A Question of Belief - By Donna Leon Page 0,60

Vianello, who had taken a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket and was preparing to take notes. After thanking her for having agreed to speak to them, he said, ‘We’d like to confirm the time you and your husband came home the other night.’

‘Why is it necessary that you ask again?’ she sounded honestly confused rather than irritated. ‘We’ve already told those other officers.’

Easily, fluidly, Brunetti lied, smiling as he did so. ‘There was a discrepancy of half an hour in what the Lieutenant and one of the officers remembered your saying, Signora. Only for that.’

She thought for a moment before she answered. ‘It must have been five or ten minutes after midnight,’ she said. ‘We heard the midnight bells from La Madonna dell’Orto when we turned off from Strada Nuova, so however long it took to walk from there.’

‘And you saw nothing unusual when you got back here?’

‘No.’

Mildly, he asked, ‘Could you tell me where you’d been, Signora?’

She was surprised by the question, which suggested to Brunetti that Alvise had not bothered to ask. She gave a small smile and said, ‘After dinner, we tried to watch television, but it was too hot, and everything we looked at was too stupid, so we decided to go for a walk. Besides,’ she said, her voice softening, ‘it’s the only time, really, that a person can walk in the city without having to dodge the tourists.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Brunetti saw Vianello nod in agreement.

‘Indeed,’ said Brunetti with a complicit smile. He looked around the apartment, at the high ceilings and linen curtains, suddenly struck by how very attractive it was. ‘Could you tell me how long you’ve lived here, Signora?’

‘Five years,’ she answered with a smile, not unresponsive to the compliment implied in his glance.

‘How did you find such a lovely place?’

The temperature of her voice lowered and she said, ‘My husband knew someone who told him about it.’

‘I see. Thank you,’ Brunetti said, and then asked, ‘How long have Signora Fontana and her son lived here?’

She glanced at one of the paintings, one that was distinguished by the thickness of the swath of yellow across its middle, then back at Brunetti, and said, ‘I think three or four years.’ She did not smile, but her face softened, either because she had decided she liked Brunetti or, just as easily, because he had moved away from the question of how they had found their apartment.

‘Did you know either of them well?’

‘Oh, no, not more than the way one knows one’s neighbours,’ she said. ‘We’d meet on the stairs or coming into the courtyard.’

‘Did you ever visit either one of them in their apartment?’

‘Heavens no,’ she said, obviously shocked by the very possibility. ‘My husband’s a bank director.’

Brunetti nodded, quite as though this were the most normal response he had ever heard to such a question.

‘Has anyone in the building, perhaps someone in the neighbourhood, ever spoken to you about either of them?’

‘Signora Fontana and her son?’ she asked, as if they had been speaking of some other people.

‘Yes.’

She glanced aside to another painting, this one with two vertical slashes of red running through a field of white, and said, ‘No, not that I can remember.’ She gave a small motion of her lips that was perhaps meant to serve as a smile or was perhaps the result of looking at the painting.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, deciding that to continue to speak to her was to continue to go nowhere. ‘Thank you for your time,’ he said in a terminal voice.

She stood in a single graceful motion, while both he and a visibly surprised Vianello had to push themselves up from the sofa by using the armrests.

At the door, pleasantries were kept to a minimum; as they started down the steps, they heard the door close behind them. No sooner had it done so, than Vianello said, voice expressing shocked disapproval, ‘ “Heavens no. My husband’s a bank director.” ’

‘A bank director with very good taste in decorating,’ added Brunetti.

‘Excuse me?’ came Vianello’s puzzled response.

‘No one who wore that blouse could have chosen those curtains,’ Brunetti said, adding to Vianello’s confusion.

On the first floor, he stopped at the door and rang the bell marked Marsano. After a long delay, a woman’s voice from inside asked who it was.

‘Polizia,’ Brunetti answered. He thought he heard footsteps moving away from the door and at last heard what sounded like a child’s voice asking, ‘Who is it?’ From behind