‘I’d say what I’m doing is also urgent,’ she said, not offering an explanation.
Stalemate. ‘Then I’ll call you again,’ Brunetti said, quite pleasantly, as if he were inviting her to lunch.
‘Good,’ she said and hung up.
He replaced the phone, looked at Signorina Elettra, and said, ‘Too busy to see me.’
‘I’m told she is not one to undervalue herself, Maddalena,’ she said.
15
‘You’ve read the reports?’ Brunetti asked, his interest in and respect for her habit of reading all official documents with attention and scepticism overcoming any scruples he might have about her civilian status.
Signorina Elettra nodded.
‘And?’
‘The technicians were thorough,’ she said. Brunetti thought it best to forgo comment, which encouraged her to add, ‘The marks on her throat and back and the trauma to her back caught my attention.’
‘And mine,’ Brunetti said, deciding to follow the path of caution and say nothing about what Rizzardi had told him in private.
Her look was sharp, but her voice was calm when she said, ‘What a pity such things fail to rouse the doctor’s.’
‘That’s usually the case,’ Brunetti admitted.
‘Indeed.’ From her inflection, he had no idea if she were making a statement or asking a question about Rizzardi’s opinion. She continued: ‘You spoke to the nuns at the casa di cura in Bragora.’ This time there was no doubt about the question.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’ she asked, showing that two could play at Monosyllable.
‘And the nun with whom I spoke regarded her highly. The Mother Superior seemed forthcoming, but…’ he began and then drifted off, uncertain how to admit to his worst prejudice. She gave him no help, and so after a while he was constrained to continue. ‘But she’s from the South, so I sensed a certain…’
‘Reticence?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Vianello was with me.’
‘That usually helps,’ she said. ‘With women.’
‘Not this time. Perhaps because there were two of us. And we’re big.’
She looked across at him as though examining him for the first time. ‘I’ve never thought of either one of you as being particularly big,’ she said, then looked at him again. ‘But perhaps you are. How small was she?’
Brunetti, keeping his palm horizontal, brought it up to the centre of his chest.
Signorina Elettra nodded. He watched the animation leave her face and her eyes shift focus, two things he’d noticed in the past when her attention was captured by something. He knew enough to wait for her to come back to the conversation. When she did, she said, ‘I’ve often thought that nuns have a different reaction to men.’
‘Different in what way or from whose?’ he asked.
‘Different from women who…’ she paused, obviously unable to find the proper formulation ‘… from women who find them attractive.’
‘Do you mean in a romantic way?’
She smiled. ‘How delicately you put it, Commissario. Yes, “in a romantic way”.’
‘What’s different?’ Brunetti asked.
‘We’re less frightened of them,’ she said instantly but then added, ‘Or maybe it’s that we’re more likely to trust them because we’re more familiar with how their minds work.’
‘You think women do understand us?’
‘It’s a survival skill, Commissario.’ She smiled when she said it, but then her face grew serious and she said, ‘Maybe that really is the difference, because we live with men and deal with them every day and fall in love with them, and out of love with them. I think that must minimize our sense of the alien.’
‘Alien?’ Brunetti asked, unable to hide his surprise.
‘Different, at any rate,’ she said.
‘And nuns?’ he asked, drawing her back to what had started her down this path.
‘One whole area of interaction is closed down. Call it flirting if you want, Dottore. I mean that whole area where we play back and forth with the idea that the other person is attractive.’
‘You mean nuns don’t feel this?’ he asked, wondering at her use of the word ‘play’.
She gave a small shrug. ‘I have no idea if they do or they don’t. For their sake, I hope they do because if you manage to stifle that, then something’s gone wrong.’ Abruptly she got to her feet, both surprising him and, he realized, disappointing him that she did not want to continue with this subject.
‘You said the nun was reluctant to talk to you,’ she said, standing behind her chair. ‘If it wasn’t because of her feelings about men – and I think it would be hard for anyone to find Vianello threatening – then maybe it is because she’s a southerner or because there’s something she doesn’t want you to know. I’d never want to exclude that possibility.’ She smiled and was gone, leaving Brunetti to consider why she had not said she thought it would be hard for anyone to find him threatening.
He looked up and saw Lieutenant Scarpa at his door. Brunetti did his best to disguise his surprise and said, ‘Good morning, Lieutenant.’ He could never look at the Lieutenant without the word ‘reptile’ coming into his mind. It had nothing to do with the Lieutenant’s appearance, for indeed he was a handsome man: tall and slender, with a prominent nose and broad-spaced eyes over high cheekbones. Perhaps it had to do with a certain sinuosity in the way he moved, a failure to pick his feet up fully when he walked, which caused an undulant liquidity in his knees. Brunetti was reluctant to admit that he attributed it to his own belief that inside the man there was nothing but the icy chill found in reptiles and the far reaches of space.
‘Have a seat, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said and folded his hands on his desk in a gesture of polite expectation.
The Lieutenant did as he was requested. ‘I’ve come to ask your advice, Commissario,’ he said, smoothing out the consonants in his Sicilian way.
‘Yes?’ Brunetti asked with rigorous neutrality.
‘It’s about two of the men in my squad.’
‘Yes?’
‘Alvise and Riverre,’ Scarpa said, and Brunetti’s sense of danger could have been no stronger had the man hissed.
Brunetti put a look of mild interest on his face, wondering what those two clowns had done now, and repeated, ‘Yes?’
‘They’re impossible, Commissario. Riverre can be trusted to answer the phone, but Alvise isn’t even capable of that.’ Scarpa bent forward and placed his palm on Brunetti’s desk, a gesture he had no doubt taught himself to make when he wanted to imitate sincerity and concern.
Brunetti could not have more strongly agreed with this assessment of the two men. Riverre, however, had a certain knack in getting adolescents to talk: no doubt by dint of fellow feeling. But Alvise was, in a word, hopeless. Or in two, hopelessly stupid. He recalled that Alvise had spent months working on a special project with Scarpa a few years ago: had the poor fool stumbled on something that might compromise the Lieutenant? If so, he had been too stupid to realize it, or surely the entire Questura would have known about it the same day.
‘I’m not sure I agree with you, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti lied. ‘Nor that I know why you’ve chosen to come to me about this.’ If the Lieutenant wanted something, Brunetti would oppose it. It was as simple as that.
‘I’d hoped that your concern for the safety of the city and the reputation of the force would encourage you to try to do something about them. That’s why I’ve come to ask your advice,’ he said, and then, the echo arriving with its usual tantalizing delay, ‘… sir.’
‘I certainly appreciate your concern, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said in his blandest voice. Then, getting to his feet, he added, trying to sound sorry about the fact, ‘But, unfortunately, I’m late for an appointment and must leave now. But I’ll certainly consider your comments and…’ he began and then – to show that he was equally capable of making use of the echo – paused before adding, ‘and the spirit that animates them.’