‘I prefer to phone people, anyway,’ he added.
‘Of course,’ she answered, involuntarily raising her eyes to heaven at the very idea that a person existed who still believed that phones were safe.
‘What will you do?’ Brunetti asked.
The question seemed to energize her, as if having to give a response unleashed her to think and to act. ‘If my friend can tell me where the mail came from, then I’ll have some idea how to treat it. It might just be a case of innocent fishing; some hacker kid who wants to play policeman. I hope it’s that.’
Brunetti decided not to ask her what else it might be. Changing the subject, he said, ‘I have a favour to ask you.’ He took her glance for assent and continued. ‘Could you have a look at a Contessa Lando-Continui? Demetriana.’ To make his request clear, he nodded in the direction of the computer as he spoke.
Curiosity filled her face. ‘If I’m thinking about the one you are, she’s eighty if she’s a day.’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘She’s a close friend of Paola’s mother, so I have to be very careful with her. She wants to talk to me.’
Again Signorina Elettra’s face lit up with curiosity. ‘I have a vague memory that something bad happened in her family.’ She paused, waiting for memory, and continued when it arrived. ‘To her granddaughter. A long time ago. She drowned or something.’
Surprised, Brunetti said, ‘I don’t know anything. Vianello remembered that there was something unpleasant, but not what it was.’
‘Drowning certainly is.’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti agreed, thought of his family and did his best to try not to. ‘Could you see what you can find?’
‘Of course. Is there any hurry?’
‘It can wait until your hunt through the offices of the Ministry of the Interior leaves you some time,’ he answered.
She nodded and dropped her chin into her hands again. Brunetti, seeing her lapse into a trance, decided to return to his office.
3
Brunetti told no one where he was going and took the Number One to San Stae, then made his way to Palazzo Bonaiuti, where Contessa Lando-Continui lived. A maid opened the door to the street and led him across the herringbone-patterned courtyard, where chrysanthemums still thrived against the east wall.
The outside stairway to the first floor was probably original to the palazzo, the lions’ heads worn smooth with age and rain and the caresses of centuries of hands. The maid stepped into the enormous entry hall and held the door open for him.
‘The Contessa will join you in the small reading room,’ she said and turned down the corridor. She stopped at the third door on the left and entered without bothering to knock. Brunetti followed her.
He had been in similar rooms countless times in the last decades. He saw the heavy-footed mahogany tables covered with books and flowers, portraits grown dark with age, tall bookshelves no doubt left untouched since the time of those ancestors, and deep and threateningly uncomfortable chairs.
Light entered from three windows on the far wall, but Brunetti had no idea which way they faced. Beyond them, at some distance, he saw the wall of a tall palazzo, its brick surface glowing in the richness of the setting sun. Instantaneous computation, the same skill with which pigeons are said to be graced, let Brunetti calculate that the windows looked over the courtyard of the Fondaco del Megio. He walked to one of them to make sure and noticed that the trees had started to toss away their leaves. Putting his face as close to the glass as possible, he looked to the left, to what he remembered was an enclosed sports field.
Behind him, a woman’s voice said, ‘Commissario?’
He turned quickly and saw Contessa Lando-Continui in the doorway. She was less imposing than she had been the previous evening, today deprived of the evidence of centuries of good taste that had stood guard around her in the borrowed room. He looked again: he saw a small old woman in a sober blue dress.
‘Good afternoon, Contessa,’ he said. Then, pointing out of the window, ‘I think I used to play soccer in that park down there.’ She looked at the window but made no move to approach. ‘A long time ago,’ he added with a smile. He walked towards her, and she offered him her hand. Though his easily enveloped hers, her grip was firm.
In a face less tense, her expression would have been friendly and welcoming: what Brunetti saw was a pro forma smile. ‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ she said.