay discarded across the bed and on top of
the radiator; compact discs, vulnerable and naked outside of their
boxes, covered the desk; boots and shoes cluttered the floor. The only
thing that surprised him was the absence of the smell of cigarettes,
though he saw an open pack on the desk and another on the table beside
the bed.
