Brunetti stopped at the desk to tell Rezzante that his two men would be spending the night outside the sealed rooms and asked that chairs be taken up to them and that they be offered coffee during the night as well as anything they wanted to eat. He took out his wallet and extracted his credit card.
When he offered it to Rezzante, the man whipped his hands behind his back, as though Brunetti were offering him a burning branch. ‘No, please, Commissario. You are all our guests. I’ll send someone up with the chairs, and we’ll take care of your men during the night.’
Brunetti hesitated a moment but decided to accept. He put his card back, saying, ‘Thank you and thank the hotel. I believe the technician has called the hospital and asked them to send an ambulance.’
‘They’ll be discreet, won’t they?’ Rezzante asked.
‘I’ll call them when I’m outside and tell them,’ Brunetti said. ‘I’ll also call tomorrow morning to let you know when the rooms can be opened again.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Rezzante looked as though he were going to say something else but stopped.
‘What is it?’ Brunetti asked, stepping closer to the desk.
‘It’s a terrible thing for us when a person dies here.’ Before Brunetti could say anything, Rezzante went on. ‘I don’t mean here, this time, but always. A hotel – any hotel – isn’t the same for days, even longer. It’s strange because that’s what the person is, a stranger to us, and yet we all feel their death. Maybe it’s the absence of any real involvement with the person that lets us feel the mystery of death.’ He stopped, shrugged, and added, ‘I don’t know.’
‘We’ll try to cause as little confusion as possible,’ Brunetti promised.
‘I hope you can …’ Rezzante began but substituted a wave of his hand for the ending of the sentence.
‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said. He realized that the barber they had in common was irrelevant: he felt sympathy with Rezzante because he could speak of the ‘mystery of death’. ‘And thanks again for your generosity to my men.’
‘It’s nothing, Commissario,’ Rezzante said, and then, ‘Buona notte ,’ as if Brunetti were a frequent guest he was sending off for a good night’s sleep.
Just outside the door, Brunetti stopped and called the emergency room at the hospital and identified himself, then asked the man who answered to tell the ambulance team that would be sent to bring a woman’s body back to the hospital to be as discreet as possible when they were inside the hotel. The man he spoke to assured him that things would be handled correctly.
Brunetti started home, thinking of the things he should have done, and hadn’t. He’d made no search of Berta’s room for her telefonino, nor to see if she had been robbed. There’d be no knowing that until he had spoken to her husband and asked what she had brought with her. He had Berta’s landline number but needed to delay the call until he was home and in surroundings that would work against the cost of having to call and announce, not only death, but death by wilful violence.
It was well after two when he let himself into the apartment. The light in the corridor was on. He hung up his coat and went down to the living room. A tray sat on the low table in front of the sofa, on it a bottle of their best whiskey and a glass as well as a metal thermos bottle and a cup and saucer. He sat on the sofa and uncapped the thermos: verbena tea. He poured himself a cup, then poured a generous shot of whiskey into it.
He did not allow himself to taste it yet but pulled out his notebook to find Signora Dodson’s number, then dialled the English number. After three of those distinctive double-buzz rings, the phone was answered by a man’s voice, inquiring, ‘Berta, is that you?’ If he had expected the gruff reproach of the English lord or the quaver of a worried old man, Brunetti was to be doubly disappointed. The voice was rich and low, the consonants chiselled, the tone one of enthusiasm at the thought that they might be able to continue the interesting conversation they had not finished the last time they spoke.
‘Signor Dodson?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes. May I ask who’s calling?’
‘This is Commissario Guido Brunetti, from the Venice police.’
Silence filled the space between them. Beneath it, Brunetti could sense the other man considering possibilities, excluding some and not liking the ones that remained. He was suddenly aware that he could hear the man’s breathing, deep, heavy, laboured.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I have bad news for you, Signor Dodson: the worst news.’
Again, a long silence. The breathing stopped, then started again, faster, more laboured. Did the Englishman want to remain in free fall, knowing what must come but wanting to delay for as long as possible the news that would change things for ever? Brunetti imagined him, watching the ground speed closer, closer, the only choice to close his eyes or to keep them open and ask.
‘Berta?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Your wife is dead, Signor Dodson. I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no other way to say it.’
‘How?’
‘This is worse, sir, if that’s possible. She was killed.’ He couldn’t bring himself to tell the man that she had been murdered; it was too vicious a word to use.
The breathing thickened, deep and slow now, rasping at the beginning of each breath. Brunetti waited.
‘How?’
‘She was killed in her hotel room,’ Brunetti said, then, having no other choice, he explained, ‘Someone killed her.’
‘Ah,’ the man said, sounding as if he had just been punched in the back of his head. Brunetti cradled the receiver between his shoulder and his chin and picked up the cup; he held it beneath his nose and inhaled the combined scents, then set it on the saucer to let it cool a bit more.
‘How?’ her husband asked. Brunetti knew that those left behind needed to know this, even before they asked who it was who had done it.
‘She was strangled, sir,’ Brunetti said, pushing himself against the back of the sofa and closing his eyes.
‘I’m sorry. Tell me again who you are, please.’
‘Commissario Guido Brunetti. She was found by her friend, Rudy Adler, and he was allowed to call me. The hotel gave me your number.’
‘“Was allowed”?’ Dodson asked and then, after a significant silence, said, ‘Could you tell me what that means?’
‘As I said, sir, he found her body. He went to his room and found her there.’ When Dodson remained silent, Brunetti added, ‘He’s a friend of mine, Rudy. So he called me. “Allowed” was perhaps the wrong word: he asked them if he could call me, and they told him that he could.’
‘I see,’ Dodson said softly. He remained silent so long that Brunetti leaned forward and took a sip of the tea, and then another.
‘Do you have any idea of what happened?’ Dodson asked.
‘No, sir. Not yet. We’ve examined the room,’ Brunetti said, failing to mention the examination of his wife’s body.
‘And my wife?’ he asked, as though she were still alive.
Brunetti listened to the relentless breathing for what seemed a long time. ‘She’s been taken to the hospital, sir,’ he said, unable to be the one to introduce the word ‘body’. Nor did he want to talk about what would be done to her later this morning.
‘I see,’ Dodson said, and then, ‘I can’t come.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir? Would you say that again, please?’
‘I can’t come. I’m in bed and can’t leave it. Even for this.’ Brunetti waited for him to explain. After a long pause, the man said, ‘Even for Berta.’
‘I didn’t know that, sir.’
‘No. We don’t tell people. It isn’t done, you know,’ he said, reminding Brunetti that he was English.
Brunetti had no idea what to say in response. ‘I’m sorry, sir. But I assure you that we will do whatever we can to …’ he began but let his voice trail away, fully aware of how little they could do that would be of any help to this man. ‘… to make it less horrible for you, sir.’
Brunetti heard a grunt, and then Dodson said, ‘Thank you for that, Signor … sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘Brunetti, sir.’ He thought of telling him that he was the son-in-law of Conte Orazio Falier: his wife might have mentioned il Conte to him. But it didn’t matter, not in the least.
‘Ah, yes. Brunetti. Thank you for your honesty. It’s all I have time for now.’
‘If there’s anything I can do, Signore, that might help you in any way, please tell me. I promise to do what I can.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Brunetti,’ he said, and made a noise that suggested he was about to continue, but then stopped.
Brunetti waited, silent.
‘My illness has made me dependent on Berta. Well, on her and the people around me.’
‘I see, Mr Dodson,’ Brunetti muttered, not seeing anything.
‘After her friend Gonzalo died, she went to Madrid for a day, and then she asked me if she could go to Venice to arrange a final party for him.’ He sighed deeply but continued. ‘He was the other great love of her life, Gonzalo. She told me that when I asked her to marry me.’
Brunetti reached for the cup and emptied it, holding the phone away so that the other man wouldn’t hear the noise.
‘So I told her to go and take care of it. And she did. And now this.’
The sigh became a cough, and when it stopped Dodson said, ‘I’m sorry. I was telling you that I can’t come.’ With no change in tone, he asked, ‘What’s your first name, Mr Brunetti?’
‘Guido.’
‘May I leave it to you, Guido, to do this?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. I can’t do this any more now. Talk.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘Call me when you can, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Goodnight, then,’ he said and was gone.
Brunetti broke the connection and leaned forward to pour himself another cup of tea. He did not add whiskey this time.