city, in this country? Religious mania would be less convincing proof of mental imbalance.
Vianello and Pucetti were to go back that afternoon and question the rest of the boys and the remaining faculty. Leaving it at that, Brunetti told them he would be up in his office, and left.
Curiosity and the desire to see Signorina Elettra and learn what she had managed to discover led him off the stairs at her floor and into her small office. Here he had the sensation that he had stepped into a jungle or a forest: four tall trees with enormous leaves, broad, dark green and shiny, stood in terracotta pots against the back wall. With their darkness as a backdrop, Signorina Elettra, today dressed in colours usually seen only on Buddhist monks, sat at her desk. The total effect was of an enormous piece of exotic fruit exposed in front of the tree from which it had fallen.
‘Lemons?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘A friend of mine just directed
Lulu
at the opera. He had them sent over after the last performance.’
‘
Lulu?
’
She smiled. ‘The very same.’
‘I don’t remember lemons in
Lulu
,’ he said, puzzled, but willing, as ever, to be graced with illumination.
‘He set the opera in Sicily,’ she explained.
‘Ah,’ Brunetti whispered, trying to remember the plot. The music, mercifully, was gone. At a loss for what else to say, he asked, ‘Did you go and see it?’
She took so long to answer that, at first, he thought he had somehow offended her with the question. Finally, she said, ‘No, sir. My standards are very low, of course, but I do draw the line at going to the opera in a tent. In a parking lot.’
Brunetti, whose aesthetic principles were entrenched well behind that same line, nodded and asked, ‘Have you been able to find out anything about Moro?’
Her smile was fainter, but it was still recognizably a smile. ‘Some things have come in. I’m waiting for a friend in Siena to tell me more about the wife Federica.’
‘What about her?’ Brunetti asked.
‘She was involved in an accident there.’
‘What kind of accident?’
‘Hunting.’
‘Hunting? A woman in a hunting accident?’ he asked, his disbelief audible.
She raised her eyebrows as if to suggest that anything at all was possible in a world where
Lulu
was set in Sicily, but instead said, ‘I shall pass over the glaring sexism in that remark, Commissario.’ She paused a didactic moment, then continued, ‘It happened a couple of years ago. She was staying with friends in the countryside near Siena. One afternoon, while she was out for a walk, she was shot in the leg. Luckily , she was found before she bled to death and taken to the hospital.’
‘Was the hunter ever found?’
‘No, but it was hunting season so they assumed that a hunter had heard her and thought she was an animal and shot at the noise without seeing what it was.’
‘And didn’t bother to come and see what he had shot?’ an indignant Brunetti asked. He added another question. ‘Or when he saw what he had shot, he didn’t help her or call for help?’
‘It’s what they do,’ she said, her voice matching his own in indignation. ‘You read the papers, don’t you, every year when the season opens, about the way three or four of them get shot on the first day? It goes on all during hunting season. It’s not only the ones who stumble over their own guns and blow their brains out.’ Brunetti thought her tone was devoid of anything approaching sympathy as she said this. ‘They shoot one another, too,’ she went on, ‘and get left to bleed to death because no one wants to run the risk of being arrested for having shot someone.’
He started to speak, but she cut him off and added, ‘As far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen often enough.’
Brunetti waited for her to calm down and retract her words but then decided to leave the issue of her feelings towards hunters unexamined and asked, ‘Were the police called? When
Vianello and Pucetti were to go back that afternoon and question the rest of the boys and the remaining faculty. Leaving it at that, Brunetti told them he would be up in his office, and left.
Curiosity and the desire to see Signorina Elettra and learn what she had managed to discover led him off the stairs at her floor and into her small office. Here he had the sensation that he had stepped into a jungle or a forest: four tall trees with enormous leaves, broad, dark green and shiny, stood in terracotta pots against the back wall. With their darkness as a backdrop, Signorina Elettra, today dressed in colours usually seen only on Buddhist monks, sat at her desk. The total effect was of an enormous piece of exotic fruit exposed in front of the tree from which it had fallen.
‘Lemons?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘A friend of mine just directed
Lulu
at the opera. He had them sent over after the last performance.’
‘
Lulu?
’
She smiled. ‘The very same.’
‘I don’t remember lemons in
Lulu
,’ he said, puzzled, but willing, as ever, to be graced with illumination.
‘He set the opera in Sicily,’ she explained.
‘Ah,’ Brunetti whispered, trying to remember the plot. The music, mercifully, was gone. At a loss for what else to say, he asked, ‘Did you go and see it?’
She took so long to answer that, at first, he thought he had somehow offended her with the question. Finally, she said, ‘No, sir. My standards are very low, of course, but I do draw the line at going to the opera in a tent. In a parking lot.’
Brunetti, whose aesthetic principles were entrenched well behind that same line, nodded and asked, ‘Have you been able to find out anything about Moro?’
Her smile was fainter, but it was still recognizably a smile. ‘Some things have come in. I’m waiting for a friend in Siena to tell me more about the wife Federica.’
‘What about her?’ Brunetti asked.
‘She was involved in an accident there.’
‘What kind of accident?’
‘Hunting.’
‘Hunting? A woman in a hunting accident?’ he asked, his disbelief audible.
She raised her eyebrows as if to suggest that anything at all was possible in a world where
Lulu
was set in Sicily, but instead said, ‘I shall pass over the glaring sexism in that remark, Commissario.’ She paused a didactic moment, then continued, ‘It happened a couple of years ago. She was staying with friends in the countryside near Siena. One afternoon, while she was out for a walk, she was shot in the leg. Luckily , she was found before she bled to death and taken to the hospital.’
‘Was the hunter ever found?’
‘No, but it was hunting season so they assumed that a hunter had heard her and thought she was an animal and shot at the noise without seeing what it was.’
‘And didn’t bother to come and see what he had shot?’ an indignant Brunetti asked. He added another question. ‘Or when he saw what he had shot, he didn’t help her or call for help?’
‘It’s what they do,’ she said, her voice matching his own in indignation. ‘You read the papers, don’t you, every year when the season opens, about the way three or four of them get shot on the first day? It goes on all during hunting season. It’s not only the ones who stumble over their own guns and blow their brains out.’ Brunetti thought her tone was devoid of anything approaching sympathy as she said this. ‘They shoot one another, too,’ she went on, ‘and get left to bleed to death because no one wants to run the risk of being arrested for having shot someone.’
He started to speak, but she cut him off and added, ‘As far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen often enough.’
Brunetti waited for her to calm down and retract her words but then decided to leave the issue of her feelings towards hunters unexamined and asked, ‘Were the police called? When
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