Brunetti came around his desk and paused beside the Lieutenant, who had no choice but to get to his feet. Brunetti guided Scarpa out of his office, turned to close the door, something he seldom did, and then led the way downstairs. Brunetti nodded to the Lieutenant and crossed the lobby, not bothering to stop and talk to the guard. Outside, he decided to continue to Bragora and see if he could speak to any of the old people Signora Altavilla had befriended, convinced that listening to old people talk about their pasts, no matter how exaggerated their memories, would be vastly preferable to hearing the truth – especially from the likes of Lieutenant Scarpa – about Alvise and Riverre.
He thought he would take the longer route to Bragora and crossed the bridge into Campo San Lorenzo. Up close, Brunetti saw that the sign stating the date when the restoration of the church had begun had been bleached clean by the sun. He could no longer remember when they were supposed to begin – surely it was decades ago. People at the Questura said the work had actually started, but that was before Brunetti’s time, and so he had only rumour to rely upon. During the years he had stood at his window and studied the campo, he had seen the restoration of the casa di cura begin, continue, and even finish. Perhaps that was of greater importance than the restoration of a church.
He turned right and left a few times and found himself again passing the church of San Antonin. Then down the Salizada and out into the campo, where the trees still invited passers-by to sit for a while in their shade.
He crossed and rang the bell at the casa di cura. He announced himself and said he had come to speak to Madre Rosa. This time, a different nun, even older than Madre Rosa, waited for him at the door at the top of the stairs. Brunetti gave his name, entered, and turned to close the door himself. The nun smiled her thanks and led him to the room where he had already spoken to the Mother Superior.
Today Madre Rosa was sitting in one of the armchairs, a book open on her lap. She nodded when he came in and closed her book. ‘What may I do for you today, Commissario?’ she asked. She gave no indication that he should sit, and so Brunetti, though he approached her, remained standing.
‘I’d like to speak to some of the people who knew Signora Altavilla best,’ he said.
‘You must realize that your desire makes little sense to me,’ she said. When Brunetti did not respond, she added, ‘Nor does your curiosity about her.’
‘It makes sense to me, Madre,’ he said.
‘Why?’
It was out before he thought about it. ‘I’m curious about the cause of her heart attack.’ Before the nun could ask him anything, Brunetti said, ‘There’s no question that she died of a heart attack, and the doctor assures me it was very fast.’ He saw her close her eyes and nod, as if in thanks for having been given something she desired. ‘But I’d like to be sure that the heart attack was… was not brought on by anything. Anything unpleasant, that is.’
‘Sit down, Commissario,’ she said. When he did, she said, ‘You realize what you’ve just said, of course.’
‘Yes.’
‘If the cause of her heart attack – may she rest in peace – was, as you say,’ she began, pausing a moment before allowing herself to repeat his word, ‘unpleasant, then there must be a reason for that. And if you’ve come here to look for that reason, then it’s possible you think you’ll find it in something one of the people she worked with told her.’
‘That’s true,’ he said, impressed by her quickness.
‘And if that is true, then that person might equally be at risk.’
‘That’s certainly possible, as well, but I think it would depend on what it is they told her. Madre,’ he continued, deciding he had no choice but to trust her, ‘I’ve no idea what happened, and I feel foolish saying that all I have is a strange feeling that something is wrong about her death.’ Conscious of having said nothing about the marks on her body, Brunetti wondered if it were worse to lie to a nun than to any other sort of person: he decided it was not.
‘Does that mean you are not here… how to say this? That you are not here officially?’ She seemed pleased to have found the word.
‘Not at all,’ he had to admit. ‘I want only to bring some peace of mind to her son,’ he added. It was the truth, but it was not the whole truth.
‘I see,’ she said. She surprised him by opening the book in her lap and returning her attention to it. Brunetti sat quietly for a time that spread out and became minutes, and then more minutes.
At last, she held the book closer to her face, then appeared to read aloud: ‘“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”’ She lowered the book and looked at him above the pages. ‘Do you believe that, Commissario?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t, Madre,’ he said without hesitation.
She set the book on her lap, leaving the pages open, and surprised him again, this time by saying, ‘Good.’
‘Good that I said it or that I don’t believe it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘That you said it, of course. It’s tragic that you don’t believe it. But if you had said you do, you would have been a liar, and that’s worse.’
Like Pascal, she knew the truth not by reason, but by the heart. But he made no mention of this, merely asked, ‘How do you know I don’t believe it?’ he asked.
She smiled more warmly than he had seen her do so far. ‘I might be a dried-up old stick, Commissario, and from the South, as well, but I’m not a fool,’ she said.
‘And the fact that I’m not a liar, what bearing does that have on this conversation?’
‘It makes me believe that you are really interested in finding out if anything unpleasant – as you put it – might have been involved in Costanza’s death. And since she was a friend, I am interested in that, as well.’
‘Which means you’ll help?’ he asked.
‘Which means I will give you the names of the people she spent most time with. And then you are on your own, Commissario.’
16
She gave him not only their names but their room numbers as well. Two women, one man, all in their eighties and one of them in indifferent mental health; that was the word she used: ‘indifferent’. Brunetti had the feeling that she would not choose to elucidate that last remark, so he let it pass. He thanked her, asking if he could speak to them now.
‘You can try to,’ she said. ‘It’s lunchtime, and for many of our guests, that’s the most important event of their day; it might be difficult to get them to concentrate on anything you ask, at least until after they’ve eaten.’ Hearing her, he remembered a period in his mother’s decline when she had become obsessively interested in food and eating, though she had continued to grow thinner, no matter what she ate. But soon enough she had simply forgotten what food was and had to be reminded, then almost forced, to eat.
She heard him sigh and said, ‘We do it for love of the Lord and for love of our fellow man.’
He nodded, temporarily unable to speak. When Brunetti looked across at her, she said, ‘I don’t know how helpful they’ll be if they know you’re a policemen. It might be sufficient to say that you’re a friend of Costanza’s.’
‘And leave it at that?’ he asked with a smile.
‘It would be enough.’ She did not smile in return but said, ‘After all, it’s true, in a sense, isn’t it?’
Brunetti got to his feet without answering her question. He leaned down and extended his hand. She squeezed it briefly, then said, ‘If you go out the door here, turn left and at the end of the corridor, right, you’ll be in the dining room.’
‘Thank you, Madre,’ he said.
She nodded and returned her attention to her book. At the door, he was tempted to turn and see if she was watching him, but he did not.