Read Online Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon - Free Book Online

she was, and ran
towards a sink that stood against the far wall. She was violently sick into it,
retched repeatedly until she stood at the sink, arms braced to support herself,
leaning down above it, panting.
     
    The attendant suddenly
appeared beside her and handed her a white cotton towel. She took itwith
a nod and wiped at her face with it. With strange gentleness, the man took her
arm and led her to another sink a few metres down the same wall. He turned on
the hot-water tap, then the cold, and placed his hand under the water until it
reached a temperature suitable for him. When it did, he reached out and held
the towel white Doctor Peters washed her face and rinsed her mouth with a handful
of water, and then another. When she was done, he handed her the towel again,
shut off both laps, and left the room by the door on the other side.
     
    She folded the towel and
draped it over the edge of the sink. Making her way back to Brunetti, she avoided
looking to her left, where the body still lay on me gurney, covered now.
     
    When she got near, he
turned and led the way to the door, held it open for her as they passed into
the warmer evening air. As they walked down under the long arcade, she said, ‘I’m
sorry. I don’t know why that happened. I’ve certainly seen autopsies. I’ve even done autopsies.’ She shook her head a few times as they walked. He half
saw the gesture from his greater height beside her.
     
    If only to complete the
formality, he asked, ‘Is that Sergeant Foster?’
     
    ‘Yes, it is,’ she
answered with no hesitation, but he sensed that she was struggling to keep her
voice calm and level. Even her walk was more rigid than it had been when they
went in, as It’she had let the uniform take over and direct her motions.
     
    When they passed through
the gate of the cemetery, Brunetti led her over to where Monetti had moored the
boat. He sat inside the cabin, reading his newspaper. When he saw them
approach, he folded it and moved to the stern, where he pulled on the mooring
rope to bring the boat close enough for them to be able to climb on board
easily.
     
    This time she stepped
onto the boat and went immediately down the stairs into the cabin. Pausing only
long enough to whisper to Monetti, ‘Take as much time as you can going back,’
he followed her down into the cabin.
     
    She sat farther forward
this time, turned to face out of the front windows. The sun had already set,
and the afterglow provided very little light by which to see the skyline of the
city, off to their left. He took his place opposite her, noticing how straight
and stiff she sat.
     
    ‘There will be a lot of
formalities, but I imagine we can release the body tomorrow.’
     
    She nodded to acknowledge
that she heard him.
     
    ‘What will the Army do?’
     
    ‘Excuse me?’ she said.
     
    ‘What will the Army do in
a case like this?’ he repeated.
     
    ‘Well send the body home,
to his family.’
     
    ‘No, I don’t mean about
the body. I mean about the investigation.’
     
    At that, she turned and
looked him in the eyes. Her confusion, he believed, was feigned. ‘I don’t
understand. What investigation?’
     
    ‘To find out why he was
killed.’
     
    ‘But I thought it was
robbery,’ She said, asking for confirmation of that belief.
     
    ‘It might have been,’ he
said, ‘bat I doubt it.’
     
    She looked away from him
when he said that and stared out of the window, but the panorama of Venice had
been swallowed by the night, and all she saw there was her own reflection.
     
    ‘I don’t know anything
about that,’ she said, voice insistent.
     
    To Brunetti, it sounded
as It’she believed she could make this be true, if only she repeated it often
and insistently enough. ‘What kind of man was he?’ he asked.
     
    For a moment, she didn’t
answer, but when she did, Brunetti found her answer strange, ‘Honest. He was an
honest man.’ It was a strange thing to say about a man so young.
     
    He