‘It’s sometimes difficult to know what he thinks,’ Signora Segalin said and flashed a small smile. ‘Because he speaks so little. And now that he and Signor Bianchi don’t seem to talk to one another any more, we can’t ask him to help us communicate with Signor Pozzi.’ She said this as one would speak of a spat between children.
Griffoni let out a little ‘oh’ of surprise. ‘I didn’t know they knew one another. Certainly Signor Bianchi didn’t mention him yesterday.’
‘I suppose he wouldn’t. Not now,’ Signora Segalin said. Like many people who worked with patients, she was glad to show how much she knew about their private lives, sure proof of her close involvement with them. ‘They’ve been good friends for years. They often ate together. But recently they’ve stopped speaking to one another or going to visit.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,’ Griffoni said, impressing even Brunetti with the sound of her sincerity. ‘I hope it doesn’t last.’
Signora Segalin smiled at this proof of the other woman’s goodwill. ‘Well, these things happen sometimes between patients, but they usually calm down after a while. I’m sure that will happen with them.’ She couldn’t have sounded more certain. ‘All they have is one another, in the end.’ She turned away and started down the corridor on the other side of the building from where they had been the previous day. They walked to the very end; Signora Segalin stopped in front of an open door and tapped a few times on the jamb, then entered and waved them in after her.
Aside from the heat, which enveloped them as soon as they entered the room from the air-conditioned corridor, they could have been visiting a celebrity in a hotel suite: there was a large bouquet of the by-now-familiar roses in a crystal vase, what looked like an Isfahan carpet on the parquet floor, and three prints of Longhi harlequins on the walls. Through a door, Brunetti glimpsed a carpeted bedroom and a brocade-covered bed. The same garden that spread out beyond the other wing of the building bloomed behind the windows in this room. It was hard to concentrate on details, however, so overwhelmed were they by the heat and humidity.
Upright on a grey velvet sofa sat a tall man of extraordinary thinness, his lap covered with a light blue cashmere blanket. His hair was dark brown with no sign of grey and cut close to his head. His eyes were an even darker brown and displayed absolutely no interest in them, nor in Signora Segalin. Two deep lines curved outward from either side of his nose and arched to below his mouth, but aside from them his face was almost entirely unlined. He appeared to be about ten years younger than Casati and Bianchi.
He wore striped pyjamas that had not been slept in under a dark blue dressing gown, with a paisley scarf tied at the open neck of his pyjama jacket. The sight of the woollen dressing gown made Brunetti reach up and loosen his tie. Pozzi’s hands lay folded in his lap. As they approached, Pozzi’s face remained calm, uninterested, his attention entirely absent.
Brunetti and Griffoni stopped a few metres from him, reacting automatically to the force field of indifference he projected. Signora Segalin either didn’t notice or didn’t care – perhaps she just wanted to introduce them quickly and escape the heat in the room – and continued until she stood near to where his feet would have been, had anything but the empty legs of the pyjamas been visible at the front of the sofa.
‘Signor Pozzi,’ Signora Segalin began, speaking with exaggerated clarity, ‘these are the people from social services who would like to talk to you.’ She stepped aside and motioned them forward, but neither of them moved.
Pozzi turned his head towards them; Brunetti noticed that his shoulders moved when his head did, as though his neck were not able to turn on its own. It gave him the look of a robot, some of whose parts had been scrapped.
Signora Segalin again motioned them forward, this time impatiently.
‘Perhaps Signor Pozzi feels more comfortable if we stay here,’ Griffoni suggested.
‘Nonsense,’ Signora Segalin said and busied herself moving chairs around until two of them stood facing Signor Pozzi, whose eyes had moved to Griffoni’s face. In her haste, Signora Segalin yanked one of the chairs into the edge of the carpet and stopped only when she could move the chair no farther. Saying nothing, Griffoni moved towards the chair and lifted it to allow the edge of the carpet to fall smooth again, then she smiled at Signor Pozzi and sat.
Brunetti nodded his greeting, pulled the second chair slightly farther away from Pozzi, and sat, careful to sit far back in the deep seat.
Signora Segalin glanced at her watch and asked Brunetti, ‘Would you like me to stay and help?’ as though she were a reluctant translator unable to disguise her eagerness to finish and leave.
‘That’s very kind of you, Signora,’ Griffoni said in her most polite voice. ‘But we’ve already taken up too much of your time.’ She stood and moved around behind her chair to enforce her words by taking Signora Segalin’s hand in both of hers to give it a squeeze that showed her thanks.
‘Well, then,’ Signora Segalin said, ‘I’ll leave you alone to talk.’ Then, to Pozzi, in what she tried to make sound like a friendly voice, ‘I hope you have a pleasant visit.’
The door closed, and the three of them sat, at least two of them beaten down by the heat. Brunetti and Griffoni let a few minutes pass by before she said, ‘Signor Pozzi, we’ve come to talk to you about the events that led to your coming here to Villa Flora. You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you?’
Pozzi nodded, bending his entire torso forward to do it.
Griffoni smiled her thanks for his answer and said, ‘You were working for GMC Holdings at the time, weren’t you?’
Pozzi considered her question for a long time and finally said, ‘CM.’
Brunetti restrained the impulse to look at Griffoni.
She smiled and said, ‘Excuse me?’
‘CM,’ Pozzi repeated. ‘GCM.’ His lips barely moved when he pronounced the letters and drew softly closed with the last.
‘Of course,’ Griffoni said, raising a hand to her forehead, as if to reprove her offending memory. ‘GCM.’
Pozzi nodded, again moving his body.
‘Were you working for GCM Holdings then? And thank you for the correction, Signor Pozzi.’
Brunetti watched the other man’s face, keeping a neutral expression on his own, even allowing his attention to appear to drift away. He looked around the room and became fully aware of the bookshelf behind Pozzi’s left shoulder.
He ran his eyes along the shelves, wondering what sort of books a crippled factory worker would find interesting, though he did not phrase it that way, not even to himself. The first thing he noticed was the height and thickness of most of the books, and then he adjusted his eyes to the distance and started to read the perpendicular titles: Goya, Tiziano, Velázquez, Holbein, Van Dyck, Moroni.