Beastly Things by Donna Leon Page B

shop, where they paused outside to study the men’s shoes in the window. ‘I like those,’ Brunetti said, pointing to a pair of dark brown tasselled loafers.
    ‘If you bought them,’ Vianello said, having assessed the quality of the leather, ‘and things got tough, you could always boil them and live off the stock for a few days.’
    ‘Very funny,’ Brunetti said and went inside.
    The robust woman in charge glanced at their identification and studied the photo of the dead man but shook her head. ‘Letizia might recognize him,’ she said and indicated the stairs that led to the floor above. ‘She’s with some customers but will be down in a minute.’ While waiting, Brunetti and Vianello busied themselves by trailing through the shop: Brunetti had another look at the loafers.
    Letizia, younger and thinner than the other woman, came downstairs after a few minutes, preceded by a Japanese couple and holding four shoeboxes in her arms. She might have been in her late twenties, with boyishly short blonde hair combed up in whimsical spikes and a face that escaped from plainness by virtue of the intelligence evident in her gaze.
    Brunetti waited while the sale was completed and the customers led to the door, where there followed an exchange of deep bows, seeming not at all forced on the part of the saleswoman.
    When Letizia came across to them, the manager explained who they were and what they wanted her to do. Letizia’s smile was interested, even curious. Brunetti handed her the photo.
    At the sight of the face of the dead man, she said, ‘The man from Mestre.’
    ‘From Mestre?’ Brunetti inquired.
    ‘Yes. He was in here – oh, it must have been two months ago – and tried to buy a pair of shoes. I think he said he wanted loafers.’
    ‘Is there any reason why you remember him, Signorina?’
    ‘Well,’ she began, then added, with a quick glance at the manager, who was listening to all of this, ‘I don’t want to talk badly about our customers, not at all, but it’s because he was so strange.’
    ‘His behaviour?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘No, not at all. He was very pleasant, very polite. It was the way he looked.’ Saying this, she glanced again at the other woman, as if asking permission to say such a thing. The manager pursed her lips and then nodded.
    Visibly relieved, Letizia continued. ‘He was so big. No, not big the way Americans are big. You know, all over, and tall. It was only his torso and his neck that were so big. I remember wondering what size shirt he’d wear and how he’d find one with a neck big enough for him. But the rest of him was normal.’ She studied Brunetti’s face, and then Vianello’s. ‘He must have a terrible time buying a suit, too, now that I think about it: his shoulders and chest are enormous. The jacket would have to be two or three sizes bigger than the trousers.’
    Before either of them could remark on this observation, she said, ‘He tried on a suede jacket, so I saw that his hips were like a regular man’s. And his feet were normal, too: size forty-three. But the rest of him was all … oh, I don’t know, all pumped up.’
    ‘You’re sure this is the man?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘Absolutely,’ she said.
    ‘From Mestre?’ Vianello interrupted to ask.
    ‘Yes. He said he was in the city for the day and had tried to buy the shoes in our store in Mestre – but they didn’t have his size so he thought he’d look for them here.’
    ‘Did you have the shoes?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘No,’ she said, her disappointment evident. ‘We had one size larger and one size smaller. We had his size only in brown, but he didn’t want them – only black.’
    ‘Did he buy another style, instead?’ Brunetti asked, hoping that he had and hoping even more strongly that he had paid for them with a credit card.
    ‘No. That’s exactly what I suggested, but he said he wanted the black because he already had them in brown and he liked them.’ These must be the shoes he had