A Question of Belief by Donna Leon

Author:Donna Leon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Venice (Italy), Mystery & Detective, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780099547624
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-09-15T10:21:15.867000+00:00

17

‘Oh, Guido, how incredibly ridiculous. I think the heat’s got to you, really I do.’ His mother-in-law, it seemed, was going to present obstacles to her enlistment. She sat opposite him, dressed in a white linen shirt worn over black silk slacks. She had recently had her hair cut boyishly short, and Brunetti could not shake the idea that, seen from the back, she would look like a white-haired adolescent. Her motions were still quick and decisive, definitely the gestures of a younger person. The fact that he often had trouble keeping up with her when they walked Brunetti attributed to her small size: this made it easier for her to pass through crowded streets, and there was no other kind in Venice any more.

He sat, late that same afternoon, his second spritz on the low table in front of him, watching the reflection of the setting sun in the windows of the palazzo opposite Palazzo Falier. It was the first time he had relaxed all day; Brunetti put this down to the drinks and to the lofty ceilings that kept the rooms cool no matter what the outside temperature, and to the breeze that played perpetually through the windows. He sat and watched the curtains fluttering in and out, in and out, and thought of how he could convince her to consult Signor Gorini.

‘It would help Vianello,’ he said, though she had met the Ispettore only once, and then on the street for a total of two minutes.

She glanced at him but did not bother to answer. She leaned forward and sipped at her spritz, her first, and set the glass back on the table. Small wrinkles radiated out from her eyes, but the skin was taut over her cheekbones and under her chin. From Paola, Brunetti knew that this was the result of genes and not the surgeon’s knife.

‘And it might help this old woman,’ he said.

‘One old woman helping another?’ she inquired lightly.

He laughed, knowing that her age was a subject about which she was not sensitive. ‘No, not at all. It’s more a case of a woman of the upper classes helping one of the worthy poor.’

‘And me without my lorgnette and tiara.’

‘No, I’m serious, Donatella. No one is going to help this woman. Someone’s manipulating her, but she’s refused to listen to her family, so they can’t help her. Her banker apparently can’t talk any sense into her. And if she knew we were investigating this Gorini – which is entirely against the rules, probably even illegal – I’m sure she’d break off relations with Vianello. And that would hurt him terribly, I know.’

‘So it becomes the responsibility of the aristocracy to save a member of the lower orders?’ she asked, her voice enclosing that last phrase in ironic quotation marks.

‘Something like that, I suppose,’ Brunetti said and took another sip of his drink.

‘Do you have proof that this Gorini person is a charlatan?’

‘He has a long record of dishonesty.’

‘Ah,’ she whispered, ‘not unlike our own dear leaders.

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