A voice said something Brunetti could not hear, and Domingo stepped away from the door and waved them to go in. Brunetti followed Griffoni into the room.
An enormously fat white-haired woman was struggling to push herself up from her chair as they came in and succeeded only when they were almost at her desk. She braced herself against the top of the desk with her left hand and extended her right to Griffoni and then to Brunetti.
The woman had a nametag similar to the young man’s, though hers bore her title and name: Dottoressa Cecilia Donato. She smiled and waved them to the chairs in front of her desk, then braced both hands on the arms of her own chair and lowered herself slowly into it.
Her face was pear-like, as was her body: thin on the top and ballooning out at the middle. Her forehead and eyes were those of a far smaller person, but below them, her cheeks widened and seemed to come to rest on the straight column of her neck, almost as wide as her jaws. Below her shoulders, her figure swelled out, then disappeared behind her desk.
Reluctant to be perceived as staring at her body, Brunetti turned his eyes to her hands. They were slim, smooth-skinned. A thin indentation separated them from her chubby wrists, as though pieces of string had been tied tight around them, the better to illustrate the separate parts of her body. She wore a gold wedding ring on her left hand.
‘Thank you both for coming, and please do sit down,’ Dottoressa Donato said in a contralto voice that resonated for an extra beat after she stopped speaking. She glanced down to examine some papers on her desk, exposing the thinning hair on the crown of her head, then looked up and said, speaking to Brunetti, ‘I explained Signora Toso’s request on the phone, Commissario, and can tell you no more than that.’
Brunetti nodded, thought for a moment and asked, ‘Does that mean you do know more, Dottoressa?’
She hesitated to consider this. She would be a bad liar, Brunetti thought. Then she finally said, ‘I don’t think it matters what or how much I know about Signora Toso. She’s my patient, so anything she’s told me is private.’ When Brunetti did not respond, she added, ‘I’m sure you’re aware of that, Commissario.’
‘Of course, Dottoressa. I’m merely curious to know if there’s anyone else who knows what she wants to tell the police.’
‘For what reason?’
‘To verify what she says. Should that become necessary,’ Brunetti answered.
‘And why would it?’
Brunetti spread his hands wide. ‘Because she’s here.’
Dottoressa Donato looked at Griffoni, as though interested in any contribution she might make, but Griffoni shook her head, so the doctor returned her attention to Brunetti, and said, ‘I understand.’
‘That way, there would be confirmation,’ Brunetti began, ‘of whatever she says.’
The doctor put her elbows on her desk, placed her palms together, and rested her chin against the tops of her fingers. ‘Why would that be necessary?’
Brunetti crossed his legs to suggest ease and said, ‘If I might be frank, Dottoressa, this is a dying woman who wants to speak to a policeman. So it’s … possible that whatever she says will concern a crime.’ He paused to give the doctor the chance to reply.
When she did not, he continued, ‘If you’ve been told what she tells us, Dottoressa, your confirmation would give greater credence to what she …’ His voice trailed off: he was unable to decide what tense was appropriate.
‘Chooses to say,’ the doctor supplied, and Brunetti nodded his thanks.
The woman shifted in her chair, and Brunetti could not stop himself from thinking about the effort she must have to put into moving that mass. He glanced aside at Griffoni but said nothing.
When Dottoressa Donato was settled into a new position farther forward in her chair, she continued. ‘This is a hospice, Commissario. My patients don’t go home again.’ She tightened her lips and gave him a level gaze. ‘It might be that, as her doctor, I can’t repeat what she’s told me even after she’s gone.’
Brunetti leaned forward in his chair long enough to pull his shirt away from his back. ‘It might be more helpful if we could speak to Signora Toso,’ he said.
Before he could get to his feet, Griffoni asked, ‘Do you have any idea how much longer Signora Toso might live, Dottoressa?’
The fat woman looked at Griffoni and gave a small smile, as though to show her relief that someone, finally, had displayed concern – or at least interest – in her patient. It was some time before she spoke. ‘A few weeks. At best. Perhaps much less. It’s in her bones now, and because of that, she needs sedation.’
‘Where did it start?’ Griffoni asked.
‘Her breast,’ Dottoressa Donato answered. ‘Five years ago.’
Griffoni failed to stifle her deep sigh. ‘Ah, poor woman.’
The doctor’s face softened at this and she said, ‘She was at CRO in Aviano for a time, began her treatment there some years ago. They thought they’d stopped it. She had radiation and chemo and was clear for a while, and then early this year she found a lump under her left arm.’
Brunetti was a stone. The women were intent on one another. ‘By that time, it had already passed to her bones. They tried again at Aviano, but nothing worked. And then, a bit more than three weeks ago, she came here.’
Griffoni folded her hands and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. She stared at her shoes and moved her upper body forward and back a few times, just the faintest motion.
‘She has children?’ she said by way of question.
‘Yes, two daughters. Livia’s twelve and Daria’s fourteen.’
‘Their father?’ Griffoni asked, one woman to another.
‘Her husband died about a week after she got here.’ The calm of the doctor’s voice was in sharp contrast to her face.
‘Oddio,’ Griffoni whispered. ‘What happened?’
The doctor seemed reluctant to add to the misery of the conversation but finally said, ‘He was killed in an accident.’
‘How?’
‘His motorcycle went off the road when he was coming home from work. The police said it was possible he lost control, even that un pirata della strada sideswiped him.’
‘And the driver?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Was he found?’
She looked at him with an expression that suggested he should know better than to ask such a question. ‘When have you ever known a driver to stop after hitting someone?’
‘Witnesses?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘You’ll have to ask the police about that,’ she said with no audible irony. ‘As I understand things, no one ever came forward. I imagine they checked the scene and the motorcycle, but I’ve heard nothing about that.’
Silence fell after this exchange, not to be broken until Griffoni said, ‘And Signora Toso?’ Suddenly she lost control and asked, ‘How can she bear it?’
Again, the doctor shifted her weight around in her chair in search of a more comfortable distribution of her bulk. This time it took her longer to find it, and when she did, she shook her head. ‘She has no choice.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Griffoni said, sounding honestly confused.
‘She has the girls. They need her to be strong.’