She turned, wondering who it was and how they had found her here. Just inside the door stood a man, tallish and heavily built, who looked vaguely familiar but whom she couldn’t place. One of the ward doctors? Worse, a reporter? He stood by the door, seeming to wait to be invited into the room and closer to Brett.
‘Good morning, signora,’ he said, not moving from the door. ‘I’m Guido Brunetti. We met a few years ago.’
It was that policeman, the one who had investigated the Wellauer affair at La Fenice. He had been not unintelligent, she recalled, and Brett, for reasons Flavia had never been able to fathom, had found him simpatico.
‘Good morning, Dottor Brunetti,’ Flavia answered formally, keeping her voice low. She stood, gave a look at Brett to see that she was still sleeping, and went over to where he stood. She extended her hand and he took it, shaking it briefly.
‘Did they assign you to this?’ she asked. As soon as she spoke, she realized how aggressive her question was and regretted it.
He ignored the tone and answered the question. ‘No, signora, I recognized Dottoressa Lynch’s name on the report of the assault, so I came to see how she was.’ Even before Flavia could remark on his slowness, he explained, ‘The case was given to someone else; I didn’t see the report until this morning.’ He looked over towards the sleeping woman, letting his glance ask the question.
‘Better,’ Flavia said. She stepped back and gestured for him to come closer to the bed. Brunetti walked across the room and stopped just behind Flavia’s chair. He set his briefcase on the floor, rested both hands on the back of the chair, and looked down at the face of the beaten woman. Finally, he asked, ‘What happened?’ He had read the report and the transcripts of the account Flavia had given, but he wanted to hear her version of it.
Flavia resisted the impulse to tell him that this was precisely what he was supposed to be finding out; instead, she explained, keeping her voice low, ‘Two men came to the apartment on Sunday. They said they were from the museum and had some papers for Brett. She answered the door. After she had been out in the hall with them a long time, I went to see what was keeping her, and I found her on the floor.’ As she spoke, he nodded; all of this was in the report she had given to two different policemen.
‘When I went out, I had a knife in my hand. I’d been chopping vegetables, and I simply forgot I had it. When I saw what they were doing, I didn’t think. I cut one of them. Very badly, on the arm. They ran out of the apartment.’
‘Robbery?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘It’s possible. But why would they have done that?’ she asked, waving her hand towards Brett.
He nodded again and muttered. ‘Right, right.’ He backed away and returned to stand near her, then asked in a normal voice, ‘Is there much of value in the apartment?’
‘Yes, I think so. Carpets, paintings, ceramics.’
‘So it could have been a robbery?’ he asked, and it sounded to Flavia as if he were trying to convince himself.
‘They said they were from the director of the museum. How did they know to say that?’ she asked. Robbery made no sense to her, and it made less sense each time she looked at Brett’s face. If this policeman didn’t understand that, he understood nothing.
‘How badly is she hurt?’ he asked, not answering her question. ‘I haven’t had time to speak to the doctors.’
‘Broken ribs and a cracked bone in her jaw, but there’s no sign of concussion.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘Yes.’ Her brusque reply reminded him that there had been no great sympathy between them the last time they met.
‘I’m sorry this happened.’ He said it like a man, not a public official.
Flavia nodded in cursory acknowledgement but said nothing.
‘Is she going to be all right?’ The question, phrased like that, honoured her intimate knowledge of Brett, acknowledged her ability to, as it were, touch her spiritual pulse and see how much damage it would do her to have been treated like this.
Flavia was confused by her desire to thank him for asking the question and, with it, acknowledging her position in Brett’s life. ‘Yes, she’ll be all right.’ And then, more practically, ‘What about the police? Have you found anything?’
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ Brunetti said. ‘The descriptions you gave of the two men don’t correspond to anyone we know here. We’ve checked the hospitals, here and in Mestre, but no one was admitted with a knife wound. We’re checking the envelope for fingerprints.’ He did not tell her that the blood covering one side of it made that difficult to do, nor did he tell her that the envelope had proved to be empty.
Behind him, Brett shifted on the bed, sighed, and then was quiet.
‘Signora Petrelli,’ he began, then paused, searching for the right words. ‘I’d like to sit with her for a while, if you don’t mind.’
Flavia caught herself wondering why she was so flattered by his casual acceptance of what she and Brett were to each other, then surprised herself even more by realizing that she had no clear idea of what that was. Spurred by those thoughts, she pulled a chair from behind the door and placed it next to the one she had been sitting on.
‘Grazie,’ he said. He sat, leaned back in the chair, and crossed his arms. She had the impression that he was prepared to sit there all day, if necessary.
He made no further attempt to speak to her, sat quietly and waited for whatever would happen. She took her place on the chair next to him, surprised by how little need she felt to make conversation with him or be socially correct. She sat. Ten minutes passed. Gradually, her head fell back against the top of the chair and she drifted off to sleep, then yanked awake when her head fell forward. She glanced at her watch. Eleven thirty. He had been there an hour.
‘Has she been awake?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, but only for a few minutes. She didn’t say anything.’
‘Did she see you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she know who you are?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good.’
After a long pause, he said, ‘Signora, would you like to go home for a while? Perhaps get something to eat? I’ll stay here. She’s seen me with you, so she won’t be afraid if she wakes up and I’m here.’
Hours ago, Flavia had felt gnawing hunger; now all sign of it had disappeared. But the combination of fatigue and dirt lingered with her, and at the thought of a shower, clean towels, clean hair, clean clothes, she almost gasped with yearning. Brett was asleep, and who safer to leave her with than a policeman? The idea grew too strong. ‘Yes,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I won’t be long. If she wakes up, please tell her where I’ve gone.’
‘Certainly,’ he said, standing as Flavia gathered her bag and took her coat from behind the door. At the door, she turned in farewell and gave him the first real smile she had ever given him, then left the room, careful to close the door quietly after her.