CB14 Blood From A Stone (2005) Read Free Page B

was over there. Just coming in. I saw them, the Americans. They were walking this way, from the bridge, and then they all stopped to look at the stuff the vu cumprà had.’
    ‘And you, Signora?’
    She moved her cane a few millimetres to the left. ‘I went into the bar.’
    ‘How long were you in there, Signora?’
    ‘Long enough.’
    ‘Long enough for what?’ he asked, smiling at her, not at all annoyed by her oblique answer.
    ‘Barbara, the owner, after about eight, she takes all the tramezzini that haven’t been sold, and she cuts them up into little pieces and puts them on the counter. If you buy a drink, you can eat all you want.’
    This surprised Brunetti, unaccustomed as he was to such generosity from the owners of bars; from the owners of anything, for that matter.
    ‘She’s a good girl, Barbara,’ the old woman said. ‘I knew her mother.’
    ‘So how long do you think you were in there, Signora?’ he asked.
    ‘Maybe half an hour,’ she answered, then explained, ‘It’s my dinner, you see. I go there every night.’
    ‘Good to know, Signora. I’ll remember that if I’m ever over here.’
    ‘You’re over here now,’ she said, and when he didn’t respond, she went on: ‘The Americans, they went in there. Well, two of them did,’ she added, lifting the cane again and pointing at the bar.
    ‘They’re in the back, having hot chocolate. You could probably talk to them if you wanted to,’ she said.
    ‘Thank you, Signora,’ he said and turned towards the bar.
    ‘The prosciutto and carciofi is the best,’ she called after him.

3
    Brunetti hadn’t been in the bar for years, ever since the brief period when it had been converted into an American ice-cream parlour and had begun to serve an ice-cream so rich it had caused him a serious bout of indigestion the one time he had eaten it. It had been, he recalled, like eating lard, though not the salty lard he remembered from his childhood, tossed in to give taste and substance to a pot of beans or lentil soup, but lard as lard would be if sugar and strawberries were added to it.
    His fellow Venetians must have responded in similar fashion, for the place had changed ownership after a few years, but Brunetti had never been back. The tubs of ice-cream were gone now, and it had reverted to looking like anItalian bar. A number of people stood at the curved counter, talking animatedly and turning often to point out at the now-quiet campo ; some sat at small tables that led into the back room. Three women stood behind the bar; one of them, seeing Brunetti enter, offered him a friendly smile. He walked towards the back and saw an elderly couple at the last table on the left. They had to be Americans. They might as well have been draped in the flag. White-haired, both of them, they gave the bizarre impression that they were dressed in each other’s clothing. The woman wore a checked flannel shirt and a pair of thick woollen slacks, while the man wore a pink V-necked sweater, a pair of dark trousers, and white tennis shoes. Both apparently had their hair cut by the same hand. One could not say, exactly, that hers was longer: it was merely less short.
    ‘Excuse me,’ Brunetti said in English as he approached their table. ‘Were you out in the campo earlier?’
    ‘When the man was killed?’ the woman asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said.
    The man pulled out a chair for Brunetti and, with old-fashioned courtesy, got to his feet and waited until Brunetti was seated. ‘I’m Guido Brunetti, from the police,’ he began. ‘I’d like to talk to you about what you saw.’
    Both of them had the faces of mariners: eyes narrowed in a perpetual squint, wrinkles seared into place by too much sun, and a sharpness ofexpression that even heavy seas would not disturb.
    The man put out his hand, saying, ‘I’m Fred Crowley, officer, and this is my wife, Martha.’ When Brunetti released his hand, the woman stretched hers out, surprising him with the strength of her