The Golden Egg (13 page)

‘Of course I can,' she said. ‘But I don't want to.'

‘Why?' he asked, unable to hide his astonishment.

‘Because I don't want to have to leave.'

His heart stopped. Brunetti was not given to excessive reactions, nor to excessive language, but he felt his heart stop, well, at least miss a few beats and then begin again with a faster rhythm.

‘But you can't even think about that,' he bleated before he could adjust the tone. ‘I mean, if you're going to leave, then you should have a better reason for it than that.'
He thought about offering her his office but knew Patta would never accept that. He felt as though he had walked into a wall.

‘I don't mean
leave
leave, I mean leave this floor.'

‘For where?' Brunetti asked, disguising his relief and running his mind through the building.

‘All I have to do is change a few offices around,' she said, her anger subsiding.

There was something in the ease with which she
said this, as if the task were no more complicated than prising the cork from a bottle of prosecco, that jangled Brunetti's nerves. He sent his memory through the building again, seeking out the offices that might be suitable to her and the names of the persons who currently used those offices. And there it was, on the same floor as his but on the other side of the building, a much smaller room with a view of the garden in the back. The room was currently crowded with two enormous cupboards no one had thought to move when the desk was put in and the office was given to Claudia Griffoni.

He stopped himself from slapping his palm to his forehead and crying out ‘Aha!' but that did not dull the clarity of his revelation. Signorina Elettra felt little
simpatia
for her: it was as simple as that. Brunetti had no idea of the reason: he did not want to attribute it to feminine jealousy and, to avoid discussion of that, he had chosen never to talk to Paola about it.

His wiser self told him to stay out of this, to make no comment, and to pretend it did not concern or interest him, so long as she found an office. ‘Well,' he said idly, ‘I hope you can work it out.' He tried to think of a quid pro quo he could offer Patta. The consequences of non-intervention here, he knew, would not be peace in our time.

Careful to make it clear that what he was about to offer was much more interesting than any talk of offices and who would move into them, he said, ‘I have a name for you.'

‘For?'

‘For you to have a look at.' Seeing that this had caught her attention, he said, ‘I went over to Dorsoduro to have a look at the
palazzo
.' In an attempt to relax things further, he added, ‘And I came back with a name.'

‘Which is?' she said, turning the computer screen to
face her.

‘Lucrezia Lembo.'

‘The wife of the Copper King?'

‘The daughter. There are at least two, and they apparently still live at that address.'

Signorina Elettra smiled a real smile, relaxed and easy, and he watched tension and anger seep away from her. ‘I'll see what I can find,' she said.

‘The person who gave me her name said she's had a troubled life: men, trouble with her kids, divorce, alcohol.'

She pulled her lips together. ‘That's more than enough for anyone.'

‘I'd like anything you can find about either of the sisters: I don't know the name of the other one,' he said. He had a vague memory that both of the parents had died.

She hit a few keys, then a few more; she read for a moment, hit some more keys, and when Brunetti saw her begin to smile again he wondered if it was at the thought of being back at work or at the prospect of being able to access the data banks of the various institutions of the city without having to bother about pesky things like warrants or permissions or orders from magistrates.

He thanked her and started back to his office, proud of having returned an angry, petulant woman to her rightful place as a buccaneer utterly without respect for rules or regulations.

At the bottom of the flight of steps that would take him to his office, Brunetti glanced at his watch and saw that it was after two. It was likely to be one of the last temperate days of the year, and he felt himself entitled, after what he chose to think of as his morning's work, to lunch with his wife. Paola had told him that the kids would not be there, so he could be as late as he pleased, and he decided to take her at her word.

As he made his way towards Rialto, he played at something he told himself resembled that three-dimensional oriental chess game he had read about but not understood and that might be called Go. He had no idea of the rules and so invented his own: he assumed that the people he shifted to another office on another floor would go without complaint and without rancour, emulating the man in the Bible who picked up his bed and walked away.

Scarpa to Signorina Elettra's, Signorina Elettra to Claudia Griffoni's. The large cabinets to the archive, where their high shelves would save some papers from the effects of mildew and time. And where was Griffoni supposed to go? Into the converted cupboard which had been Lieutenant Scarpa's office for years?

He said nothing about the problem of Signorina Elettra's office during the meal, finding the
calamaretti con piselli
more interesting than the territorial disputes of his colleagues. He waited until he was standing beside Paola, drying the dishes and putting them back in the cabinet, but drying them very slowly and not paying attention to what he was doing. He continued to dry a wine glass until she reached out with a wet hand, took the glass from him and set it on the counter. ‘What's bothering you?' she asked.

‘Women.'

It was seldom that Brunetti managed to stop Paola in her tracks, so her expression gave him a certain satisfaction. ‘In general? Or specifically?' she asked. She rinsed her hands and took the towel from him to dry them.

‘Specifically,' Brunetti answered.

Appearing to ignore him, she said, ‘How nice it would be to live on the first floor.'

‘With damp and no light?' Brunetti asked, thinking of the ground-floor offices in the Questura; he had not even dared to consider moving any of the players in his game to them.

‘With only one flight of steps if we want to go out to get a coffee in a bar,' she corrected. She reached up for the
caffetiera
, added water, put in the coffee, screwed the top on tightly, and set it on the stove. Paola was certain to return to the subject of women, so he went back into the living room and stood at the window. The clouds had grown heavier during lunch, and a light rain was falling.

She came in with two cups, sugar already added. She handed him one, stood stirring hers, and asked, ‘Which ones, specifically?'

‘Signorina Elettra and Claudia Griffoni,' he answered.

‘They've come to blows?' she asked.

He sipped at his coffee, finished it, and set the cup on a table. ‘You always talk about feminine jealousy.'

‘When I'm not speaking about male jealousy,' she reminded him. She went and sat on the edge of the sofa, waiting.

‘It's about an office,' he began. ‘But that's just a pretext. Elettra has never taken to her. It's evident every time I mention her.'

‘And Griffoni's feelings?'

Brunetti had never considered this. ‘I'm not sure that she's noticed.'

She waved a hand in the air. ‘Earth to Guido, Planet Earth to Guido. Are you there?'

‘What's that mean?'

‘It means that if Elettra doesn't like someone, there is no way that the person would not notice it.'

He thought of Signorina Elettra's perpetual, and public, goading of Lieutenant Scarpa, so different from the gentle, almost affectionate, pokes she took at Vice-Questore Patta. One man disgusted her, the other caused only irritation. With Griffoni, however, she had been assiduously polite, as she was with no one else at the Questura.

When he explained this to Paola, she said, ‘How does Griffoni behave?'

‘The same way. It's as if she's addressing a head of state.'

‘Well, she is, isn't she?'

‘What?'

‘Signorina Elettra, at least from what you've told me, runs the place. Or she certainly runs Patta, which comes to the same thing.'

‘And so?'

‘So Griffoni's formality could be nothing more than deference to her position.' Before Brunetti could object, she said, ‘Remember, she's a Sicilian, and they're far more hierarchical in their thinking than we are. If they come of good families, the impulse towards politeness is even stronger.'

‘It's been three years.'

‘They'll work things out. It sounds to me as if each is simply waiting for the other one to show some sign of informality.'

Brunetti, refusing to believe this, asked, ‘What do I do? Stay out of it and break it up when they're rolling around on the floor with their hands on each other's throat?'

‘You said something about an office,' Paola reminded him. ‘Is it about who gets one?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who makes that decision?'

‘Patta.'

‘Is there some way you can blackmail him into averting hostilities?'

Of course, after decades at the university, she would think of the most underhand way to deal with a problem. He had so far forgotten to tell Patta that there was no risk to the mayor's son because of the bribes being paid to the Polizia Municipale. Patta, however, need not be told how easy it had been to discover that. Let him think that Brunetti had had to call in favours from the forces of order, ask old friends to turn a blind eye, risk his own reputation in defence of the mayor's son and his re-election campaign, his political future.

If he made his efforts sound sufficiently Herculean, he might also add a request that Foa be temporarily assigned to the Guardia Costiera.

He bent down and kissed her. ‘I tremble to think of what you've been learning all these years from those novels you read,' he said and went back to the Questura.

The rain grew heavier while he was still on the way as a serious shower turned into the first full pounding-down of the autumn. Glad that he had worn his light raincoat, Brunetti did not try to stop and wait it out; although he quickened his pace for the last ten minutes, he still arrived at the Questura with his head and shoulders soaked.

He rubbed his hair with both hands, wiped them on his handkerchief, then used it to swipe at his hair. Upstairs, he hung his coat on the door of the cupboard and decided to go down to speak to Signorina Elettra.

Once again, when he entered she was not at her desk. The door to Patta's office was again ajar, and he could hear his superior's voice from behind it, though he
could not make out what he was saying. He went and stood by the window, removing himself from temptation, but when he looked down at the
riva
he saw Signorina Elettra stepping into a police launch, Foa holding her hand to steady her on the slippery deck.

Brunetti moved closer to the door.

‘I realize the seriousness of the situation, Signore,' Patta said in a placatory voice. ‘I've got one of my best men looking into it, you can be sure.' There followed a long pause. ‘Yes, he's Venetian, sir.'

Brunetti, one of Patta's best men, moved silently across the office and went back upstairs to his own.

His phone started to ring when he was still a few metres from the room. Quickening his steps, he picked it up on the seventh ring. ‘Brunetti,' he said.

‘Guido, it's Ettore,' he heard Rizzardi say.

‘What is it?'

‘A strange thing's happened, and I thought I should
tell you.'

‘What?'

‘You sent one of your men over here with the mother of that man who died, didn't you?'

‘Yes. What happened?'

‘Oh, she identified him. The young man couldn't have been kinder to her.'

‘Is that why you're calling?'

‘No, she's back: that's why.'

‘Back where?'

‘Back in the hospital.'

‘With you?'

‘No. In the Emergency Room.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Favaro,' he said, naming one of his assistants. ‘He
saw her when she came to identify her son, and
he
recognized
her when she was brought in by the ambulance, so he came to tell me.'

‘What happened?'

‘I don't know. I haven't seen her.'

‘Did he say anything about her?'

‘Yes. He said it looked like someone beat her up.'

He called the officers' squad room, only to be told that Pucetti was out on patrol. He asked for the young man's
telefonino
number, entered it into his own, and called. Pucetti answered, said he was in San Marco, watching the pigeons and the tourists avoid the rain.

Brunetti told him about Rizzardi's call and was surprised by the force of the young man's response. ‘What happened? Is she badly hurt?'

Brunetti repeated that all he knew was what Rizzardi had told him: she was in the Emergency Room, and it looked as if she'd been attacked.

‘Can I meet you there, Commissario?' Pucetti asked.

‘That's why I'm calling,' Brunetti said, surprised that Pucetti hadn't assumed that. ‘I'm leaving now. Rizzardi will meet us there.' He looked at his watch. ‘Fifteen minutes.' The young man broke the connection before he did.

He looked out the window: no sign of Foa or his boat. He put on his raincoat, took his umbrella from the bottom of the cupboard, and left the Questura, telling the man
at the door that he was going to the hospital to talk to a witness.

The rain had intensified while he was inside, and his shoes were soon soaked at the toe and then along the sides. The rain had cleaned the pavement and had cleared the streets: although he saw few people on the way to the hospital, inside there was the usual back and forth of visitors, doctors and nurses, and bathrobed and slippered patients.

The automatic doors slid open as he approached them, and he walked into the waiting area of the Pronto Soccorso. He walked past the reception window and into the first corridor, intent on finding either Rizzardi or Pucetti.

‘Signore,' a voice behind him called out. ‘You have to register.' He took out his warrant card and went back to the door of the small cubicle where the receptionist sat behind his computer. He was an owl-like man with sparse hair who looked perfectly at home inside his glass-fronted box.

Brunetti held up his warrant card and said, ‘I'm looking for Dottor Rizzardi.'

Disgruntled, needing to score even this small point, the man behind the desk said, ‘You have to show me before you go in.'

Brunetti was about to snap back at him when he recalled the mantra Paola had been beating into his head for two decades: ‘This is the only power this man has, and it is the only power he will ever have in his life. Either you show him that you respect it, or he will cause you more trouble than it's worth.'

‘Ah, sorry,' Brunetti said, putting his card back in his wallet. ‘I forgot.'

The man nodded, apparently mollified. ‘She's in the third room on the left.'

‘One of our men in uniform should be here soon. Would you send him down to us?' Brunetti asked and then, invoking the wisdom of Paola, added, ‘Please.'

The man raised his hand, glad now to help. ‘Of course, Signore.'

Brunetti knocked at the door, waited a few seconds, and went in. Rizzardi was standing at the foot of the bed, reading a form attached to a thick plastic clipboard. How strange, Brunetti thought, to see Rizzardi with a live patient; but then he remembered that he was, after all, a doctor.

Rizzardi glanced at Brunetti and used the clipboard to wave him forward.

Brunetti approached. Rizzardi held up the clipboard to indicate it was the source of whatever he could tell
him. Speaking softly, the doctor said, ‘She might have a concuss­ion, but very slight, a lot of bruising on her face, a cut over her left eye. Two fingers on her left hand are crushed, and there's a hairline fracture to one of her ribs.'

Brunetti looked at the woman in the bed and was shocked to see how much smaller she had grown. She hardly seemed as long as she had been tall; the sheet dipped down at her shrunken waist. She was asleep; her eyes were curiously deep-set, a reddish-grey halo already in place around the left one. Her cheeks seemed to have collapsed into her mouth, or perhaps it was a trick of light that played the clear skin of her cheeks against the darker skin around and under her eyes. He recognized her chiefly by her hair, the only thing that had not changed.

Her left hand lay outside the covers, two fingers splinted and taped.

‘What happened?' Brunetti asked.

Rizzardi lowered the clipboard and returned it to its place at the foot of the bed. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘All I've seen is this.' He tapped the paper. Taking Brunetti by the arm, he moved him away from the bed.

‘Favaro said it looked as if she had been beaten. Her injuries are consistent with that idea.' His voice was soft, cool, instructive.

Brunetti glanced across the room and took another look at the woman's face and hand. ‘And if I said it, too?' he asked, having seen the results of many beatings in his career.

Rizzardi gave a relaxed shrug and said, voice warming in response to Brunetti's question, ‘I'd agree with you.'

Before Brunetti could add anything, the door opened and Pucetti came in. He looked at the two men, at the woman, then back at Rizzardi. The doctor nodded to him, reminding Brunetti they had met that morning, when Pucetti had accompanied Signora Cavanella to the morgue.

‘What happened, Dottore?' the young officer asked, voice lowered. ‘Is she all right?' His concern could not have been more audible.

‘The ambulance crew brought her in three hours ago. She might have a concussion: she hit her head. You see her fingers: they've been crushed. And she hit her face,' Rizzardi said. ‘She might have fallen.' Brunetti was interested in the description he gave, which was utterly devoid of reference to human agency of any sort.

‘
Oddio
,' Pucetti said. He remained motionless, just inside the door. Then, with a shake, as if bringing himself back to normal, he asked Brunetti, ‘Should I go and talk to the crew?'

‘Good idea,' Brunetti said, then to Rizzardi, ‘Is she all right alone?'

‘Of course,' Rizzardi said, with that complete confidence with which doctors comment on uncertain things.

Realizing it would be difficult to talk in the same room as the woman, Brunetti said, ‘Let's get a coffee,' then, to Pucetti, ‘Come and find us in the bar after you talk to them, all right?'

‘Yes, sir,' Pucetti said and, with one more glance in the woman's direction, was gone as hurriedly as he had entered.

Both men left the room very quietly, as people always do when they are in a hospital. As they went along the hallway, back towards the bar in the entrance corridor, Brunetti asked, his voice returned to normal volume, ‘What do you think happened?' Rizzardi said nothing for a while until Brunetti added, ‘Between us, that is.'

Rizzardi smiled and answered, ‘I don't mind telling you. I'm thinking about the possibilities, not about the risk of giving an opinion.' He paused when they reached the courtyard, where the rain had grown even heavier.

The trees were still fully leaved; the rain had not succeeded in bringing down many of them. It occurred to Brunetti that the leaves should all be on the ground by this time of year.

‘I suppose you've seen similar cases,' Rizzardi said, standing with his hands in his pockets and watching two cats sleeping on the low stone wall. ‘They could be defence wounds, or perhaps she hurt her fingers trying to break her fall. There's the blow to the head, but it could be that her head hit the wall, or a step, when she fell. There are the wounds on her face: on the left side, which means they came from a right-handed person – if someone did hit her – but that sort of bruising is common in a fall.'

One of the cats opened its eyes, stood, and arched its back before lying down again and lapsing instantly into profound sleep. ‘There might be some other explanation. The ambulance crew might know something, or she might tell us when she wakes up.' Turning to Brunetti, he asked, ‘What's it look like to you?'

Brunetti ran his right hand through his hair and found it still damp. He wiped his hand on his trousers and continued towards the bar. ‘I've seen enough of them, usually women who get beaten by their boyfriends or husbands. This could be one of scores of cases. It's got all the signs: the head, the face, the fingers.'

In the bar he ordered two coffees without having to ask Rizzardi what he wanted.

When the coffee came, Rizzardi took a sip, then said, ‘I hit a man once. Once in my life. But I can't imagine hitting a woman.'

‘Why'd you hit him?' Brunetti asked.

‘Oh, it was just a thing,' Rizzardi said.

Brunetti turned and stared at him. ‘Everything's a
thing
, Ettore. Why'd you hit him?'

‘I was on a vaporetto,' Rizzardi began. He picked up his coffee, studied what was left in the cup, swirled it around a few times, and finished it. ‘There was a man standing to my left. And in front of him was a little girl. Well, maybe not so little. She was maybe thirteen, so, yes, she was still a little girl. When he thought no one was looking, he leaned sideways and put his hand on her ass and squeezed it. And he left his hand there. I watched her, pretty little girl, wearing a dress. It was summer, so it was a light dress.'

Rizzardi set his cup back in the saucer and turned to look at Brunetti. ‘The girl looked at him, but he kept his hand there and smiled at her. She was terrified, embarrassed, ashamed.' He turned to the barman and asked for a glass of mineral water, then turned back to Brunetti. ‘So I hit him. Made a fist and hit him in the stomach. I'm a doctor, so I didn't want to risk hitting his head or his face: didn't want to break anything, or my hand, so I guess I didn't hit him very hard. But hard enough.'

The water came. Rizzardi picked it up and drank half. ‘He doubled over, and when his head was about the level of my knees, I bent down and said, “You ever do that again, I'll kill you.”' He sighed. ‘I never did anything like that in my life, let myself lose control.'

‘What did he do?' Brunetti asked.

‘He got off at the next stop. I never saw him again.'

‘And the girl?'

Rizzardi's face lit up. ‘She said, “Thank you, Signore” and smiled at me.' Rizzardi's face was transformed by a smile. ‘I've never been so proud of myself in my entire life.' He waited a few seconds before adding, ‘I know I should be ashamed, but I'm not.'

‘Would you do it again?' Brunetti asked.

‘In a heartbeat,' Rizzardi answered and laughed.

Pucetti arrived just then and stood amazed: like Brunetti, in all these years, he had never heard Rizzardi laugh.

Glad of the chance to move away from what Rizzardi had told him, Brunetti asked, ‘What did they say?'

‘The call came from a man who passed her on the street, over near the Zattere. He said there was a woman sitting on the steps of a building, with blood on her face. He tried to talk to her, but she didn't seem to understand him, so he called for the ambulance.'

‘Do they have his name?'

‘Yes, sir. He stayed there until they came.'

‘Did he tell them anything else?'

‘Nothing. Just that he was on his way home, and he saw this woman.'

‘Did she say anything?'

‘She told them she fell down.'

‘If I had ten Euros for every time I've heard that one, I could retire,' Rizzardi interrupted to say and asked Pucetti if he'd like a coffee.

Pucetti stared at Rizzardi and did not answer, then said he didn't want a coffee.

Brunetti paid and they left the bar, walked past the courtyard, and back to Pronto Soccorso. This time, Brunetti raised his hand to the man behind the window, who waved back and smiled.

Brunetti opened the door to the room and saw that the woman's eyes were open. But by the time the three men were near the bed, they were closed again.

‘Signora,' Brunetti said. There was no response.

Rizzardi, obviously deciding to stay out of this, said nothing.

Pucetti leaned down and said softly, ‘Signora Ana. It's me, Roberto.' He placed his right hand on her upper arm. ‘Signora, can you hear me?'

Slowly, she opened her eyes and, seeing his face so close to hers, smiled.

‘Don't try to talk, Signora. Everything's all right, everything's going to be all right.'

‘Could you ask her . . .' Brunetti began.

Pucetti stood upright and turned to Brunetti. ‘I think she's had enough, Commissario. Don't you?' Then, including Rizzardi, he said, ‘I think we all ought to get out of here and let her rest.'

Brunetti backed away from him and raised his hands, palms open; in the voice of a man struggling to save face or reputation, he added, ‘She's had too much. You're right.' He turned and headed for the door. As he passed Rizzardi, he said, ‘Come on, Ettore. Pucetti's right.'

The two men went and stood by the door. Pucetti bent down and placed his hand on the woman's arm again. ‘Try to get some sleep now, Signora. I'll come back when I can.' When she started to speak, he held up one finger, as if he wanted to place it gently on her lips, and said, ‘No, not now. Everything can wait. Just sleep now. And get better.' He gave her arm the gentlest of squeezes and moved away from the bed, very slowly, turning at the door as if to see that she was still all right.

The three men left the room; Pucetti was careful to pull the door closed very quietly.