Beastly Things

Brunetti folded his hands neatly on the desk in front of him, a gesture he had seen his professors use when a student failed to supply an adequate answer. He remembered, as well, the technique of the long silence, one that almost invariably proved successful with the most insecure students. He looked at Signorina Borelli, at the view from his window, and then back to her.

‘And that was the extent of it?’ he asked.

If he had only imagined her response to the thought of hiring a lawyer, this time he could watch her think the problem through. She wanted to stall him so as to have more time to work out how much she could admit, though surely she must have known this question was bound to be asked.

Finally she shrugged and gave a raffish smile. ‘Well, not really. We had sex a few times, but it was nothing serious.’

‘Where?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Where what?’ she asked, genuinely confused.

‘Where did you have sex?’

‘A couple of times at his place, the one above his office, and in the changing room at the macello.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Once in my office.’ She tilted her chin to one side and gave his question the thought she believed it deserved. ‘I think that’s all.’

‘How long did this affair go on?’ Brunetti asked.

She looked up at him, either surprised or pretending to be. ‘Oh, it wasn’t an affair, Commissario. It was sex.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, accepting the reprimand. ‘How long did it go on?’

‘From a few months after he started work until about three months ago.’

‘What caused it to end?’ Brunetti asked.

She dismissed the question, perhaps even the answer, as uninteresting. ‘It stopped being fun,’ she said. ‘I thought it would be convenient for us both, but the first thing I knew, he was talking about us as a couple, with a future.’ She shook her head at this. ‘You’d think he’d forgotten he had a wife and child.’

‘You hadn’t forgotten it, Signorina?’ he asked.

‘Of course not,’ she said hotly. ‘That’s why married men are so convenient: you know either one of you can end it when you want, and no one’s hurt.’

‘But he didn’t see it that way?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘What did he want?’

‘I have no idea. As soon as he started talking about a future, I told him it was over. Finito. Basta.’ She moved around in her chair, rather like an angry chicken fluffing out its feathers. ‘I didn’t need that.’

‘You mean his attentions?’ Brunetti asked.

‘The whole thing: call them attentions if you want. I didn’t want to listen to his guilt and his remorse and how he was betraying his wife. And I wanted to be able to go out to dinner or for a drink without having the man I was with looking over his shoulder every second, as if he were a criminal.’ She sounded genuinely angry; Brunetti had no doubt that she was, and had been, though perhaps not for those reasons.

‘Or as if you were,’ Brunetti said.

That stopped her. She hesitated, and just as it became too late for her to ask what he meant, she finally forced herself to say it. ‘What do you mean?’

As if she had not spoken, Brunetti went on, ‘You said that one of his duties was to inspect the animals brought into the macello to see if they were healthy enough to be slaughtered.’

Taken aback by his change of pace, she agreed, ‘Yes.’

‘From the time Dottor Nava took the position as veterinarian at the macello, there was a sudden increase in the number of animals declared unfit to be slaughtered.’ He paused, and when she did not acknowledge the truth of this, he broke into the silence of her hesitation by saying, ‘Before he began to inspect the animals, the average rate of rejection – if I might call it that – was about three per cent, yet as soon as Dottor Nava began, that rate tripled, then quadrupled, and then went even higher.’

Brunetti studied her response: none was evident. ‘Can you explain that, Signorina?’

She brought her lips together, as if in consideration of his question, and then said, ‘I think you’ll have to ask Bianchi about that.’

‘You didn’t know about the increase?’ he asked with false surprise.

‘Of course I knew about it,’ she said, unable to disguise her satisfaction in being able to correct him. ‘But I had, and have, no idea of the cause.’

‘Did you speculate about what it might be?’ Brunetti asked, expecting that she would try to answer this: it would make sense for someone in her position to be involved in the discussion.

After some time, she said, ‘I don’t like to say it.’ And then didn’t.

‘Say what?’ Brunetti asked.

With great evidence of reluctance, she said, voice hesitant, ‘One of the suggestions that was made – I don’t remember who made it – was that maybe the farmers were trying to unload sick animals on the new veterinarian. That they thought they’d test the new man and see how severe he was.’ She gave an awkward smile, as though embarrassed to have to give voice to this example of human duplicity.

‘The test went on a long time,’ Brunetti said drily. At her look, he added, ‘The numbers kept rising, didn’t they?’ Then, before she could answer, he added, ‘Right up until his death.’

She raised her brows to acknowledge either ignorance or incomprehension. But she said nothing.

Vianello turned another page. Signorina Borelli and Brunetti looked at one another, each waiting for the other to speak. For a moment, neither did.

But then Brunetti asked, wanting to have it in her own words, ‘Could you tell me something about your relationship with Dottor Papetti?’

This question surprised her. ‘“Relationship”?’ she asked.

‘He hired you as his assistant after you were let go from your previous job, presumably without any good recommendation.’ That Brunetti had this information seemed to surprise her even more. ‘Thus my question: “Relationship”.’

She laughed. It was an honest, musical laugh. When she stopped, she said, voice tight with the anger she was growing tired of suppressing, ‘You men really can think of only one thing, can’t you? He was my boss; we worked together; and that’s all.’

‘So there was no sexual link between you, as there was with Dottor Nava?’

‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you, Commissario? You think any woman would find him attractive?’ Then, as if to expand the impossibility, ‘Desirable?’ She laughed again, and Brunetti finally understood the biblical passage, ‘They laughed him to scorn.’ Then, with acid audible in her voice, she added, ‘Besides, he knows if he ever looked at another woman, his little Natasha’s daddy would have his legs broken the same day.’ She began another sentence, perhaps having to do with other things that his father-in-law would do, but contented herself with a mere ‘Or worse.’

‘So you were never lovers?’

‘If you find these questions get you excited, Commissario, I have to put an end to your pleasure. No, Alessandro Papetti and I were never lovers. He tried to kiss me once, but I’d rather fuck one of the knackers.’ She gave him a saccharine smile. ‘Does that answer your question?’

‘Thank you for coming in, Signorina,’ he said. ‘If we have more questions, we’ll ask to speak to you again.’

‘You mean I can go?’ she asked and immediately saw this was the wrong thing to say.

Impulsive, Brunetti thought. Very pretty and probably charming when she wanted to be or when it served her purposes. He looked at her attractive face and thought of what she had said about Nava and was chilled to realize that the appearance of cold-heartedness was not an attempt to distance herself from Nava but simply the way she was.

Both men got to their feet, and then she did. Vianello opened the door for her. She turned away from Brunetti silently and walked from the office. Vianello followed her, and Brunetti went to stand by the window.

A few minutes later he saw the top of her head appear on the pavement below him, and then the rest of her as she walked to the left and disappeared.