The Waters of Eternal Youth Read Online Free PDF Page B

laughed out loud. ‘She also said you were not a fool.’
    â€˜I can’t be if I want to survive in my own home.’
    â€˜Paola?’
    Brunetti nodded.
    â€˜She was a very clever child,’ the Contessa said. ‘And she’s become a very clever woman.’
    The maid entered, and they stopped talking. She set a loaded tray on a side table and placed a lower table between them, then set the tray on it and left. There was a single cup of coffee, a silver sugar bowl, a spoon, two short glasses of thick cut crystal, and a bottle of whisky whose label made Brunetti stare.
    The Contessa leaned forward and pushed his cup, then the sugar bowl, close to Brunetti. Then she took the bottle, broke the paper tax stamp, and opened it. She poured about two centimetres into one of the glasses and silently tilted the bottle towards him.
    Brunetti nodded, and she poured the same amount into the second glass.
    Brunetti pushed the coffee to one side of the tray and picked up his glass. The liquid was too precious for him to say something as banal as ‘
cin cin’,
and so he said, ‘
Alla Sua salute’,
and held his glass up to her.
    â€˜And to your health,’ she answered and took a sip.
    Brunetti did the same and thought he’d sell up everything and move to Scotland. Paola could find a job teaching, and the children would find something to do with themselves. Beg, for example.
    â€˜What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Contessa?’ he asked, leaning forward to place his glass on the tray.
    â€˜You know about my granddaughter?’ she asked.
    â€˜I know only that she was involved in an accident some years ago, but I heard that from someone in the Questura, not from anyone in my family.’ He decided to omit telling her that someone was continuing to look for more information.
    She cradled her glass in both hands. ‘You don’t need to defend your family,’ she said, ‘but I’m glad you did.’ She took a small sip and added, ‘I’ve known Donatella for more than forty years, and I’ve trusted her for most of them.’
    â€˜Only most?’ Brunetti asked.
    â€˜I think it’s rash to give the gift of trust to people we don’t know well.’
    Brunetti reached for his glass and held it up to the light, admiring the colour. ‘The policeman in me says you’re probably right, Contessa,’ he said and took a small sip. ‘This is glorious.’ He set the glass back on the table. ‘But I assume you are going to trust me. That is, if you want to talk to me.’
    â€˜You drink it very sparingly,’ she said, putting her glass beside his to show how much larger her sips had been.
    â€˜I think whatever you have to say to me deserves more attention than this whisky, however good it is.’
    She sat back in her chair and grasped its arms. Her eyes closed. ‘My granddaughter was . . . damaged fifteen years ago.’ Brunetti heard her breathing grow difficult and wondered if she were going to collapse or faint. What an odd choice of word: ‘damaged’.
    Some time passed. Her breathing slowed, and she loosened her grip on the arms of the chair. It was then that he realized they had been speaking in Veneziano, not Italian. He had automatically used the formal ‘
Lei
’ with her, but he had addressed her in Veneziano from the beginning and without giving it a thought. It was a greater intimacy than using ‘
tu
’.
    She opened her eyes and said, ‘She was fifteen, almost sixteen.’
    â€˜How did it happen?’
    â€˜She was pulled from a canal not far from her home, but she had been under the water a long time. No one knows how long, but long enough for it to damage her.’ By force of will, she kept her voice level and dispassionate. Her pain was evident only in her eyes, which could not meet his.
    Â­Fifteen-­year-­old Venetians were fish, or at least part