About Face

book. Brunetti recognized the author and the title, but no more than that. ‘It’s about decline,’ she told him.

It was late, almost four, and he longed for sleep. This was not the time or the occasion for the discussion of books. ‘I’d like to talk to you about the events of this evening, if I might,’ Brunetti said soberly.

She turned to the side as if to try to look around him. ‘Isn’t there supposed to be someone with a tape recorder, or at least a stenographer?’ she asked lightly, hoping to make it sound like a joke.

‘I suppose there should be, but that can wait until later. I’d like you to speak to your lawyer first.’

‘But isn’t this a policeman’s dream, Commissario?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, his patience slipping, and he too tired to disguise that fact.

‘A suspect willing to talk to him without a tape recorder and without a lawyer?’

‘I’m not sure what you’re suspected of, Signora,’ he said, trying to say it lightly, if only to change the mood, probably failing, he realized. ‘And nothing you say has much value, simply because it isn’t being recorded or filmed, and so you will always be able to deny having said it.’

‘I’m afraid I long to say it,’ she said. He saw that she had become serious, even sober, but her face gave no sign of that, only her voice.

‘I’d appreciate it, then, if you’d tell me.’

‘I killed a man tonight, Commissario.’

‘I know. I saw you do it, Signora.’

‘How did you interpret what happened?’ she asked, as if she were asking him what he thought of a film they had both seen.

‘I’m afraid that’s irrelevant. What counts is what happened.’

‘But you saw what happened. I shot him.’

He felt a wave of tiredness wash over him. He had climbed up and into that storage tank, seen Pucetti’s hand, skin hanging off, seen his blood on the bandages. And he’d watched her shoot and kill a man, and he was too tired to endure this talk, talk, talk.

‘And I saw you speak to him, and each time he did something different.’

‘What did you see him do, then?’

‘I saw him look up at us as though you’d warned him we were there, and then you said something else and he gave you the gun, and then after you had it, I saw him pull his hand back as if he were going to hit you.’

‘He was going to hit me, Commissario. Please don’t let there be any question of that.’

‘Could you tell me why?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Signora, what I think or don’t think doesn’t matter, I’m afraid. What matters is that Commissario Griffoni and I saw that he was going to hit you.’

She surprised him by saying, ‘It’s a pity you still haven’t read it.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The Fasti: ‘The Flight of the King’. I know it’s a minor work, but some other writers found him interesting. I’d like the piece to get the just attention it deserves.’

‘Signora,’ Brunetti snapped, pushing his chair back and getting angrily to his feet. ‘It’s almost four o’clock in the morning, and I’m tired. I’m tired of being out in the cold for most of the night and, if you don’t mind my saying so, I’m tired of playing literary cat and mouse with you.’ He wanted to be at home, warm, in his bed, asleep, with no buzzing in his ear and no provocation of any sort, from anyone.

Her mask gave no sign of how this affected her. ‘Well, then,’ she said and sighed. ‘I think then I’ll wait until the morning and call my husband’s lawyer.’ She slid the book closer, looked him in the eye, and said, ‘Thank you for coming to talk to me, Commissario. And thank you for talking to me those other times, as well.’ She picked up the book. ‘Perhaps it does me good to realize that a man can be interested in me for something other than my face.’

With a final glance at him and something that might have been a smile, she returned to her reading.

Brunetti was glad she had turned her attention away from him. There was nothing he could say to this, no response, no question.

He wished her good-night and left the room and went home.

27

He slept. Paola, about to leave for class, tried to wake him at nine, but she managed no more than to shift him to her side of the bed. Some time later, the phone rang, but it did not penetrate to wherever Brunetti had gone, a place where Pucetti had two good hands, where Guarino was not lying dead in the mud, nor Terrasini on the marble floor, and where Franca Marinello was a lovely woman in her thirties whose whole face moved when she smiled or laughed.

After eleven Brunetti woke, looked out the window and saw that it was raining. He slept again. When next he woke there was bright sun, and for the first moments, Brunetti wondered if he were still asleep and this was a dream. He lay still for at least a minute, and then he pulled one hand slowly from under the covers, happy to hear the rustling of the sheets. He tried to snap his fingers, but all he managed to create was the sound of two fingers rubbing together. But he heard it clearly, with no buzz, and then he shoved back the covers, delighted by the slithery sound of them.

He stood, smiled at the sun, and accepted the fact that he needed a shave and a shower, but more than that, he needed coffee.

He took the coffee back to bed with him and set the cup and saucer on the night table. Kicking off his slippers, he got back under the covers and reached over to pull out his old copy of Ovid from the books beside him. He had found it two days ago but had had no time, no time. Fasti. What had she said, ‘The Something of the King’? He flipped through the table of contents and found it, ‘The Flight of the King’, for 24 February. He pulled up the covers, shifted the book to his right hand, and took a sip of coffee. He replaced the coffee and began to read.

After a paragraph he recognized the story: he thought it was also told in Plutarch, and hadn’t Shakespeare used it for something? Wicked Tarquin, the last king of Rome, driven from the kingdom by the populace at the head of which strode the noble Brutus, outraged by the death of his wife, the fair Lucrezia, who had been driven to suicide by her rape by the even more wicked son of the king, who had threatened to destroy her husband’s reputation.

He read the passage again, then closed the book very softly and placed it on the covers beside him. He finished his coffee, allowed himself to slide lower in the bed, and looked out the bedroom window at the clear sky.

Antonio Terrasini, nephew of a Camorra boss. Antonio Terrasini, arrested for rape. Antonio Terrasini, photographed by a man who was later shot to death in an apparent robbery, the photo in the possession of a man who died in similar fashion. Antonio Terrasini, apparent lover of the wife of a man somehow involved with the first victim. Antonio Terrasini, shot to death by that same woman.

As Brunetti looked out the window he moved these people and facts around on the surface of his memory, prodding them here and there with a recalled detail, then shoving one possibility aside to replace it with some new speculation that lined them up in a different order.

He recalled the scene at the gaming table: the man’s hand on her hip and the look she gave him then; his hands on her breasts and the way she failed to move away, though her entire body seemed to shrink from him. She had been in profile to Brunetti when she shot him, not that her face was capable of indicating much. Her words, then: what words had lit the man’s anger, then quelled it, then set it flaming again?

Brunetti reached for the phone and dialled the number of the home of his parents-in-law. One of the secretaries answered, and he gave his name and asked to speak to the Contessa. Brunetti had learned over the years that the speed with which his call was transferred seemed related to his use of their titles.

‘Yes, Guido?’ she asked.