Giuliano went to the armchair in front of the window and picked up the
clothing draped over it, then told his aunt that she could sit there.
He tossed the clothing on to the foot of the bed, adding it to a pair
of jeans already there. He nodded his head towards the chair in front
of his desk, indicating to Brunetti that he could sit there, then sat
down in the space he had just made on the bed.
Brunetti began, 'Giuliano, I don't know what you've been told or have
read, and I don't care what you might have told anyone. I don't
believe that Ernesto killed himself; I don't believe he was the kind of
boy to do it, and I don't think he had any reason to do it.' He
paused, waiting for the boy or his aunt to say something.
Neither did, so he continued, That means either he died in an accident
of some sort or that someone killed him.'
'What do you mean, accident?' Giuliano asked.
'A practical juke that went wrong, one he was playing 01 that someone
was playing on him. If that was the case, then I think the people
involved would have panicked and done the first thing that they thought
of: faking a suicide.' He stopped there, hoping to provide the boy
with the opportunity to agree, but Giuliano remained silent.
'Or else,' Brunetti continued, 'for reasons I don't understand, he was
killed, either deliberately or, again, when something went wrong or got
out of hand. And then the same thing happened: whoever did it tried to
make it look like a suicide.'
'But the newspapers say it was suicide,' the aunt interrupted.
That doesn't mean anything, Zia,' the boy surprised Brunetti by
saying.
Into the silence that radiated from this exchange, Brunetti said, 'I'm
afraid he's right, Signora.'
The boy put both hands on the surface of the bed and hung his head, as
if examining the jumble of shoes and boots that lay on the floor.
Brunetti watched his hands turn into fists then unfold themselves
again. He looked up, suddenly leaned aside, and picked up the pack of
cigarettes on the table beside him. He held it tight in his right
hand, like a talisman or the hand of a friend, but he made no move to
take a cigarette. He switched the pack to his left hand and finally
took a cigarette from it. Standing, he tossed the pack down on the bed
and came towards Brunetti, who remained motionless.
Giuliano took a disposable plastic cigarette lighter from the desk and
went to the door. Saying nothing, he left the room, closing the door
behind him.
His aunt said, 'I've asked him not to smoke in the house.'
'Don't you like the smell?' Brunetti asked.
She pulled a battered packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her
sweater and said, holding it up to him, 'Quite the
opposite. But Giuliano's father was a heavy smoker, so my sister
associates the smell with him: we both smoke only outside the house not
to upset her.'
'Will he come back?' Brunetti asked; he had made no attempt to stop
Giuliano from leaving and was fully convinced that the boy could not be
forced to reveal anything he did not want to.
There's nowhere else he can go his aunt said, though not unkindly.
They sat in silence for a while, until Brunetti asked, 'Who runs this
farm?'
'I do. With a man from the village.'
'How many cows do you have?'
'Seventeen.'
'Is that enough to make a living?' Brunetti asked, curious to learn
how the family managed to survive, though he admitted to himself he
knew so little about farming that the number of cattle could give him
no indication of wealth or the ability to produce it.
There's a trust from Giuliano's grandfather she explained.
'Is he dead?'
'No.'
Then how can there be a trust?'
'He set it up when his son died. For Giuliano.'
Brunetti asked, 'What does it stipulate?' When she didn't answer, he
added, 'If you'll permit me to ask.'
'I can't stop you asking anything she said tiredly.
After some time, she apparently decided to answer the question.
