The Golden Egg by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online Page B

answered. ‘She can hear and she can speak. But all she did was ask me why I was there.’
    â€˜Did you tell her you were a policeman?’
    â€˜Yes. I told her on the phone, and again when I went there.’
    â€˜Then why wouldn’t she talk to you?’
    â€˜Fear of the police, shock, grief, you name it,’ he answered. ‘You know people don’t like to talk to us.’
    â€˜But she came to the door?’ Paola asked, and when he seemed confused by the question, she added, ‘Or else how could she have shut it in your face?’
    â€˜I told you: it was all very strange,’ Brunetti repeated.
    â€˜How did he die?’ she asked.
    â€˜He took sleeping pills,’ Brunetti said, seeing no reason to tell her more.
    The information stunned her. ‘You mean he killed himself?’
    Brunetti shrugged. ‘He could have taken them accidentally . But they killed him.’
    Paola said nothing for a very long time, then finally asked, ‘Are you going to have to talk to her?’
    â€˜I just tried to, but she wouldn’t speak to me.’
    â€˜No, I mean talk to her officially,’ Paola clarified. ‘As the police. Are you obliged to because he died like that?’ He had seen no report from the men from the ambulance, which meant it was probably bogged down on someone’s desk; he’d locate it in the morning.
    â€˜Yes. In a case like this, we’d usually want to exclude the possibility of suicide.’ She gave him a strange look but said nothing. She took the leaves out of the spinner and put them in a large salad bowl. In an ordinary voice, she said, ‘Would you get me a glass of wine?’
    â€˜White?’
    She looked out the window before she answered, in the direction of the Dolomites, though they were hidden by the combination of pollution and fog that descended
on the Veneto for a good portion of the year. ‘No, I think it’s time to start drinking red again,’ she said, and bent to pull a frying pan out of the cabinet.
    Brunetti did as he was told and chose a bottle of simple Cabernet. White might have been better as a follow-up to the spritz, but if Paola wanted red, then red it would be.
    She put the frying pan on the stove, glanced at her watch, and took the glass he offered her. She sipped, nodded her thanks, and asked, ‘You think there’s time to watch the sun set?’
    It had already happened when they got to the living room, so they contented themselves with sitting on the sofa and watching the light disappear in the west. Before Brunetti could do the husbandly thing and ask Paola how her day had been, she said, ‘Her behaviour’s strange, isn’t it?’
    Superstition stopped him from asking Paola how she would behave if she were to lose her son; indeed, it banished the question even before it was fully formed in his mind. ‘How’s she supposed to behave?’ Brunetti asked. ‘I don’t know if he’s her only son, or only child.’ He considered this, then said, ‘Not that it matters, does it?’
    Eyes still on the light that continued to diminish beyond the rooftops, she shook her head and sipped at her wine.
    Brunetti began to wonder how much of their interest, now, was concern and how much was curiosity and why one was noble and the other base. Before he married and became a father, he was able to mouth platitudes about how horrible the death of a child must be for a parent, but now he could not say those things, nor could he allow himself to think of them. Like a medieval peasant, he refused to open his door to the carrier of plague.
    The light grew dimmer still. Paola looked into her glass and said, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. About suicide.’ She took a very small sip. ‘I wonder if it’s possible that he got to the point where his life was so bad, he couldn’t stand it any more?’
    Brunetti thought about this