The Waters of Eternal Youth Read Online Free PDF Page A

they get in, they can look at anything.’ Did she shudder?
    â€˜I don’t have a private email address,’ Brunetti said.
    â€˜You don’t have a private email?’ she repeated, quite as if he’d told her he didn’t know how to use a knife and fork.
    â€˜No,’ he answered, with the same pose of innocence with which he used to tell people he didn’t have a
telefonino
. ‘I use Paola’s, but for anything official, I use the one I was given here,’ he said, waving his hand to indicate the entire Questura. ‘I promised Paola I’d never use one of the computers here to check her account.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜I prefer to phone people, anyway,’ he added.
    â€˜Of course,’ she answered, involuntarily raising her eyes to heaven at the very idea that a person existed who still believed that phones were safe.
    â€˜What will you do?’ Brunetti asked.
    The question seemed to energize her, as if having to give a response unleashed her to think and to act. ‘If my friend can tell me where the mail came from, then I’ll have some idea how to treat it. It might just be a case of innocent fishing; some hacker kid who wants to play policeman. I hope it’s that.’
    Brunetti decided not to ask her what else it might be. Changing the subject, he said, ‘I have a favour to ask you.’ He took her glance for assent and continued. ‘Could you have a look at a Contessa ­Lando-­Continui? Demetriana.’ To make his request clear, he nodded in the direction of the computer as he spoke.
    Curiosity filled her face. ‘If I’m thinking about the one you are, she’s eighty if she’s a day.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘She’s a close friend of Paola’s mother, so I have to be very careful with her. She wants to talk to me.’
    Again Signorina Elettra’s face lit up with curiosity. ‘I have a vague memory that something bad happened in her family.’ She paused, waiting for memory, and continued when it arrived. ‘To her granddaughter. A long time ago. She drowned or something.’
    Surprised, Brunetti said, ‘I don’t know anything. Vianello remembered that there was something unpleasant, but not what it was.’
    â€˜Drowning certainly is.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Brunetti agreed, thought of his family and did his best to try not to. ‘Could you see what you can find?’
    â€˜Of course. Is there any hurry?’
    â€˜It can wait until your hunt through the offices of the Ministry of the Interior leaves you some time,’ he answered.
    She nodded and dropped her chin into her hands again. Brunetti, seeing her lapse into a trance, decided to return to his office.

3
    Brunetti told no one where he was going and took the Number One to San Stae, then made his way to Palazzo Bonaiuti, where Contessa ­Lando-­Continui lived. A maid opened the door to the street and led him across the ­herringbone-­patterned courtyard, where chrysanthemums still thrived against the east wall.
    The outside stairway to the first floor was probably original to the
palazzo
, the lions’ heads worn smooth with age and rain and the caresses of centuries of hands. The maid stepped into the enormous entry hall and held the door open for him.
    â€˜The Contessa will join you in the small reading room,’ she said and turned down the corridor. She stopped at the third door on the left and entered without bothering to knock. Brunetti followed her.
    He had been in similar rooms countless times in the last decades. He saw the ­heavy-­footed mahogany tables covered with books and flowers, portraits grown dark with age, tall bookshelves no doubt left untouched since the time of those ancestors, and deep and threateningly uncomfortable chairs.
    Light entered from three windows on the far wall, but Brunetti had no idea which way they faced. Beyond them, at some