a wedding ring. He noticed that the warmth had caused the flood of colour to recede from her cheeks.
‘Is that why you’re here?’ Brunetti finally asked: ‘to see where I work?’
‘No, not at all,’ she answered and leaned aside to place her purse on the floor. When she looked up, he thought he saw a certain tension in her face, but then he abandoned the idea: her emotions registered only in her voice, rich and deep and as lovely as any he had ever heard.
Brunetti crossed his legs and put an interested half-smile on his face. He had outwaited masters, and he could out-wait her if he had to.
‘It’s really about my husband that I’ve come,’ she said. ‘His business.’
Brunetti nodded, saying nothing.
‘Last night at dinner, he told me that someone has been trying to get into the records of some of his companies.’
‘Do you mean a break-in?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew she did not.
Her lips moved and her voice softened. ‘No, no, not at all. I should have been clearer. He told me that one of his computer people – I know they have titles, these people, but I don’t know what they are – told him yesterday that there was evidence that someone had broken into their computers.’
‘And stolen something?’ Brunetti asked. Then he said, meaning it, ‘I have to confess that I’m probably not the right person to bring this to. I mean I don’t have a very sophisticated understanding of what people can do with computers.’ He smiled to show his good faith.
‘But you know the law, don’t you?’ she asked.
‘About things like this?’ Brunetti asked, and at her nod, was forced to say, ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. A magistrate would be a better person to ask, or a lawyer.’ Then, as if the idea had just come to him, he said, ‘Surely, your husband must have a lawyer he could ask.’
She looked at her hands, neatly folded in her lap, and said, ‘Yes, he does. But he told me he doesn’t want to ask him. In fact, after he told me about this, he said in essence that he doesn’t want to do anything about it.’ She looked up at Brunetti.
‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Brunetti said, meeting her eyes.
‘The man who told him, this computer person, said that all the person did was open some files that held his bank statements and property holdings, as if they were trying to find out what he owned and what it was worth.’ Again, she looked at her hands, and when Brunetti followed her glance, he saw that they were the hands of a young woman. ‘The man told him,’ she went on, ‘that it could have been an investigation by the Guardia di Finanza.’
‘May I ask why you’re here, then?’ he asked, his curiosity not at all forced.
Her lips were full, red, and as he watched, her top teeth rubbed across the bottom one nervously in a kind of harmless chewing. The young hand brushed away a strand of pale hair that had strayed across her cheek, and he caught himself wondering if her skin still had normal sensitivity or if she had known it was there only because it had fallen across her eye.
After some time – and Brunetti had the feeling she had to find the right way to explain it even to herself – she said, ‘I’m worried about why he doesn’t want to do anything about it.’ Before Brunetti could ask, she went on, ‘What happened is illegal. Well, I assume it is. It’s an invasion, in a way; a break-in. My husband told the computer man he would take care of it, but I know he’s not going to do anything about it.’
‘I’m still not sure I understand why you’ve come to talk to me,’ Brunetti said. ‘I can’t do anything about it unless your husband makes a formal denuncia. And then a magistrate would have to examine the facts, the evidence, and see if a crime has taken place and, if so, what sort of crime, or how serious a crime.’ He leaned forward and said, speaking as to a friend, ‘And all of that would take some time, I’m afraid.’
‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I don’t want that to happen. If my husband doesn’t want to pursue it, that’s his decision. What I’m afraid of is why he doesn’t want to.’ Her glance was level when she said, ‘And I thought I could ask you.’ She did not