Falling in Love (17 page)

17

Flavia leaned forward, rested her elbows on the dressing table, and lowered her head into her hands. Brunetti heard her mutter something but couldn’t make out the words. He waited. From beside her, he saw her shake her head a few times, and then she sat up and looked at him. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, then looked at him and said, voice not as steady as it had been, ‘That’s just cheap melodrama, isn’t it? Of course I believe this is happening: that’s what’s so horrible.’

Brunetti, much as he would have liked to offer her comfort, refused to lie to her. The brief conversation between Flavia and Francesca, containing nothing more than a compliment about the girl’s talent, was perhaps the link to the attack on the bridge. ‘
È mia
.’ Did a polite compliment lead to this assertion of absolute possession, and was any person in whom Flavia showed interest to be put in danger?

Brunetti had been fortunate in his career in that, regardless of how many bad and very bad people he had been forced to encounter in his years of police work, he had rarely had to deal with the mad. The behaviour of the bad made sense: they wanted money or power or revenge or someone else’s wife, and they wanted them for reasons that another person could understand. Further, there was usually a connection between them and their victims: rivals, partners, enemies, relatives, husband and wife. Find a person who stood to gain – and not only in the financial sense – from the death or injury of the victim and put some pressure on that connection or start to wind in the connecting line, and very often the returning tug would lead to the person responsible. There had always been a line: the secret was to find it.

Here, however, the reason might have been nothing more than a casual conversation, a bit of praise, a bit of encouragement, the sort of thing any generous-spirited person would give to a young woman at the beginning of her career. This appeared to have provoked rage against the girl sufficient to cause violence.

‘What do I do?’ Flavia asked at last, and Brunetti withdrew from his speculations to return to her. ‘I can’t live like this,’ she said, ‘trapped between this little room and my apartment. I don’t want to be afraid of everyone I see coming close to me on the street.’

‘And if I said you’re not likely to be in danger?’ Brunetti asked.

‘My friends are, anyone I speak to is. Isn’t that the same thing?’

Only to the purest of Christian spirits, Brunetti thought, but did not say. Over the years, he had seen diverse reactions to physical danger. So long as it is speculative, we respond as heroes, lions; in the face of real physical danger, we become mice.

‘Flavia,’ he began, ‘I don’t think this person wants to harm you; he or she wants to love you. And be respected, or loved, by you.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ she spat. ‘It’s better to be harmed. Cleaner.’

‘Stop it, Flavia, would you?’ he said so sharply he surprised even himself.

Her mouth and eyes flew open and stayed that way for seconds. ‘What?’ she began, and he feared she’d tell him to leave.

‘It’s not better to be harmed. Think of that girl, with a broken arm and stitches in her head, and God knows what fear. Most things are better than that. So stop it, would you? Please.’

He’d gone too far. He knew it but he didn’t care. Either she could stop the melodrama, leave it on the stage and behave like an adult, or . . . That was the part he couldn’t be sure about: what would happen if she stuck to big statements and grand gestures? He remembered her as being far more sensible than this, far closer to the earth in terms of practical realities.

She picked up the comb and used the sharp tip to move aside the blue wrapping paper, again exposing the necklace. She stared at it, then shifted to the side of her chair to allow Brunetti a clear view of the jewels.

‘Only a person who’s crazy would give that to someone they don’t know and have never met,’ she said. ‘Do you think he,’ she began, paused and added, ‘– or she – really believes something like that would make me interested in them or make it not have happened, what he did to that poor girl?’

‘We’re not sharing the same reality with this person, Flavia,’ Brunetti said. ‘The rules you use to talk to me or to your dresser or your colleagues don’t apply here.’

‘Which ones do?’

Brunetti raised his hands in the universal gesture of ignorance. ‘I have no idea. They’re the ones this person makes.’

She leaned forward to look at the watch on the dressing table and said, ‘It’s almost midnight. God, I hope we’re not locked in here.’

‘Don’t they have a watchman?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, after the fire, they do, and he really has to walk around the building, or at least that’s what they’ve told me.’

‘Shall we go, then?’ Brunetti asked. ‘I’ll walk you home.’

She looked at him, confused. ‘I thought it was more convenient for you to walk to Rialto.’

Casually, as though he believed it, Brunetti said, ‘It’s only a few minutes’ difference if I take the Accademia.’ Then, before she could question him, he said, ‘Come on. Let’s go. You’ve spent enough time in this place today.’

She held up her watch again. ‘It’s already tomorrow.’

He smiled and repeated, ‘Come on. Get dressed and we’ll go.’

She went into the bathroom, and he heard the familiar feminine noises: water splashing in the sink, a dropped shoe, a few clicks and clacks, and then the door opened and she was there: brown skirt and sweater, low-heeled shoes, and light makeup. Brunetti gave thanks that he lived in a country where a woman who had just spoken of being in fear of her life would put on eyeliner and lipstick for a ten-minute walk across a deserted city after midnight.

It took them some time to figure out what to do with the necklace, but she finally succeeded in wrapping the package in a white towel and shoving it into a plastic bag. That in its turn went into a dark green canvas shoulder bag he recognized as being from Daunt’s bookshop in London. Flavia passed it to him and he strung it over his shoulder.

She led the way back down the corridor to the elevator. As they were waiting for it to come, her phone buzzed in the pocket of her jacket: neither of them managed to disguise their shock. She grabbed the phone and looked at it. The name she saw there softened her expression. She glanced at Brunetti and said, ‘Freddy’, then answered by saying, ‘
Ciao
, Freddy’ in an entirely natural voice: happy, calm, curious.

The doors to the elevator slid open and they stepped inside. ‘I know. I know. I’m sorry I didn’t call, but the place was filled with fans, and I had to sign programmes and discs for ever.’ Long silence. ‘I know I said I would, but there were so many of them, and it made me so happy to see them there that I forgot about it entirely. I’m sorry, Freddy; really I am.’ Freddy spoke for some time, and she said, ‘I’m just leaving now.’

The elevator stopped. The doors opened. She stepped into the corridor and turned, waiting for Brunetti to get out; she put her hand on his arm to stop him from continuing towards the exit. ‘There’s no need for you to worry, Freddy. I couldn’t be in safer company. Guido Brunetti – he said he was at school with you – came back after, and I’ve been talking to him.’ More silence. ‘Yes, I told him everything the other night, so he came along after the performance. He’s leaving with me.’ She looked at Brunetti, who nodded.

‘No, Freddy, don’t bother. He said he’d walk me home.’ She lowered her face and turned a bit aside. ‘No, really, Freddy, you don’t have to.’ Suddenly, she started to laugh, nothing faked or forced about it.

‘Oh, you are a goose. You always were one. All right, at the top of the bridge. But if you’re wearing your pyjamas, I’ll know you were lying.’

She clicked off the phone and returned it to her pocket. Where did she keep that, he wondered, during a performance? ‘He was worried,’ she said in explanation. ‘But you heard it all. He said he was still up and would meet us on the bridge so you didn’t have to take me all the way home. He was always a worrier, Freddy,’ she added and continued towards the exit.

They found the watchman sitting inside the
portiere
’s enclosure, drinking from the metal top of his thermos, a half-eaten sandwich in front of him. ‘Good evening, Signora,’ he said. ‘There were lots of people here tonight, waiting for you.’ With his cup he toasted the empty space just to the side of his booth. ‘But they all went home.’

Turning to Brunetti, she said, her own surprise audible, ‘I’ve never done that before, just forgotten about them.’ The guard gave Brunetti a closer look and, when Brunetti met his gaze, took a sip from his cup.

Flavia shrugged. ‘Can’t be undone,’ she muttered, said goodnight to the watchman, and pushed open the door to the
calle
. Outside, she turned to the right and headed towards Campo San Fantin. He was about to tell her they should have turned left but then thought of the
calle
he would have led them to, narrow and dark. She turned at the hotel, and Brunetti was happy enough to let her lead the way. There had been no one standing in the
calle
outside the theatre, though that probably didn’t mean much: she would have to cross the Ponte dell’Accademia to get home. Freddy would meet them there, but that was also the place anyone else who was waiting for her would be.

Since the city illumination had been changed about a decade ago, Brunetti had grumbled about how bright the night had become: some of his friends complained that they could read in bed with the light that came in the windows. But here, nearing the underpass that would lead them to the narrow
calle
into Campo Sant’Angelo, Brunetti was relieved at the brightness.

They emerged into the
campo
and she asked, ‘Do you often do this?’

‘What? Walk women home?’

‘No. Stay out after midnight without having to call home.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Paola is just as happy to sit alone and read.’

‘Than to have you there?’ she asked, her surprise audible.

‘No, she’d rather have me there, and she’ll probably stay up until I get home. But if she’s reading, it doesn’t make much difference who’s around her: she ignores them.’

‘Why?’

It was a question he’d heard a number of times. To serious readers like him and Paola, reading was an activity, not a pastime, and so the presence of another person added nothing to it. The children distracted Brunetti; he envied Paola her ability to disappear into the text, leaving them all behind. But he knew most people saw this as strange, almost inhuman, and so he said, ‘She was raised that way, reading alone, so it’s her habit.’

‘Did she grow up there?’ Flavia asked. ‘In the
palazzo
?’

‘Yes, she lived there until her last year of university – that’s when I met her – but then she went away to finish her studies.’

‘She didn’t stay here?’ she asked.

‘No.’ He wondered what his own children would decide to do, and soon.

‘Where did she go?’

‘Oxford.’

‘In England?’ Flavia asked, stopping to face him.

‘Not in Mississippi,’ Brunetti answered, as he often had.

‘Excuse me?’ she asked, obviously confused.

‘There’s a university in Oxford in Mississippi,’ Brunetti explained.

‘Oh, I see,’ Flavia said and began walking again. ‘You met her and then she went away. For how long?’

‘Only a year and a half.’

‘“Only”?’

‘The course was meant to last three, but she finished it in half the time.’

‘How?’

Brunetti smiled as he said, ‘I suppose she read very fast.’

Flavia stopped beside the
edicola
, closed now, just at the entrance to Campo Santo Stefano. There were few people and all were in motion, he noticed; no one seemed to be standing still, waiting to see who came in from the direction of the theatre. In a very untheatrical gesture, she tipped up her chin towards the statue in the centre and everything surrounding it. ‘This is all normal for you?’ she asked, using the plural.

‘I suppose it is. We saw it as kids, on the way to school, going to see friends, walking home from the movies. Nothing more true than this.’

‘You think it’s why you are the way you are?’

‘Who? Venetians?’

‘Yes.’

‘How are we?’ he asked, expecting her to talk about their fabled aloofness, their arrogance, their greed.

‘Sad,’ she said.

‘Sad?’ He could not keep the surprise, and the resistance, from his voice.

‘Yes. You had all of this, and now all you have is the memory of it.’

‘What do you mean?’

She started walking again. ‘I’ve been here almost a month, and all I hear in the bars, where people chat and say what they’re really thinking because they’re talking to other Venetians, is how terrible it all is: the crowds, the corruption, the cruise ships, the general cheapening of everything.’ They were just at Palazzo Franchetti, and she pointed to the windows: stone woven into gossamer, the light filtering through from the other side of the canal. The gates closed off the garden and the building.