A Question of Belief

20

Brunetti might very easily have called the other tenants in the palazzo in which Fontana had lived to say the police needed to talk to them, but he knew surprise gave an interviewer an added advantage. He had no idea what these people would want to reveal to — or hide from — the police, but he preferred that he and Vianello should arrive unannounced.

The heat made it impossible for them to think of walking to the Misericordia, and there was no easy way to get there by vaporetto, so Brunetti had Foa take them in a police launch. He and Vianello stayed on deck: even with the windows open, the cabin of the slow-moving launch was unbearable. Foa had raised the awning above the tiller, but it did little to help against the sun. It was minimally cooler in the open air with the breeze, and perhaps being on the water helped, but it was still so hot that none of them could bear to mention it. The only relief they found were in the occasional patches of cool air through which they passed, a phenomenon Brunetti had never understood: perhaps it seeped out of the porte d’acque of the palazzi they passed, or perhaps some system of wind and air currents trapped pockets of cooler air at random places in the canals.

When they pulled up near the palazzo, Brunetti told Foa to go back to the Questura, remembering Patta’s morning swim. He said he’d call when they were finished or, if it took too much time, that he and Vianello would go somewhere for lunch and get back on their own.

The top bell on the panel beside the portone read ‘Fulgoni’. Brunetti rang it.

‘Chi è?’ a woman’s voice inquired.

‘Polizia, Signora,’ Brunetti answered. ‘We’d like to talk to you.’

‘All right,’ she said after only a moment’s hesitation and clicked open the entry door.

They expected the cooler air in the courtyard, and so it did not delight them the way the surprise pockets of cool air in the canals had. As they passed the place where Fontana had been killed, Brunetti noticed that the red and white tape remained, though the pavement had been wiped clean. There was still no sign of a statue.

They walked to the top floor. The door was ajar and a tall, broad-shouldered woman in her fifties stood in the doorway. Seeing her hair, Brunetti remembered having seen her on the street: it was dark as a raven’s wing, brushed back from her pale face in two aerodynamic waves that created the look of a helmet, no doubt kept in place by some sort of substance known to women and hairdressers. In contrast, her face was so pale it looked as though it had been brushed with rice powder, and she wore no makeup save a light pink lipstick. She wore a dark green blouse with frills hardly suited to a woman her size. The colour, too, was inopportune and clashed with her blue skirt. Brunetti could tell the clothing was expensive and might have looked good on a person with the right colouring, but neither blouse nor skirt was in any way flattering to Signora Fulgoni.

‘Signora Fulgoni?’ Brunetti asked, extending his hand.

She ignored it and stepped back to wave them both inside. She led them silently down a corridor and into a small sitting room with parquet floors, a small sofa and one easy chair. The bright covers of magazines looked up happily from a low table; one wall was lined with bookcases bearing books that looked as though they had been read. Light streamed into the room through striped linen curtains drawn back from three large windows, a sharp contrast with the obscurity of the Fontanas’ apartment, one floor below them. The walls were the palest of pale ivory: on one of them hung what looked like a series of Otto Dix prints; another held more than a dozen paintings that appeared all to be by the same hand: small abstracts that used only three colours — red, yellow, white — and that appeared to have been painted with a palette knife. Brunetti found them exciting and peaceful at the same time but had no idea how the artist had achieved this.

‘My husband paints,’ she said with careful neutrality, raising her hand to indicate the paintings and then continuing the gesture to show them the sofa. Brunetti was interested by her phrasing — not that her husband was a painter — and waited for the explanation. It came: ‘He’s a banker and paints when he can.’ She spoke with audible pride in a voice that was calm and exact and had a very pleasing, low timbre.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, sinking down beside Vianello, who had taken a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket and was preparing to take notes. After thanking her for having agreed to speak to them, he said, ‘We’d like to confirm the time you and your husband came home the other night.’

‘Why is it necessary that you ask again?’ she sounded honestly confused rather than irritated. ‘We’ve already told those other officers.’

Easily, fluidly, Brunetti lied, smiling as he did so. ‘There was a discrepancy of half an hour in what the Lieutenant and one of the officers remembered your saying, Signora. Only for that.’

She thought for a moment before she answered. ‘It must have been five or ten minutes after midnight,’ she said. ‘We heard the midnight bells from La Madonna dell’Orto when we turned off from Strada Nuova, so however long it took to walk from there.’

‘And you saw nothing unusual when you got back here?’

‘No.’

Mildly, he asked, ‘Could you tell me where you’d been, Signora?’

She was surprised by the question, which suggested to Brunetti that Alvise had not bothered to ask. She gave a small smile and said, ‘After dinner, we tried to watch television, but it was too hot, and everything we looked at was too stupid, so we decided to go for a walk. Besides,’ she said, her voice softening, ‘it’s the only time, really, that a person can walk in the city without having to dodge the tourists.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Brunetti saw Vianello nod in agreement.

‘Indeed,’ said Brunetti with a complicit smile. He looked around the apartment, at the high ceilings and linen curtains, suddenly struck by how very attractive it was. ‘Could you tell me how long you’ve lived here, Signora?’

‘Five years,’ she answered with a smile, not unresponsive to the compliment implied in his glance.

‘How did you find such a lovely place?’

The temperature of her voice lowered and she said, ‘My husband knew someone who told him about it.’

‘I see. Thank you,’ Brunetti said, and then asked, ‘How long have Signora Fontana and her son lived here?’

She glanced at one of the paintings, one that was distinguished by the thickness of the swath of yellow across its middle, then back at Brunetti, and said, ‘I think three or four years.’ She did not smile, but her face softened, either because she had decided she liked Brunetti or, just as easily, because he had moved away from the question of how they had found their apartment.

‘Did you know either of them well?’

‘Oh, no, not more than the way one knows one’s neighbours,’ she said. ‘We’d meet on the stairs or coming into the courtyard.’

‘Did you ever visit either one of them in their apartment?’

‘Heavens no,’ she said, obviously shocked by the very possibility. ‘My husband’s a bank director.’

Brunetti nodded, quite as though this were the most normal response he had ever heard to such a question.

‘Has anyone in the building, perhaps someone in the neighbourhood, ever spoken to you about either of them?’

‘Signora Fontana and her son?’ she asked, as if they had been speaking of some other people.

‘Yes.’

She glanced aside to another painting, this one with two vertical slashes of red running through a field of white, and said, ‘No, not that I can remember.’ She gave a small motion of her lips that was perhaps meant to serve as a smile or was perhaps the result of looking at the painting.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, deciding that to continue to speak to her was to continue to go nowhere. ‘Thank you for your time,’ he said in a terminal voice.

She stood in a single graceful motion, while both he and a visibly surprised Vianello had to push themselves up from the sofa by using the armrests.

At the door, pleasantries were kept to a minimum; as they started down the steps, they heard the door close behind them. No sooner had it done so, than Vianello said, voice expressing shocked disapproval, ‘ “Heavens no. My husband’s a bank director.” ’

‘A bank director with very good taste in decorating,’ added Brunetti.

‘Excuse me?’ came Vianello’s puzzled response.

‘No one who wore that blouse could have chosen those curtains,’ Brunetti said, adding to Vianello’s confusion.

On the first floor, he stopped at the door and rang the bell marked Marsano. After a long delay, a woman’s voice from inside asked who it was.

‘Polizia,’ Brunetti answered. He thought he heard footsteps moving away from the door and at last heard what sounded like a child’s voice asking, ‘Who is it?’ From behind the door, a dog started to bark.

‘It’s the police,’ Brunetti said in as kindly a voice as he could muster. ‘That’s what I told your mother.’

‘That wasn’t my mother: it’s Zinka.’

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Lucia,’ she said.

‘Lucia, do you think you can open the door and let us in?’

‘My mother says never to let anyone into the apartment,’ the girl said.

‘Well, that’s a very good thing for her to tell you,’ Brunetti admitted, ‘but it’s different with the police. Didn’t your mother tell you that?’

It took a long time for the little girl to answer. When she did, she surprised him by asking, ‘Is it because of what happened to Signor Araldo?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘It’s not about Zinka?’ There was a note of almost adult concern in her voice.

‘No, I don’t even know who Zinka is,’ Brunetti said, telling the truth.

At last he heard a key turn and the door opened. Standing in front of him was a girl who might have been eight or nine. She wore blue jeans and a white cotton sweater: she was barefoot. She stood a bit back from the door and looked at them with open curiosity. She was pretty in the way of little girls.

‘You don’t have uniforms,’ was the first thing she said.

Both men laughed, which seemed to convince the girl of their good will, if not of their profession.

Brunetti saw a motion at the end of the corridor, and a woman wearing a blue apron stepped out from one of the rooms. She had the potato body of an Eastern European and the round face and wispy pale hair that often went with it. He read it in an instant: she was illegal, working there as a maid or a babysitter, but even fear of the police could not keep her from coming out to make sure the child was safe.

Brunetti took out his wallet and removed his warrant card. He held it out to the woman and said, ‘Signora Zinka. I’m Commissario Brunetti, and I’m here to ask questions about Signor Fontana and his mother.’ He watched to see how much she understood. She nodded but did not move. ‘I am not interested in anything else, Signora. Do you understand?’ Her posture seemed to grow less rigid, so he stepped aside, still outside the door, and indicated Vianello, who stood beside him, also careful to remain in the hallway. ‘Nor is my assistant, Ispettore Vianello.’

Silently, she took a few hesitant steps in their direction. The child turned to her and said, ‘Come on, Zinka. Come and talk to them. They won’t hurt us: they’re policemen.’

The word stopped the woman’s forward motion, and the look that swept her face suggested that life had taught her to draw different conclusions about the behaviour of the police.

‘If you don’t want us to come in, Signora,’ Brunetti began, speaking slowly, ‘we can come back later this afternoon, or whenever you tell us Lucia’s mother will be home.’ She took another step closer to the child, though Brunetti had no idea of whether she was seeking or offering protection.

He looked down at the child. ‘What school do you go to, Lucia?’

‘Foscarini,’ she said.

‘Ah, that’s nice. My daughter went there, too,’ he lied.

‘You have a daughter?’ the little girl asked, as if this were not something policemen were meant to have. Then, as if this would catch him out, she asked, ‘What’s her name?’

‘Chiara.’

‘That’s my best friend’s name, too,’ the girl said, smiling broadly, and stepped back from the door. With surprising formality, she said, ‘Please come in.’

‘Permesso,’ they both said as they stepped inside. It was then that Brunetti became aware of the air conditioning, which fell on him with a sudden chill after the heat of the day.

‘We can go to my father’s office. That’s where he always takes visitors if they’re men,’ she said, turning away from them and opening a door on the right. ‘Come on,’ she encouraged them. Vianello closed the door to the apartment, and the two men followed the child down the chilly hall. At the entrance to the office, Brunetti said to the woman, ‘It would help us if we could talk to you, too, Signora, but only if you’re willing. All we want to know about is Signora Fontana and her son.’

The woman took another small step towards them and said, ‘Good man.’

‘Signor Fontana?’

She nodded.

‘You knew him?’

She nodded again.

The child went into the room and said, this time drawing the last word out, ‘Come on, silly.’ She crossed the room, hesitated beside a large desk, then pulled out the chair behind it and sat in it: her shoulders barely topped the desk, and Brunetti could not stop himself from smiling.

The woman saw his smile, looked across at the child, then back at Brunetti, and he watched her assess the scene and his response. ‘I really do have a daughter, Signora,’ he said and walked over to take one of the chairs in front of the desk. Vianello took the other one.

The woman came into the room but remained standing, halfway between the desk and the open door, a position that offered her the opportunity to try to snatch the child to safety, should that become necessary.

‘Where’s your Mummy?’ Vianello asked.

‘She works. That’s why we have Zinka. She stays with me. We were supposed to go to the beach today — we have a cabina at the Excelsior — but Mamma says it’s too hot today, so we stayed home. Zinka was going to let me help make lunch.’

‘Good for you,’ Vianello said. ‘What are you going to make?’

‘Minestra di verdura. Zinka says if I’m good, I can peel the potatoes.’

Brunetti turned his attention to the woman, who appeared to be following the conversation with no difficulty. ‘Signora,’ he said with real warmth. ‘If I hadn’t promised to ask only about Signora Fontana, I’d ask you to teach me how I could convince my daughter that I might let her clean her room.’ He smiled to show her the joke; her face softened, and then she smiled in return.

The illegality of what he was doing suddenly descended on Brunetti, but heavier was the weight of the seaminess of it. She was just a child, for heaven’s sake: how great was his need to know, if he would sink to this?

He turned to the woman. ‘It’s not right to ask Lucia any more questions, I think. So perhaps we should let you both get back to your minestra.’ Vianello gave him a surprised glance, but he ignored it and said to the girl, ‘I hope it cools down enough for you to go to the beach tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, Signore,’ she said with learned politeness, then added, ‘Maybe it’s not so bad if we can’t go. Zinka hates the beach.’ Then, turning to her, she asked, ‘Don’t you?’

The woman’s smile reappeared, broader now. ‘The beach doesn’t like me, either, Lucia.’

Brunetti and Vianello stood. ‘Could you tell me when I might find the Marsanos at home? We’ll come back then.’

She looked at the little girl and said, ‘Lucia, go down to kitchen see if I left glasses there, please?’

Happy to obey, the girl jumped down from the chair and left the room.

‘Signor Marsano won’t tell you things. Signora no, also.’

‘Tell me what, Signora?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Fontana was good man. Fight with Signor Marsano, fight with upstairs people.’

She used the word for battle, so Brunetti asked, ‘Word fight or hand fight, Signora?’

‘Word fight, only word fight,’ she said, as though the other possibility frightened her.

‘What happened?’

‘They call names: Signor Fontana say Signor Marsano not honest, same with man upstairs. Then Signor Marsano say he is bad man, go with men.’

‘But you think he was a good man?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I know,’ she said with sudden force. ‘He found me lawyer. Good man at Tribunale. He help me with papers, for staying.’

‘For staying in Italy?’ Brunetti asked.

‘They aren’t there, Zinka,’ the girl shouted from the end of the corridor, then, as she approached, she asked, in that long-drawn-out voice of the impatient child, ‘Can we go back to work now?’

Zinka smiled as the girl appeared at the door and said, ‘One minute, then we work again.’

‘Could you give me the name of the lawyer, Signora?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Penzo. Renato Penzo. Friend of Signor Fontana. He is good man, too.’

‘And Signora Fontana,’ Brunetti asked, sensitive to the child’s impatience and the woman’s growing uneasiness, ‘is she a good woman, too?’

The woman looked at him, then down at the child. ‘Our guests go now, Lucia. You open the door for them, no?’

The child, sensing the possibility of getting back to work on the potatoes, all but ran to the front door. She pulled it open and went out on the landing, where she leaned over the railing, looking down into the stairwell. Brunetti saw how nervous it made the woman to see her there and started towards the door.

He stopped just inside it. ‘And Signora Fontana?’ he asked.

She shook her head, saw that Brunetti accepted her reluctance to talk, and said, ‘Not like son.’

Brunetti nodded in return, said goodbye to Lucia, and went down the steps, followed by Vianello.