wine.
If the normal number of clients had been there, Penzo’s voice would have been drowned out, so softly did he say, ‘He was.’
‘I’m glad that’s true,’ Brunetti replied. ‘It makes his death worse. But it makes his life better.’
Penzo raised his head slowly and looked at Brunetti. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘That his goodness must have made his life better,’ Brunetti repeated.
‘And his death worse?’ Penzo asked.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘But that’s not what counts, is it? It’s the life that went before that’s important. And what people will remember.’
‘All people will remember,’ Penzo said in a voice that was no less fierce for being so soft, almost a whisper, ‘is that he was gay and was killed by some trick he brought back to his home for sex in the courtyard.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti said, unable to disguise his astonishment. ‘Where did you hear something like that?’
‘In the Tribunale, in the offices, in the corridors. That’s what people are saying. That he was a fag who liked dangerous sex and that he was killed by one of his anonymous tricks.’
‘That’s absurd,’ Brunetti said.
‘Of course it’s absurd,’ Penzo hissed. ‘But that doesn’t stop people from saying it, and it won’t stop them from believing it.’ There was rage in his voice but Penzo had returned his attention to his plate so Brunetti could not study his expression.
In other circumstances, hearing his tone, Brunetti would have been compelled to place a comforting hand on the arm of the speaker, but he stopped himself from making the gesture from some vague sense that it would be misunderstood. In a flash, Brunetti realized what that must mean and decided to risk any chance of trust on one word and said, ‘You must have loved him very much.’
Penzo raised his head and stared at Brunetti like a man who has been shot. His face was blank, scrubbed of all expression by Brunetti’s words. He tried to speak, and Brunetti read the history of years of denial that spurred him to look puzzled and ask whatever could Brunetti mean by saying such a thing: the habit of caution that had trained him to treat Fontana’s name as though it were any other name, the man just like any other colleague.
‘We met in liceo. That was almost forty years ago,’ Penzo said and picked up his water. He put his head back and swallowed it all in four long gulps. Then, as if the water had restored his conversation with Brunetti to the most businesslike of events, he asked, ‘What did you want to know about him, Commissario?’
Just as if he had not asked Penzo his previous question, Brunetti asked, ‘Do you have any idea why Signor Fontana argued with his neighbours?’
Instead of answering, Penzo said, ‘Could you get me another glass of water, please?’ When Brunetti started to move towards the bar, Penzo added, ‘You can bring the Inspector back with you.’
Brunetti did both things. When Penzo had drunk half of the water he set the glass down and said to Brunetti, ‘Araldo told me that he thought the people who lived in those apartments – both of them – had got them in return for doing favours for the landlord.’
‘Signor Puntera?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes.’
Penzo looked at the ground and said, ‘It’s very complicated.’
Brunetti lifted his chin in Vianello’s direction, and the Inspector said, ‘We’re not in any hurry, Avvocato. Take all the time you need.’
Penzo, his lips tight, nodded. He looked at Brunetti and said, ‘I’m not sure where to begin.’
‘With his mother,’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Yes,’ Penzo said with a bitter little shrug, ‘with his mother.’ He went on. ‘She’s a widow. If ever a woman had a profession, hers was widowhood. Araldo was only eighteen when his father died, and because he was the only child, he assumed that it was his responsibility to take care of his mother. His father had been a clerk; at first there was some money, but his mother quickly went through that. She spent it to keep up appearances. Araldo was supposed to go to university: we were both going to study law. But when the money was gone, he had to take a job, and his mother thought the safest thing was to become a civil servant, as his father had been.’
‘So he became a clerk at the Tribunale?’ supplied Brunetti.
‘Yes. And worked and rose and was promoted and became – even he knew this – something of a joke for the seriousness with which he took