By mutual consent, they decided to go upstairs. When they left, Vianello reattached the tape as best he could while Brunetti stood, keys in hand, waiting to lock the door. After he did, he held the keys in the palm of his hand and showed them to Vianello and said, ‘I wonder what the third one’s for.’
‘Perhaps a storeroom downstairs?’ the Inspector suggested.
Brunetti started up the stairs. ‘We can ask Signora Giusti.’
The woman opened the door to her apartment while they were still on the final flight of steps. ‘I heard you moving around down there,’ she said by way of greeting, then remembered to put out her hand and say good morning. She looked less agitated now, and Brunetti was surprised to realize that she no longer seemed as tall. Perhaps it had something to do with the relaxation of her body or her shoulders. She had also moved closer to the loveliness he had imagined before.
Brunetti introduced Vianello, and she let them into the apartment, which Brunetti thought had relaxed as much as she had. The table in the living room held two newspapers, one of them open to the Culture section, the other obviously gone through and sloppily closed. Beside it stood an empty glass and a plate that held the skin and core of an apple as well as the knife that had peeled it. The cushions on the sofa were dented; one lay on the floor.
In the front room Brunetti was again struck by the sense of drama created by the thrust of the apse seen from this height and angle, as if the church were caught in the high seas and heading towards them. Her furniture, two chairs and a sofa, were angled to look out at the church and the campo and the mountains beyond. She sat at the end of the sofa, leaving them the two chairs, a table between them. She did not bother asking if they would like anything to drink.
Brunetti removed the envelopes from his pocket and placed them on the table. Signora Giusti glanced at them but made no move to touch them. Looking at him, she nodded her thanks, sober-faced. Brunetti still had the keys in his hands, and he held them out to her. ‘There’s a third key on the set you left downstairs, Signora. Could you tell me what it’s for?’
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea. I asked her that same thing, when she gave me the keys, and she said it was…’ She paused and closed her eyes. ‘It was strange what she said.’ Vianello and Brunetti remained quiet to give her the time to remember. After a moment, she looked up and said, ‘She said something about its being a safe place to keep a key.’
She met their puzzled expression with one of her own. ‘No, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either, but that’s what she said, that it would be a safe place.’
‘When did she give you these keys, Signora?’
She was surprised by his question, as though it displayed some special power on his part. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Simple curiosity,’ Brunetti said. He had no idea how long either woman had lived there, so he had no idea how long it had taken before they trusted one another sufficiently to exchange the keys to their homes.
‘I’ve had a set of her keys for years, but a week ago she asked for them back for a day, said something about wanting to have copies made.’ She pointed to the keys as though looking at them would make the two men understand. Then she leaned over and touched them, saying, ‘But look at them. One’s red and one’s blue. They’re just cheap copies, probably doesn’t even cost a euro to have them made.’
‘And so?’ Brunetti asked.
‘And so why would she copy these when she has the master keys? When she gave them back to me, the third key was on the ring, too, and that’s when she said that, about its being a safe place to keep it.’ She looked at each of them in turn, searching for some sign that they found this as puzzling as she did.
‘Did she know where you kept them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Of course. I’ve kept them in the same place for years, and she knew where that was,’ she said, pointing towards a room that was probably the kitchen. ‘There. In the second drawer.’ Brunetti stopped himself from saying that was precisely where a competent housebreaker would look.
‘Do you have storerooms on the ground floor?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Is one of them hers?’
She shook the idea away. ‘No, they belong to the appliance store near the pizzeria and to one of the restaurants in the campo.’
He noticed that Vianello had silently managed to take out his notebook and was busy writing.
‘Could you give me some idea of the sort of life she led, Signora?’
‘Costanza?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was a retired teacher. I think she retired about five years ago. Taught little children. And now she visits old people who are in rest homes.’ As if suddenly aware of the dissonance between events and the present tense, she put her hand to her mouth.
Brunetti let the moment pass and then asked, ‘Did she have guests?’
‘Guests?’
‘People who came to stay with her. Perhaps you met them on the stairs, or perhaps she told you that you would see strangers coming in, just so you’d know and not be concerned.’
‘Yes, I’d see people on the steps, occasionally. They were always very polite.’
‘Women?’ Vianello asked.
‘Yes,’ she said casually, and then added, ‘Her son came to see her.’
‘Yes, I know. I spoke to him yesterday,’ Brunetti answered, curious about her reluctance to discuss the female visitors.
‘How is he?’ she asked with real concern.
‘When I spoke to him, he seemed battered by it.’ This was no exaggeration; Brunetti suspected it stated the reality that lay behind Niccolini’s reserve.
‘She loved him. And the grandchildren.’ Then, with a small smile, ‘And she was very fond of her daughter-in-law, too.’ She shook her head, as if at the discovery of some exception to the rule of gravity.
‘Did she speak of them often?’
‘No, not really. Costanza – you have to understand – was not by nature a talkative person. It’s only because I’ve known her for years that I know any of this.’
‘How many years?’ Vianello interrupted to ask and held up his notebook as if to suggest he was simply doing what the pages told him to do.
‘She was living here when I moved in,’ she said. ‘That was five years ago. I think she’d been here for a few years before that, since her husband died.’
‘Did she say why she moved?’ Vianello asked, eyes on what he was writing.
‘She said the old place – it was near San Polo – was too big, and that once she was alone – her son was married by then – she decided to find somewhere smaller.’
‘But stay in the city?’ Vianello asked.
‘Of course,’ she said and gave Vianello a strange look.
‘Let me go back to something,’ Brunetti said. ‘About her guests.’
‘Guests,’ she repeated, as if she had quite forgotten having been asked the question before.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said with his easiest smile. Then he went on, ‘Well, perhaps you wouldn’t be so much aware of them, up here. I can ask the people downstairs: they’re more likely to have noticed.’ He cleared his throat, as if preparing to change the subject and ask another question entirely.
‘As I told you, occasionally people did stay. Women,’ she said. ‘Occasionally.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said, sounding only faintly interested, ‘Friends?’
‘I don’t know.’
Vianello looked up and said, with an easy smile, ‘Everyone wants to come and stay in Venice. My wife and I are always being asked if the sons or daughters of friends can stay, and our kids always have friends they want to invite.’ He shook his head at the thought, as though he were the concierge of a quiet bed and breakfast in Castello – conveniently located out of the crowded city centre – and not an ispettore di polizia. The news of these requests surprised Brunetti. Considering the young age of his children and the fact that all of Vianello’s friends lived in Venice, what the inspector said was very unlikely, but, apparently convinced by his own story, Vianello went on to conclude, ‘That’s probably who they were,’ and bent his head over his pages.