‘Two, three years ago, I’d say. I’d have to check my records.’
‘Where are your offices, if I might ask?’ Brunetti said, though that would be easy enough to find out.
‘Not far from here,’ she said, irritating him with the unnecessary evasion.
Brunetti continued, ‘Did anything similar to what happened to that old woman – a man coming to the house or suspecting that someone was staying there – ever happen to Signora Altavilla?’
She put her hands on the table and laced her fingers together. ‘She never said anything.’ By way of explanation, she added, ‘We give clear instructions about that. The house owner has to report anything – even if it’s only a suspicion – immediately.’ Then she said, with a weary smile, ‘Not everyone is as clever as that old woman.’
‘Do you know if she was ever troubled by anything one of her guests told her?’
Her smile grew warmer. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said.’
Momentarily confused, Brunetti said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘To call them guests.’
‘It seems to me that’s what they are,’ he answered simply, ignoring her attempt at diversion. ‘Did this ever happen, that she was troubled by something she heard?’
Signora Orsoni raised her chin and pulled in air, creating a noise Brunetti could hear from the other side of the table. ‘No, not really. That is, she never told me about anything like that.’ She gave him an evaluating glance, then said, ‘Usually these women talk very little.’ She offered no further explication, though Brunetti still felt she had something else to say.
‘But?’ he encouraged.
‘But it came the other way,’ she said, confusing him again. ‘That is, a woman who was staying with her said she thought something had upset Costanza.’
‘What exactly did she say?’ Brunetti asked, trying to hide his rush of interest.
Orsoni rubbed her forehead, as if to show Brunetti how hard she was trying to remember. ‘She said that when she went to stay with her, Costanza seemed a very calm person, but then after she had been there for a few weeks, Costanza came home one day looking troubled. She thought it would pass, but the mood she came home in seemed to linger.’
‘Where had she gone? Did she know?’
‘She said the only places Costanza ever went were to visit her son and to see the old people in the nursing home.’
‘When did she tell you this?’
‘When she was leaving – when I was going to the airport with her. It must have happened about a month ago, so perhaps Costanza’s spirits improved after that.’
‘Did this woman ask her about it?’
Signora Orsoni spread her palms out flat. ‘You have to understand the dynamic here, Commissario. You call these women guests, but it’s not like that. They’re in hiding. Some of them go out to work, but most of them stay home, and the only thing they can do is worry about what’s going to happen to them.’
She looked at him to be sure she had his full attention and continued. ‘Bad things have happened to these women, Commissario. They’ve been beaten, and raped, and men have tried to kill them, so it’s difficult for them to concern themselves with the problems of other people.’ She paused, as if to measure the sympathy with which he greeted this, and then said, ‘They find it hard even to imagine that people like the ones they stay with – who have homes, and jobs, who don’t have financial problems, and who aren’t at risk – it’s hard for them to think that these people can have problems.’ She stared across the table at him. ‘So the amazing thing is not that she didn’t ask what was wrong but that she even noticed that something was. Fear cripples people,’ she said, and he thought of her sister.
‘You say you took her to the airport?’ he asked.
Displaying no surprise that her words had failed to deflect him, she said, ‘She left. I told you that.’
‘Why?’
‘Her husband was arrested.’
‘For what?’
‘Murder.’
‘Who?’
‘His lover.’
‘Ah,’ escaped Brunetti, but then he asked, ‘And so?’
‘And so she could go back to her home.’ Signora Orsoni’s tone made this sound like a simple choice, even an obvious one. Perhaps it was.
‘Who came then?’
He watched as she formulated an answer. ‘Another young woman, but she’d left before Costanza died.’
‘Tell me about her,’ Brunetti said.
‘There’s nothing to tell, really. Only what she told me.’ At Brunetti’s encouraging nod, she went on. ‘She’s from Padova. She was in university there, studying economics.’ She paused but Brunetti waited her out, and she added, ‘Her family’s very… traditional.’ When Brunetti did not respond to that word, she went on. ‘So when she told them she had a boyfriend,’ she began, then added, ‘who’s from Catania… they told her she had to choose between him and them.’ She shook her head at such things in this day and age. ‘So she chose the boyfriend and went to live with him.’
‘How did she get to Signora Altavilla?’ he asked, if only to show her that he had not been distracted by this story of the young woman, no matter how traditional her family.
‘She called our office in Treviso about three weeks ago. That was after the police said there was nothing they could do.’ She looked at Brunetti, who lifted his chin in enquiry. ‘The boyfriend. She said there was trouble from the start. That he was jealous. And violent: he roughed her up a few times, but she was afraid to call the police.’ She sighed and raised her hands and shoulders in exasperation.
‘This time she thought he was going to kill her: that’s what she told them. They were in the kitchen when it happened, and to protect herself she poured the pasta water on him.’ He thought she seemed unusually passive in describing this.
‘And?’
‘And she got out and called the police.’
‘What happened then?’
‘They went to the apartment to talk to him, but they didn’t do anything.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was his word against hers. He said she had started the argument and all he’d tried to do was defend himself.’ Though she tried, she failed to disguise scorn of the police and anger at male prejudice as she recounted this. She went on, finally expressing an opinion, ‘Besides, she’s a woman and he’s a man.’ Brunetti was surprised she failed to add, ‘And he’s a Sicilian.’
In the face of Brunetti’s silence, she continued, ‘They were living in Treviso and, as I said, she called our office there. They thought she’d be safe here in the city: it’s far enough away.’
After considering what she had told him, Brunetti asked, ‘Did the police tell you this?’
Her features appeared to contract. ‘I spoke to someone in our office, and that’s what they told me.’
After some time, Brunetti asked, ‘Signora Altavilla helped you for several years, you said?’
It was evident that the question displeased her, but eventually she said, ‘Yes.’
‘Putting herself at some risk.’ When he saw her begin to protest, he added, ‘Theoretical risk. But she was still willing to do it.’
She nodded, looked away, then back at him.
‘This woman, you say she isn’t there any more,’ Brunetti said. ‘And there was no sign of her in the apartment.’
Again Signora Orsoni nodded.
‘Could she have gone back to the apartment?’
Voice level, emotionless, she said, ‘She had nothing to do with this.’
‘How do I know that’s true?’ he asked.
‘Because I’m telling you so.’
