Death in a Strange Country

Gracious in his victory, Patta said, ‘Of course, your interest and enthusiasm in this will be appreciated by the Americans.’ Brunetti thought it would make more sense for them to appreciate success, but this was not an opinion that could be offered now when Patta was at his most quixotic and had to be handled with greatest delicacy.

‘Well, I’m still not convinced, sir,’ Brunetti began, letting doubt and resignation struggle in his voice. ‘But I suppose it’s possible. I certainly found nothing about him that would suggest anything else.’ That is, if he discounted the odd few hundred million in cocaine.

‘I’m glad you see it that way, Brunetti. I think it shows that you’re growing more realistic about police work.’ Patta looked down at the papers on his desk. ‘They had a Guardi.’

Brunetti, left behind by his superior’s chamois-like leap from one subject to another, could only ask, ‘A what?’

‘A Guardi, Commissario. Francesco Guardi. I would think you’d at least recognize the name: he’s one of your most famous Venetian painters.’

‘Oh, sorry, sir. I thought it was a kind of German television.’

Patta gave a firm and disapproving ‘No,’ before he looked down at the papers on his desk. ‘All I have is a list from Signor Viscardi. A Guardi, a Monet, and a Gauguin.’

‘Is he still in hospital, this Signor Viscardi?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, I believe so. Why?’

‘He seems pretty certain about which paintings they had, even if he didn’t see the men who took them.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m, not suggesting anything, sir,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Maybe he had only three paintings.’ But if all he had were three paintings, this case would not have moved so quickly to the top of Patta’s list. ‘What does Signor Viscardi do in Milan, if I might ask?’

‘He directs a number of factories.’

‘Directs, or owns and directs?’

Patta made no attempt to disguise his irritation. ‘He’s an important citizen, and he has spent an enormous amount of money on the restoration of that palazzo. He’s an asset to the city, and I think we should see that, if nothing else, the man is safe while he’s here.’

‘He and his possessions,’ Brunetti added.

‘Yes, and his possessions.’ Patta repeated the word but not the dry tone. ‘I’d like you to see to this investigation, Commissario, and I expect Signor Viscardi to be treated with every respect.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ Brunetti got up to leave. ‘Do you know what sort of factories he directs, sir?’

‘I believe they manufacture armaments.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘And I don’t want you bothering the Americans any more, Brunetti. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’ It certainly was clear, but the reason was not.

‘Good, then get to it. I’d like this sorted out as quickly as possible.’

Brunetti smiled and left Patta’s office, wondering what strings had been pulled, and by whom. With Viscardi, it was pretty easy to figure out: armaments, enough money to buy and restore a palazzo on the Grand Canal - the mingled odours of money and power had come wafting out of every phrase Patta spoke. With the American, the scents were less easy to trace back to their source, but that difficulty made them no less tangible than the others. But it was clear that the word had been passed to Patta: the death of the American was to be treated as a robbery gone wrong, nothing more. But from whom?

Instead of going up to his office, he went back down the stairs and into the main office. Vianello had returned from the hospital and was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, telephone pressed to his ear. When he saw Brunetti come in, he cut the conversation short and hung up.

‘Yes, sir?’ he said.

Brunetti leaned against the side of Vianello’s desk. ‘This Viscardi, how did he seem when you spoke to him?’

‘Upset He’d been in a ward all night, had just managed to get himself put into a private room...’

Brunetti interrupted. ‘How’d he manage that?’

Vianello shrugged. The Casinò was not the only public institution in the city that carried a ‘Non Nobis’ sign in front of it. The hospital’s, although visible only to the wealthy, was no less real. ‘I suppose he knows someone there or knows someone to call. People like him always do.’ From Vianello’s tone, it didn’t sound like Viscardi had made a hit

‘What’s he like?’ Brunetti asked.

Vianello smiled, then grimaced. ‘You know. Typical Milanese. Wouldn’t say ‘R’ if he had a mouthful of them,’ he said, eliding all of the ‘R’s in the sentence, imitating perfectly this Milanese affectation in speech, so popular among the most arriviste politicians and the comedians who delighted in mocking them. ‘First thing he did was tell me how important the paintings are, which, I suppose, means how important he is. Then he complained about having to spend the night in a ward. I think that meant he was afraid of picking up some low-class disease.’

‘Did he give you a description of the men?’

‘He said that one of them was very tall, taller than I am.’ Vianello was one of the tallest men on the force. ‘And the other one had a beard.’

‘How many were there, two or three?’

‘He wasn’t sure. They grabbed him when he went in, and he was so surprised that he didn’t see, or he doesn’t remember.’

‘How badly is he hurt?’

‘Not bad enough for a private room,’ Vianello said, making no attempt to disguise his disapproval

‘Could you be a bit more specific?’ Brunetti asked with a smile.

Vianello took no offence and answered, ‘He’s got a black eye. That will get worse today. Someone really gave him a good shot there. And he’s got a cut lip, some bruises on his arms.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I agree; hardly seems like the sort of thing to require a private room. Or a hospital at all.’

Vianello responded immediately to Brunetti’s tone. ‘Are you thinking what I think you are, sir?’

‘Vice-Questore Patta knows what the three missing paintings are. What time did the call come in?’

‘Just a little past midnight, sir.’

Brunetti looked at his watch. ‘Twelve hours. The paintings are by Guardi, Monet, and Gauguin.’

‘Sorry, sir, I don’t know about that sort of thing. But do the names mean money?’

Brunetti gave a very affirmative nod. ‘Rossi told me that the place was insured. How’d he come to know that?’

‘The agent called us at about ten and asked if he could go and have a look at the palazzo.’

Vianello took a pack of cigarettes from his desk and lit one. ‘Rossi told me these Belgian kids think Ruffolo was there.’ Brunetti nodded. ‘Ruffolo’s just a little runt of a guy, isn’t he, sir? Not very tall at all.’ He blew out a thin stream of smoke, then waved it away.

‘And he certainly didn’t grow a beard while he was in prison,’ Brunetti observed.

‘So that means that neither of the men Viscardi says he saw could have been Ruffolo, doesn’t it, sir?’

‘That certainly would seem to be the case,’ Brunetti said. ‘I asked Rossi to go over to the hospital and ask Viscardi if he recognizes a picture of Ruffolo.’

‘Probably won’t,’ Vianello remarked laconically.

Brunetti pushed himself away from the desk. ‘I think I’ll go and make a few phone calls. If you’ll excuse me, officer.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ Vianello said, then added, ‘Zero two,’ giving Brunetti the dialling prefix for Milan.

* * * *

14

In his office, Brunetti took a spiral-bound notebook from his desk and began to leaf through it. For years he had been telling himself, then promising himself, that he would take the names and numbers in this book and arrange them in some sort of order. He renewed the vow each time, such as now, he had to hunt through it for a number he had not called in months or years. In a way, paging through it was like strolling through a museum in which he saw many familiar paintings, allowing each to summon up the flash of memory before he passed on in search of the one he had come to see. Finally he found it, the home number of Riccardo Fosco, the Financial Editor of one of the major weekly news magazines.

Until a few years ago, Fosco had been the bright light of the news media, unearthing financial scandals in the most unlikely places, had been one of the first to begin asking questions about the Banco Ambrosiano. His office had become the centre of a web of information about the real nature of business in Italy, his columns the place to look for the first suggestions that something might not be right with a company, a buy-out, or a takeover. Two years ago, as he emerged from that same office at five in the afternoon, on his way to meet friends for a drink, someone in a parked car opened up with a machine gun, aimed carefully at his knees, shattering them both, and now Fosco’s home was his office, and walking was something he did only with the help of two canes, one knee permanently stiffened and the other with a range of motion of only thirty degrees. No arrest had ever been made in the crime.

‘Fosco,’ he said, answering as he always did.

‘Ciao, Riccardo. It’s Guido Brunetti.’

‘Ciao, Guido. I haven’t heard from you in a long time. Are you still trying to find out about the money that was supposed to save Venice?’

It was a long-standing joke between them, the ease with which the millions of dollars - no one ever knew exactly how much - that had been raised by UNESCO to ‘save’ Venice had disappeared in the offices and deep pockets of the ‘projectors’ who had rushed forward with their plans and programmes after the devastating flood of 1966. There was a foundation with a full working staff, an archive full of blueprints, there were even fund-raising galas and balls, but there was no more money, and the tides, unimpeded, continued to do whatever they chose with the city. This story, with threads leading to the UN, to the Common Market, and to various governments and financial institutions, had proven too complicated even for Fosco, who had never written about it, fearing that his audience would accuse him of having turned to fiction. Brunetti, for his part, had worked on the assumption that, since most of the people who had been involved in the projects were Venetian, the money had indeed gone to save the city, though perhaps not in the manner originally intended.

‘No, Riccardo, it’s about one of yours, a Milanese. Viscardi. I don’t even know his first name, but he’s in armaments, and he’s just finished spending a fortune restoring a palazzo here.’

‘Augusto,’ Fosco replied instantly, then repeated the name for the sheer beauty of it, ‘Augusto Viscardi.’

‘That was quick,’ Brunetti said.

‘Oh, yes. Signer Viscardi’s is a name I hear quite often.’

‘And what sort of things do you hear?’

‘The munitions factories are out in Monza. There are four of them. The word is he had enormous contracts with Iraq, in fact, with a number of countries in the Middle East. Somehow, he managed to continue deliveries even during the war, through the Yemen, I think,’ Fosco paused for a moment, then added, ‘But I’ve heard that he had trouble during the war.’

‘What sort of trouble?’Brunetti asked.

‘Well, not enough to do him serious harm, or at least that’s what I heard. None of those factories closed during the war, and I don’t mean only his. From what I’ve heard, the whole zone remained at full production. There’ll always be someone to buy what they make.’

‘But what was the trouble he had?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ll have to make some calls out here. But the rumours were that he got hit pretty hard. Most of them make sure the payments are made in some place safe like Panama or Lichtenstein before they make delivery, but Viscardi had been doing business with them for so long - I think he even went there a few times, talked to the boss man - that he didn’t bother, sure he’d be given best-dealer treatment.’

‘And that didn’t happen?’

‘No, that didn’t happen. A lot of the stuff got blown up before it was delivered. I think a whole shipload might have been hijacked by pirates in the Gulf. Let me call around, Guido. I’ll get back to you soon, within an hour.’

‘Is there anything personal?’

‘Nothing I’ve heard, but I’ll ask.’

‘Thanks, Riccardo.’

‘Can you tell me what this is about?’

Brunetti saw no reason why he couldn’t. ‘His place was robbed last night, and he walked in on the robbery. He couldn’t identify the three men, but he knew what three paintings they took.’

‘Sounds like Viscardi,’ Fosco said.

‘Is he that stupid?’

‘No, he’s not stupid, not at all. But he is arrogant, and he’s willing to take chances. It’s those two things that have made him his fortune.’ Fosco’s voice changed. ‘Sorry, Guido, I’ve got a call on another line. I’ll call you later this morning, all right?’

‘Thanks, Riccardo,’ he repeated, but before he could add, ‘I appreciate it.’ the line was dead.

The secret of police success lay, Brunetti knew, not in brilliant deductions or the psychological manipulation of suspects but in the simple fact that human beings tended to assume that their own level of intelligence was the norm, the standard, and to work on that assumption. Hence the stupid were quickly caught, for their idea of what was cunning was so lamentably impoverished as to make them obvious prey. This same rule, unfortunately, made his job all the more difficult when he had to deal with criminals possessed of intelligence or courage.

During the next hour, Brunetti called down to Vianello and got the name of the insurance agent who had asked to inspect the scene of the crime. When he finally found the man at his office, he assured Brunetti that the paintings were all genuine and had all disappeared in the robbery. Copies of papers of authenticity were on his desk, even as they spoke. The current value of the three paintings? Well, they were insured for a total of five billion lire, but their current real market value had perhaps increased in the last year, with the rise in prices for Impressionists. No, there had never been a robbery before. Some jewellery had also been taken, but it was nothing in value when compared to the paintings: a few hundred million lire. Ah, how sweet the world in which a few hundred million lire were viewed as nothing.

By the time he was finished talking to the agent, Rossi was back from the hospital, telling him that Signor Viscardi had been very surprised to see the picture of Ruffolo. He had quickly overcome that emotion, however, and said that the photo bore no resemblance to either of the two men he had seen, now insistent, upon further reflection, that there had been only two.

‘What do you think?’ Brunetti asked.

There was no uncertainty in Rossi’s voice when he answered, ‘He’s lying. I don’t know what else he’s lying about, but he’s lying about not knowing Ruffolo. He couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d shown him a picture of his own mother.’

‘I guess that means I’ll go over and have a talk with Ruffolo’s mother.’ Brunetti said.

‘Would you like me to go down to the supply room and get you a bullet-proof vest?’ Rossi asked with a laugh.

‘No, Rossi, the widow Ruffolo and I are on the best of terms now. After I spoke up for him at the trial, she decided to forgive and forget. She even smiles when she sees me on the street.’ He didn’t mention that he had gone to see her a few times during the last two years, apparently the only person in the city who had.

‘Lucky you. Does she talk to you, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘In Siciliano?’

‘I don’t think she knows how to speak anything else.’

‘How much do you understand?’

‘About half,’ Brunetti answered, then added, for truth’s sake, ‘but only if she talks very, very slowly.’ Though Signora Ruffolo could not be said to have adapted to life in Venice, she had, in her own way, become part of the police legend of the city, a woman who would attack a commissario of police to protect her son.

Soon after Rossi left, Fosco called back. ‘Guido, I spoke to a few people here. The word is that he lost a fortune in the Gulf business. A ship that was carrying an entire cargo - and no one knew what was in the cargo - disappeared, probably taken by pirates. Because the boycott was in effect, he couldn’t get insurance.’

‘So he lost the whole lot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any idea how much?’

‘No one’s sure. I’ve heard estimates that range from five to fifteen billion, but no one could give me an exact amount. In any case, the word is thathe managed to hold things together for a while, but now he’s got serious cash-flow problems. One friend of mine at Corriere said Viscardi’s really got nothing to worry about because he’s tied into some sort of government contract. And he’s got holdings in other countries. My contact wasn’t certain where. Do you want me to try to find out more?’

Signor Viscardi was beginning to sound to Brunetti like any one of the rising generation of businessmen, those who had replaced hard work with boldness, and honesty with connections. ‘No, I don’t think so, Riccardo. I just wanted to get an idea of whether he’d try something like this.’

‘And?’

‘Well, it looks like he might be in a position to want to give it a try, doesn’t it?’

Fosco offered a bit more information. ‘The word is that he’s very well connected, but the person I spoke to wasn’t sure just how. Do you want me to ask around some more?’

‘Did it sound like it might be Mafia?’ Brunetti asked.

‘It looks that way.’ Fosco gave a resigned laugh. ‘But when doesn’t it? It seems, though, that he’s also connected to people in the government.’

Brunetti resisted, in his turn, the temptation to ask when didn’t it sound that way and, instead, asked, ‘What about his personal life?’

‘He’s got a wife and a couple of kids here. She’s some sort of den mother for the Knights of Malta - you know, charity balls and visits to hospitals. And a mistress in Verona; I think it’s Verona. Some place out your way.’

‘You said he’s arrogant.’

‘Yes. A few people I spoke to say he’s more than that.’

‘What does that mean?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Two said he could be dangerous.’

‘Personally?’

‘You mean, will he pull a knife?’ Fosco asked with a laugh.

‘Something like that.’

‘No, that’s not the impression I got. Not personally, at any rate. But he likes to take chances; at least that’s the reputation he has here. And, as I said, he’s a very well-protected man, and he has no hesitation about asking his friends to help him.’ Fosco paused for a moment and then added, ‘One person I spoke to was even more outspoken, but he wouldn’t tell me anything exact. He just said that anyone who dealt with Viscardi should be very careful.’

Brunetti decided to treat this last lightly and said, ‘I’m not afraid of knives.’

Fosco’s response was immediate. ‘I used not to be afraid of machine guns, Guido.’ Then, embarrassed at the remark; he added, ‘I mean it, Guido, be careful with him.’

‘All right, I will. And thanks,’ he said, then added, ‘I still haven’t heard anything, but when I do, I’ll let you know,’ Most of the police who knew Fosco had put out the word that they were interested in knowing who had done the shooting and who had done the sending, but whoever it was had been very cautious, knowing how well-liked Fosco was with the police, and years had passed in silence. Brunetti believed it was hopeless, but he still asked the occasional question, dropped a hint here and there, spoke vaguely to suspects about the chance of a trade-off in exchange for the information he wanted. But, in all these years, he had never got close.

‘I appreciate it, Guido. But I’m not so sure it’s all that important any more.’ Was this wisdom or resignation he was hearing.

‘Why?’

‘I’m getting married.’ Love, then, better than either.

‘Congratulations, Riccardo. Who?’

‘I don’t think you know her, Guido. She works on the magazine, but she’s just been here a year or so.’

‘When is it?’

‘Next month.’

Brunetti didn’t bother with false promises to try to attend, but he spoke from the heart when he said, ‘I hope you’ll both be happy, Riccardo.’

‘Thanks, Guido. Look, if I hear anything more about this guy, I’ll call, all right?’

‘I’d appreciate it.’ With more good wishes for the future, Brunetti said goodbye and hung up; Could it be this simple? Could his business losses have driven Viscardi to organize something as rash as a fake robbery? Only a stranger to Venice could have chosen Ruffolo, a young man infinitely better at being caught than at being criminal. But perhaps the fact that he was so recently out of prison had served as sufficient recommendation.

There was nothing more he could do here today, and Patta would be the first to scream police brutality if a millionaire was questioned on the same day by three different policemen, especially if the questioning took place while the man was still in hospital. There was no sense in going to Vicenza on a day when the American offices would be closed, though it might be easier to defy Patta’s order if he went in his own time. No, let the doctor swim towards the bait until next week, when he could easily give another gentle tug on the line. For today, he would drop his line in Venetian waters and go after different prey.

Signora Concetta Ruffolo lived, her son Giuseppe sharing it with her during those brief periods when he was not incarcerated, in a two-room apartment near Campo San Boldo, an area of the city characterized by proximity to the severed tower of that church, to no convenient vaporetto stop, and, if one is but willing to expand the definition of the word ‘proximity’, to the church of San Simeone Piccolo, where Sunday Mass is still said, in open protest to concepts such as modernity or relevance, in Latin. The widow lived in an apartment owned by a public foundation, IRE, which rents its many apartments to those people judged sufficiently needy to be awarded them. Often, they were given to Venetians; how Signora Ruffolo had been given one remained a mystery, though no mystery surrounded the reality of her need.

Brunetti crossed the Rialto Bridge and went down past San Cassiano, then cut to his left, soon to find the squat tower of San Boldo on his right. He turned into a narrow calle and stopped in front of a low building. The name ‘Ruffolo’ was engraved in delicate script on a metal nameplate to the right of the bell; rust streaked down from both and discoloured the plaster that slowly peeled from the front wall of the building. He rang the bell, waited a moment, rang it again, waited, and rang it a third time.

A full two minutes after his last ring, he heard a voice ask from inside, ‘Si, chi è?’

‘It’s me, Signora Concetta. Brunetti.’

The door was quickly pulled open and, looking into the dark hall, he had his usual sensation that he was looking at a barrel and not a woman. Signora Concetta, her family history recounted, had forty years ago been the reigning beauty of Caltanisetta. Young men, it was maintained, would spend hours walking up and down Corso Vittorio Emmanuele in the hope of no more than a glimpse of the fair Concetta. She could have had her pick of them, from the mayor’s son to the doctor’s younger brother, but instead she had chosen the third son of the family which had once ruled the entire province with an iron fist. She had become a Ruffolo by marriage, and when Annuziato’s debts had driven them from Sicily, she had become an alien in this cold and inhospitable city. And, in quick succession, she had become a widow, living on a pension paid by the State and the charity of her husband’s family, and, even before Giuseppe could finish school, she had become the mother of a felon.

From the day of her husband’s death, to which event her emotional response was unfathomable, even to her son, perhaps even to her herself - she had clothed herself solidly in black: dress, shoes, stockings, even a scarf for those times she left the house. Though she grew stouter with the years, her face more lined with the grief of her son’s life, the black remained unchanged: she would wear it to her grave, perhaps beyond.

‘Buon giorno, Signora Concetta,’ Brunetti said, smiling and offering her his hand

He watched her face, read her expression as a child would the quickly-turning pages of a comic book. There was the instant recognition, the instinctive chill of disgust at what he represented, but then he saw her remember the kindness he had shown to her son, her star, her sun, and with that her face softened and her mouth turned up in a smile of real pleasure. ‘Ah, Dottore, you’ve come to visit me again. How nice, how nice. But you should have called so that I could give the house a real cleaning, make you some fresh pastries.’ He understood ‘called’, ‘house’, ‘cleaning’, and ‘pastries’, so he constructed her speech to mean that.

‘Signora, a cup of your good coffee is more than I could hope to have.’

‘Come in, come in,’ she said, putting her hand under his arm and pulling him towards her. She backed through the open door of her apartment, keeping her hold on his arm, as if she were afraid he would try to escape her.

When they were inside the apartment, she closed the door with one hand and continued to pull him forward with the other. The apartment was so small that no one could be lost in it, and yet she kept her hand on his arm and led him into the small living room. ‘Take this chair, Dottore,’ she said, leading him to an overstuffed armchair covered in shiny orange cloth, where she finally released him. When he hesitated, she insisted, ‘Sit, sit. I’ll make us some coffee.’

He did as she commanded, sinking down until his knees were on a level almost with his chin. She switched on the light that stood beside his chair; the Ruffolos lived in the endless twilight of ground-floor apartments, but even lights at midday could do nothing to work against the damp.

‘Don’t move,’ she commanded and went to the other side of the room, where she pushed aside a flowered curtain, behind which lay a sink and stove. From his side of the room, he could see that the taps gleamed and the surface of the stove was almost radiant in its whiteness. She opened a cabinet and pulled down the straight cylindrical espresso pot he always associated with the South, he didn’t know why. She unscrewed it, rinsed it carefully, rinsed it again, filled it with water, and then reached down a glass canister filled with coffee. With gestures grown rhythmic with decades of repetition, she filled the pot, lit the stove, and placed the pot over the flame.

The room was unchanged from the last time he was there. Yellow plastic flowers stood in front of the plaster statue of the Madonna; embroidered lace ovals, rectangles, and circles covered every surface; on top of them stood ranks of family photos, in all of which appeared Peppino: Peppino dressed as a tiny sailor, Peppino in the brilliant white of his First Communion, Peppino held on the back of a donkey, grinning through his fear. In all of the photos, the child’s outsized ears were visible, making him look almost like a cartoon figure. In one corner stood what could only be described as a shrine to her late husband: their wedding photo, in which Brunetti could see her long-gone beauty; her husband’s walking stick propped in a corner, ivory knob aglow even in this dim light; his lupara, its deadly short barrels kept polished and oiled, more than a decade after his death, as if even death had not freed him from the need to live up to the cliché of the Sicilian male, ever ready to defend with his shotgun any offence to his honour or his family.

He continued to watch as, seeming to ignore him, she pulled down a tray, plates, and, from another cabinet, a metal tin that she prised open with a knife. From it, she removed pastries, and then more pastries, piling them high on one of the plates. From another tin, she took sweets wrapped in violent-coloured foil and stacked them on another plate. The coffee boiled up, and she quickly grabbed the pot, flipped it upside down in one swift motion, and carried the tray to the large table that took up most of one side of the room. Like a dealer, she passed out plates and saucers, spoons and cups, setting them carefully on the plastic tablecloth, and then went back to bring the coffee to the table. When everything was done, she turned to him and waved her hand towards the table.

Brunetti had to push himself up out of the low chair, both hands pressing firmly down upon the arms. When he was at the table, she pulled his chair out for him and then, when he was seated, sat opposite him. The Capodimonte saucers both had hairline cracks in them, radiating from the edges to the centres like the papery wrinkles he remembered in his grandmother’s cheeks. The spoons gleamed, and beside his plate lay a linen napkin ironed into a state of rectangular submission.

Signora Ruffolo poured two cups of coffee, placed one in front of Brunetti, and then put the silver sugar bowl beside his plate. Using silver tongs, she piled six pastries, each the size of an apricot, on his plate, and then used the same tongs to set four of the foil-wrapped sweets beside it.

He added sugar to his coffee and sipped at it. ‘It’s the best coffee in Venice, Signora. You still won’t tell me your secret?’

She smiled at that, and Brunetti saw that she had lost another tooth, this the right front one. He bit into a pastry, felt the sugar surge out into his mouth. Ground almonds, sugar, the finest of pastry dough, and yet more sugar. The next had ground pistachios. The third was chocolate, and the fourth exploded with pastry crème. He took a bite of the fifth and set half of it down on his plate.

‘Eat. You’re too thin, Dottore. Eat. Sugar gives energy. And it’s good for your blood.’ The nouns conveyed the message.

‘They’re wonderful, Signora Concetta. But I just had lunch, and if I eat too many of them, I won’t eat my dinner, and then my wife will be angry with me.’

She nodded. She understood the anger of wives.

He finished his coffee and set the cup down on the saucer. Not three seconds passed before she was up, across the room, and back with a carved glass decanter and two glasses no bigger than olives. ‘Marsala. From home,’ she said, pouring him a thimbleful. He took the glass from her, waited while she poured no more than a few drops into her own glass, tapped his glass to hers, and sipped at it. It tasted of sun, and the sea, and songs that told of love and death.

He set his glass down, looked across the table at her, and said, ‘Signora Concetta, I think you know why I’ve come.’

She nodded. ‘Peppino?’

‘Yes, Signora.’

She held her hand up, palm towards him, as if to ward off his words or perhaps to protect herself from the malocchio.

‘Signora, I think Peppino is involved in something very bad.’

‘But this time . . .’ she began, but then she remembered who Brunetti was, and she said only, ‘He is not a bad boy.’

Brunetti waited until he was sure she was not going to say anything else, and then he continued. ‘Signora, I spoke to a friend of mine today. He tells me that a man I think Peppino might be involved with is a very bad man. Do you know anything about this? About what Peppino is doing, about the people he’s been seeing since . . .’ He wasn’t sure how to phrase it. ‘Since he came home?’

She considered this for a long time before she answered. ‘Peppino was with very bad people when he was in that place.’ Even now, after all these years, she could not bring herself to name that place. ‘He talked about those people.’

‘What did he say about them, Signora?’

‘He said that they were important, that his luck was going to change.’ Yes, Brunetti remembered this about Peppino: his luck was always going to change.

‘Did he tell you anything more, Signora?’

She shook her head. It was a negation, but he wasn’t sure what she was denying. Brunetti had never been sure in the past just how much Signora Concetta knew of what her son actually did. He imagined she knew far more than she indicated, but he feared she probably kept that knowledge hidden even from herself. There is only so much truth a mother can permit herself.

‘Did you meet any of them, Signora?’

She shook her head fiercely. ‘He will not bring them here, not to my home.’ This, beyond question, was the truth.

‘Signora, we are looking for Peppino now.’

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. He had been out of that place for only two weeks, and already the police were looking for him.

‘What did he do, Dottore?’

‘We’re not sure, Signora. We want to talk to him. Some people say they saw him where a crime took place. But all they saw is a photo of Peppino.’

‘So maybe it wasn’t my son?’

‘We don’t know, Signora. That’s why we want to talk to him. Do you know where he is?’

She shook her head, but, again, Brunetti didn’t know if that meant she didn’t know or she didn’t want to say.

‘Signora, if you talk to Peppino, will you tell him two things for me?’

‘Yes, Dottore.’

‘Please tell him that we need to talk to him. And tell him that these people are bad people, and they might be dangerous.’

‘Dottore, you’re a guest in my house, so I shouldn’t ask you this.’

‘What, Signora?’

‘Is this the truth or is this a trick?’

‘Signora, you tell me something to swear on, and I’ll swear this is the truth.’

With no hesitation, she demanded, ‘Will you swear on your mother’s heart?’

‘Signora, I swear on my mother’s heart that this is the truth. Peppino should come and talk to us. And he should be very careful with these people.’

She set her glass down, untasted. ‘I’ll try to talk to him, Dottore. But maybe it will be different this time?’ She couldn’t keep the hope from her voice. Brunetti realized that Peppino must have told his mother a great deal about his important friends, about this new chance, when everything would be different, and they would finally be rich.

‘I’m sorry, Signora,’ he said, meaning it. He got to his feet. ‘Thank you for the coffee, and for the pastries. No one in Venice knows how to make them like you do.’

She pushed herself to her feet and grabbed a handful of the sweets. She slipped them into the pocket of his jacket. ‘For your children. They’re growing. Sugar’s good for them.’

‘You’re very kind, Signora,’ he said, painfully aware of how true this was.

She walked with him to the door, again leading him by the arm, as if he were a blind man or liable to lose his way. At the door to the street, they shook hands formally, and she stood at the door, watching him as he walked away.

* * * *

15

The next morning, Sunday, was the day of the week Paola dreaded, for it was the day when she woke up with a stranger. During the years of their marriage, she had grown accustomed to waking up with her husband, a grim, foul creature incapable of civility for at least an hour after waking, a surly presence from whom she expected grunts and dark looks. Not the brightest bed partner, perhaps, but at least he left her alone and let her sleep. On Sunday, however, his place was taken by someone who, she hated the very word, chirped. Liberated from work and responsibility, a different man emerged: friendly, playful, often amorous. She loathed him.

This Sunday, he was awake at seven, thinking of what he could do with the money he had won at the Casinò. He could beat his father-in-law to the purchase of a computer for Chiara. He could get himself a new winter coat. They could all go to the mountains for a week in January. He lay in bed for half an hour, spending and respending the money, then was finally driven out of bed by his desire for coffee.

He hummed his way to the kitchen and pulled down the largest pot, filled it, set it on the stove, and put a saucepan of milk next to it, then went into the bathroom while they heated. When he emerged, teeth brushed and face glowing from the shock of cold water, the coffee was bubbling up, filling the house with its aroma. He poured it into two large cups, added the sugar and the milk, and went back towards the bedroom. He set the cups on the table beside their bed, got back down under the covers, and fought with his pillow until he had beaten it into a position that would allow him to sit up enough to drink his coffee. He took a loud sip, wiggled himself into a more comfortable position, and said softly, ‘Paola.’

From the long lump beside him, his fair consort made no response.

‘Paola,’ he repeated, voice a little louder. Silence. ‘Humm, such good coffee. Think I’ll have another sip,’ which he proceeded to do, loudly. A hand emerged from the lump, turned itself into a fist, and poked at his shoulder. ‘Wonderful, wonderful coffee. Think I’ll have another sip.’ A distinctly threatening noise emerged. He ignored it and sipped at his coffee. Knowing what was about to come, he placed the cup on the table beside the bed so that it would not be spilled. ‘Umm,’ was all he said before the lump erupted and Paola flipped herself onto her back, in the manner of a large fish, extending her left arm across his chest. Turning, he took the second cup from the table and placed it into her hand, then took it back and held it for her while she pushed herself up onto her pillow.

This scene had first taken place the second Sunday of their marriage, they still on their honeymoon, when he had bent over his still-sleeping wife to nuzzle at her ear. The voice that had said, steel-like, ‘If you don’t stop that, I’ll rip out your liver and eat it,’ had informed him that the honeymoon was over.

Try as he might, which wasn’t very hard, he could never understand her lack of sympathy with what he insisted upon seeing as his real self. Sunday was the only day he had during the week, the only day when he didn’t have to concern himself directly with death and disaster, so the person who woke up, he maintained, was the real man, the true Brunetti, and he could dismiss that other, Hyde-like creature as being in no way representative of his spirit. Paola was having none of this.

While she sipped at her coffee and worked at getting her eyes open, he switched on the radio and listened to the morning news, though he knew it was likely to turn his mood until it resembled hers. Three more murders in Calabria, all members of the Mafia, one a wanted killer (one for us, he thought); talk of the imminent collapse of the government (when was it not imminent?); a boatload of toxic waste docked at Genoa, turned back from Africa (and why not?); and a priest, murdered in his garden, shot eight times in the head (had he given too severe a penance in confession?). He switched it off while there was still time to save his day and turned to Paola. ‘You awake?’

She nodded, still incapable of speech.

‘What will we do with the money?’

She shook her head, nose buried in the fumes of the coffee.

‘Anything you’d like?’

She finished the coffee, handed the cup to him without comment, and fell back on her pillow. Looking at her, he didn’t know whether to give her more coffee or artificial respiration. ‘Kids need anything?’

Eyes still closed, she shook her head.

‘Sure there’s nothing you’d like?’

It cost her inhuman effort, but she got the words out. ‘Go away for an hour, then bring me a brioche and more coffee.’ That said, she flipped herself over onto her stomach and was asleep before he was out of the room.

He took a long shower, shaving under the flood of hot water, glad that he didn’t have to fear the responses of the varied ecological sensibilities of the other members of the household, always ready to decry what they saw as waste or misuse of the environment. Brunetti believed himself to be a man whose family always chose enthusiasms and causes that contributed directly to his inconvenience. Other men, he was sure, managed to have children who contented themselves with worrying about things that were far away - the rainforest, nuclear testing, the plight of the Kurds. Yet here he was, a city official, a man the newspapers had even once praised, and he was forbidden, by members of his own family, from buying mineral water that came in plastic bottles. Instead, he had to buy water in glass bottles, then haul those bottles up and down ninety-four steps. And if he stayed under the shower for more time than it took the average human being to wash his hands, he had to listen to endless denunciations of the thoughtlessness of the West, its devouring of the resources of the world. When he was a child, waste was condemned because they were poor; now it was condemned because they were rich. At this point, he discovered how difficult it was to shave while grinning, so he abandoned the catalogue of his woes and finished his shower.

When he emerged from the house twenty minutes later, he found himself swept by a boundless feeling of unspecified delight. Though the morning was cool, the day would be warm, one of those glorious sun-swept days that graced the city in the autumn. The air was so dry that it was impossible to believe the city was built on water, though a glance to the right as he walked past any of the side streets on his way towards Rialto was ample proof of that fact.

Arriving at the major cross-street, he turned left and headed down towards the fish market, closed now on Sunday but still giving off the faintest odour of the fish that had been sold there for hundreds of years. He crossed a bridge, turned to the left, and went into a pasticceria. He ordered a dozen pastries. Even if they didn’t eat them all for breakfast, Chiara was sure to knock them off during the course of the day. Probably the morning. Balancing the rectangular package on his outstretched palm, he went back towards Rialto, then turned right and back up towards San Polo. At Sant’ Aponal, he stopped at the newsstand and bought two papers, Corriere and Il Manifesto, which he thought were the ones Paola wanted to read that day. Back home, the steps seemed almost not to be there as he climbed up to the apartment.

He found Paola in the kitchen, coffee just brimming up in the pot. From down the hall, he heard Raffaele shouting to Chiara through the bathroom door, ‘Come on, hurry up. You’ve been in there all morning.’ Ah, the water police, back on duty.

He set the package down on the table and tore back the white paper. The mound of pastries glistened with melted sugar, and some fine powdered sugar floated out to settle on the dark wood of the table. He grabbed a piece of apple strudel and took a bite.

‘Where’d they come from?’ Paola asked, pouring coffee.

‘That place down by Carampane.’

‘You went all the way there?’

‘It’s a beautiful day, Paola. After we eat, let’s go for a walk. We could go out to Burano for lunch. Come on, let’s do it. It’s a perfect day for the ride out.’ Even the thought of it, the long boat ride out to the island, the sun glimmering on the crazy patchwork of riotously coloured houses as they grew nearer, lifted his heart even higher.

‘Good idea,’ she agreed. ‘What about the kids?’

‘Ask them. Chiara will want to come.’

‘All right. Maybe Raffi will, too.’

Maybe.

Paola shoved the Manifesto towards him and picked up Corriere. Nothing would be done, no move to embrace this glorious day, until she had at least two more cups of coffee and read the papers. He took the newspaper in one hand, his cup in the other, and went back through the living room to the terrace. He set those things down on the balcony and went back into the living room for a straight-backed chair, which he propped up just the right distance from the railing. He sat, pushed the chair back, and rested his feet on the railing. Grabbing the paper, he opened it and began to read.

Church bells sounded, the sun rained down abundantly upon his face, and Brunetti knew a moment of absolute peace.

Paola spoke from the doorway to the terrace. ‘Guido, what was that doctor’s name?’

‘The pretty one?’ he asked, not looking up from his paper, not really paying attention to her voice.

‘Guido, what was her name?’

He lowered his paper and turned to look at her. When he saw her face, he took his feet from the railing and set the chair down. ‘Peters.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, then handed him the Corriere, turned back to a page in the middle.

‘American Doctor Dead of Overdose’, he read. The article was a small one, easily overlooked, no more than six or seven lines. The body of Captain Terry Peters, a paediatrician in the US Army, had been found late Saturday afternoon, in her apartment in Due Ville, in the province of Vicenza. Doctor Peters, who worked at the Army hospital at Caserme Ederle, had been found by a friend, who had gone to see why the doctor had not shown up for work that morning. A used syringe was found by the doctor’s body, and there were signs of other drug use, as well as evidence that the doctor had been drinking. The Carabinieri and the American military police were handling the investigation.

He read the article again, then again. He looked through the newspaper he had, but Il Manifesto had made no mention of it

‘Is this possible, Guido?’

He shook his head. No, an overdose was impossible, but she was dead; the paper gave proof of that.

‘What will you do?’

He looked off towards the bell tower of San Polo, the closest church. He had no idea. Patta would see this as an unrelated event or, if related, either an unfortunate accident or, at worst, a suicide. Since only Brunetti knew she had destroyed the postcard from Cairo, and only he had seen her reaction to the body of her lover, there was nothing to link the two of them together as anything other than colleagues, and that surely was no reason for suicide. Drugs and alcohol, and a woman living alone; that was enough to tell how the Press would treat this one - unless, unless the same sort of call that Brunetti was sure had been made to Patta were to be made to editors’ offices. In that case, the story would die a quick death, as many stories did. As Doctor Peters had.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, finally answering Paola’s question. ‘Patta’s warned me off, told me not to go back to Vicenza.’

‘But certainly this changes things.’

‘Not for Patta. It’s an overdose. The Carabinieri and the American military police will handle it. They’ll do an autopsy, then they’ll send her body back to America.’

‘Just like the other one,’ Paola said, giving voice to his thoughts. ‘Why kill them both?’

Brunetti shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’ But he knew. She had been silenced. Her casual remark that she wasn’t interested in drugs had not been a lie: the idea of an overdose was ludicrous. She’d been killed because of whatever she knew about Foster, because of whatever it was that had sent her careening across the room, away from her lover’s body. Killed by drugs. He wondered if that was meant to be a message to him but dismissed the idea as vainglorious. Whoever had killed her hadn’t had enough time to arrange an accident, and a second murder would have been too obvious, a suicide unexplained and therefore suspicious. So an accidental overdose was the perfect solution: she did it to herself, nowhere else to look, another dead end. And Brunetti didn’t even know if it was she who had called to say, ‘Basta’.

Paola came closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Guido. Sorry for her.’

‘She couldn’t have been thirty yet,’ he said. ‘All those years in school, all that work.’ It seemed to him that her death would have been less unfair if she had had time for more fun. ‘I hope her family doesn’t believe it.’

Paola spoke his thoughts. ‘If the police and the Army tell you something, you’re likely to believe it. And I’m sure it looked very real, very convincing.’

‘Poor people,’ he said.

‘Could you...’ she broke off, remembering that Patta had told him to stay clear of this.

‘If I can. It’s bad enough that she’s dead. They don’t need to believe this.’

‘That she was murdered isn’t going to be any better,’ Paola said.

‘At least she didn’t do that.’

Both of them stayed there in the late autumn sunshine, thinking about parents and being a parent, and what parents want and need to know about their children. He had no idea which would be better, worse. At least, if you knew that your child had been murdered, your life would have the grim hope of someday being able to kill the person who had done it, but that hardly seemed any sort of consolation.

‘I should have called her.’

‘Guido,’ she said, voice growing firm. ‘Don’t start that. Because all it means is that you should have been a mind-reader. And you’re not. So don’t even start thinking that.’ He was surprised by the real anger in her voice.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. They remained like that, without speaking, until the bells of San Marco boomed out ten o’clock.

‘What are you going to do? Will you go to Vicenza?’

‘No, not yet. I’m going to wait.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Whatever they knew, they knew because of where they worked. It’s the link they had. There have got to be other people who know or suspect or have access to what they learned. So I’m going to wait.’

‘Guido, now you’re asking other people to be mind-readers. How are they going to know to come to you?’

‘I’ll go out there, but not for a week, and then I’ll make myself conspicuous. Speak to that major, to the sergeant who worked with them, to other doctors. It’s a small world there. People will talk to one another; they’ll know something.’ And to hell with Patta.

‘Let’s forget Burano, all right, Guido?’

He nodded then got to his feet. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk. I’ll be back for lunch,’ He squeezed her arm. ‘I just need to walk.’ He glanced out over the rooftops of the city. How strange; the glory of the day was undiminished. Sparrows swooped and played tag with one another almost within his grasp, chirping for the joy of flight. And off in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of San Marco flashed in the sun, bathing the entire city in its glistening benediction.

* * * *

16

On Monday morning, he went into his office at the regular time and stood looking at the façade of the church of San Lorenzo for more than an hour. During that entire time, he saw no sign of motion or activity, neither on the scaffolding nor on the roof, which was stacked with neat rows of terracotta tiles. Twice he heard people come into his office, but when they didn’t speak to him, he didn’t bother to turn around, and they left, presumably after having placed things on his desk.

At ten-thirty, his phone rang, and he turned away from the window to answer it.

‘Good morning, Commissario. This is Maggiore Ambrogiani.’

‘Good morning, Maggiore. I’m glad you called. In fact, I was going to call you this afternoon.’

‘They did it this morning.’ Ambrogiani said with no prelude.

‘And?’ Brunetti asked, knowing what he meant.

‘It was an overdose of heroin, enough to kill someone twice her size.’

‘Who did the autopsy?’

‘Doctor Franceso Urbani. One of ours.’

‘Where?’

‘Here at the hospital in Vicenza.

‘Were any of the Americans present?’

‘They sent one of their doctors. Sent him down from Germany. A colonel, this doctor.’

‘Did he assist or only observe?’

‘He merely observed the autopsy.’

‘Who’s Urbani?’

‘Our pathologist.’

‘Reliable?’

‘Very.’

Aware of the potential ambiguity of the last question, Brunetti rephrased it. ‘Believable?’

‘Yes.’

‘So that means it was really an overdose?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it does.’

‘What else did he find?’

‘Urbani?’

‘Yes.’

‘There were no signs of violence in the apartment. There were no sign of prior drug use, but there was a bruise on her upper right arm and one on her left wrist. It was suggested to Doctor Urbani that these bruises were consistent with a fall.’

‘Who made that suggestion?’

The length of the pause before Ambrogiani answered was probably meant as a reproach to Brunetti’s even having to ask. ‘The American doctor. The colonel.’

‘And what was Doctor Urbani’s opinion?’

‘That the marks are not inconsistent with a fall.’

‘Any other needle marks?’

‘No, none.’

‘So she overdosed the first time she did it?’

‘Strange coincidence, isn’t it?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Did you know her?’

‘No, I didn’t. But one of my men works with an American policeman whose son was her patient. He said she was very good with the little boy. He broke his arm last year and got bad treatment at the beginning. Doctors and nurses rushed, too busy to tell him what they were doing; you know the story, so he was afraid of doctors, afraid they’d hurt him again. She was very kind with him, spent a lot of time. It seems she always made sure to schedule a double appointment for the boy, so she wouldn’t have to rush him.’

‘That doesn’t mean she didn’t use drugs, Maggiore,’ Brunetti said, trying to make it sound like he believed it.

‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ Ambrogiani agreed.

‘What else did the report say?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen a copy of it.’

‘Then how do you know what you’ve told me?’

‘I called Urbani.’

‘Why?’

‘Dottor Brunetti. An American soldier was murdered in Venice. Less than a week later, his commanding officer dies under mysterious circumstances. I’d be a fool if I didn’t suspect some sort of connection between the two events.’

‘When will you have a copy of the autopsy report?’

‘Probably this afternoon. Would you like me to call you?’

‘Yes. I’d appreciate that, Maggiore.’

‘Is there anything you think I should know?’ Ambrogiani asked.

Ambrogiani was there, in daily contact with the Americans. Anything Brunetti told him was sure to become a fair trade. ‘They were lovers, and she was very frightened when she saw his body.’

‘Saw his body?’

‘Yes. She was sent to identify his body.’

Ambrogiani’s silence suggested that he, too, saw this as a particularly subtle touch. ‘Did you speak to her after it?’ he finally asked.

‘Yes and no. I came back to the city on the boat with her, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It seemed to me at the time that she was afraid of something. She had the same reaction when I saw her out there.’

‘Was that when you came out here?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Yes. Friday.’

‘Do you have any idea what she was afraid of?’

‘No. None. She might have tried to call me here on Friday night. There was a phone message here at the Questura, from a woman who didn’t speak Italian. The operator who took the call doesn’t speak English and all he could understand was that she said, ‘Basta.’

‘Do you think it was she?’

‘It could have been. I’ve no idea. But the message makes no sense.’ Brunetti thought of Patta’s order and asked, ‘What’s going to happen out there?’

‘Their military police are going to try to find out where she got the heroin. There were other signs of drugs found with her, the ends of marijuana cigarettes, some hashish. And the autopsy showed that she had been drinking.’

‘They certainly didn’t leave any doubt, did they?’ Brunetti asked.

‘There’s no sign that she was forced to take the injection.’

‘Those bruises?’ Brunetti asked.

‘She fell.’

‘So it looks like she did it?’

‘Yes.’ Neither of them spoke for a while, then Ambrogiani asked, ‘Are you going to come out here?’

‘I’ve been told not to bother the Americans.’

‘Who told you?’

‘The Vice-Questore here in Venice.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll wait a few days, a week, then I’d like to come out there and speak to you. Do your men have contact with the Americans?’

‘Not much. We each keep to ourselves. But I’ll see what I can find out about her.’

‘Did any Italians work with them?’

‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘I’m not sure. But both of them, especially Foster, had to travel for his job, going back and forth to places like Egypt.’

‘Drugs?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Could be. Or it could be something else.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. Drugs don’t feel right, somehow.’

‘What does feel right?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked up and saw Vianello at the door to his office. ‘Look, Maggiore, I’ve got someone here now. I’ll call you in a few days. We can decide then when I can go out there.’

‘All right. I’ll see what I can find out here.’

Brunetti hung up and waved Vianello into the office. ‘Anything on Ruffolo?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir. Those people who live below his girlfriend said he was there last week. They saw him a few times on the steps, but they haven’t seen him for three or four days. Do you want me to speak to her, sir?’

‘Yes, maybe you’d better. Tell her that it’s different from the other times. Viscardi has been assaulted, so that changes everything, especially for her if she’s hiding him or knows where he is.’

‘You think it will work?’

‘On Ivana?’ Brunetti asked sarcastically.

‘Well, no, I suppose it won’t,’ Vianello agreed. ‘But I’ll try it anyway. Besides, I’d rather talk to her than to the mother. At least I can understand what she says, even though every word of it is a lie.’

When Vianello had left to go and try to interview Ivana, Brunetti went back to the window, but after a few minutes he found that unsatisfactory and went to sit at his desk. Ignoring the files that had been placed there during the morning, he sat and considered the various possibilities. The first one, that it had been an overdose, he dismissed out of hand. Suicide, too, was impossible. In the past, he had seen distraught lovers who saw no possibility of a future life without the other person, but she was not one of them. Those two possibilities excluded, the only one that remained was murder.

To accomplish it, however, would have taken some planning, for he ruled out luck in these things. There were those bruises - not for a second did he believe in a fall - someone could have held her while she was given the injection. The autopsy showed that she had been drinking; how much did a person have to drink to be so deeply asleep as not to feel a needle or to be so fuddled as not to be able to resist it? More importantly, who would she have drunk with, who would she have felt so comfortable with? Not a lover; hers had just been killed. A friend, then, and who were the friends of Americans abroad? Who did they trust if not other Americans? And all of that pointed back to the base and her job, for Brunetti was certain that the answer, whatever it was, lay there.

* * * *

17

Three days passed during which Brunetti did almost nothing. At the Questura, he went through the motions of his job: looking at papers, signing them, filling out a staffing projection for the next year without giving a thought to the fact that Patta was supposed to do it. At home, he talked to Paola and the children, who were all too busy with the start of the new school year to realize how inattentive he was. Even the search for Ruffolo didn’t interest him much at all, certain as he was that someone so foolish and rash was sure soon to make a mistake that would put him in the hands of the police yet again.

He did not call Ambrogiani, and in his meetings with Patta, he made no mention of the murders, one that had so quickly been forgotten by the Press, and one that had never been called a murder, or of the base in Vicenza. So frequently as to be almost obsessive, he played over scenes with the young doctor, caught flashes of her in his memory: stepping up out of the boat and giving him her hand; arms braced against the sink in the morgue, body racked by the spasms of her shock; smiling when she told him that, in six months, she would begin her life.

It was the nature of police work that he never knew the victims whose deaths he investigated. Much as he came to know them intimately, to know about them in work, in bed, and in death, he had never known any of them in this life, and so he felt a special link to Doctor Peters and, because of that link, a special responsibility to find her murderer.

On Thursday morning, he checked with Vianello and Rossi when he got to the Questura, but there had still been no sign of Ruffolo. Viscardi had gone back to Milan, after giving written descriptions of the two men, one very tall and one with a beard, to both the insurance company and the police. It appeared that they had forced their way into the palazzo, for the locks on the side door had been picked, the padlock that held a metal grating in place filed through. Though Brunetti had not spoken to Viscardi, his talks with Vianello and Fosco had been enough to persuade him that there had been no robbery, well, not a robbery of anything other than the insurance company’s money.

A little after ten, one of the secretaries from downstairs brought the mail around to the offices on the top floor and placed a few letters and a magazine-sized manila envelope on his desk.

The letters were the usual things: invitations to conferences, attempts to sell him special life insurance, responses to questions he had sent to various police departments in other parts of the country. After he read them, he picked up the envelope and examined it. A narrow band of stamps ran across the top of the envelope; there must have been twenty of them. All the same, they carried a small American flag and were marked with the denomination of twenty-nine cents. The envelope was addressed to him, by his name, but the only address was ‘Questura, Venice, Italy’. He could think of no one in America who would be writing to him. There was no return address.

He tore the envelope open, reached in, and pulled out a magazine. He glanced at the cover and recognized the medical review Doctor Peters had pulled from his hands when she found him reading it in her office. He leafed through it, paused for a moment at those grotesque photos, then continued through the magazine. Towards the end, he found three sheets of paper, obviously a Xerox copy of some other original, slipped between the pages of the magazine. He took them out and placed them on his desk.

At the top, he read ‘Medical Report’ and then, below it, saw the boxes meant to hold information about the name, age, and rank of the patient. This one carried the name of Daniel Kayman, whose year of birth was given as 1984. There followed three pages of information about his medical history, starting with measles in 1989, a series of bloody noses in the winter of 1990, a broken finger in 1991, and, on the last two pages, a series of visits, starting two months ago, for a skin rash on his left arm. As Brunetti read, he watched the rash grow larger, deeper, and more confusing to the three doctors who had attempted to deal with it.

On 8 July, the boy had been seen for the first time by Doctor Peters. Her neat, slanted handwriting said that the rash was ‘of unknown origin’ but had broken out after the boy got home from a picnic with his parents. It covered the underside of his arm from wrist to elbow, was dark purple, but did not itch. The prescribed treatment was a medicated skin cream.

Three days later, the boy was back, the rash worse. It was now oozing a yellow liquid and had grown painful, and the boy was running a high fever. Doctor Peters suggested a consultation with a dermatologist at the local Vicenza hospital, but the parents refused to let the child see an Italian doctor. She prescribed a new cream, this one with cortisone, and an antibiotic to bring the fever down.

After only two days, the boy was brought back to the hospital and seen by a different doctor, Girrard, who noted in the record that the boy was in considerable pain. The rash now seemed to be a burn and had moved up his arm, spreading towards his shoulder. His hand was swollen and painful. The fever was unchanged.

A Doctor Grancheck, apparently a dermatologist, had looked at the boy and suggested he be immediately transferred to the Army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

The day after this visit, the boy was sent to Germany on a medical evacuation flights Nothing else was written in the body of the report, but Doctor Peters’ neat script had pencilled a single notation in the margin, next to the remark that the boy’s rash now appeared to be a burn. It read ‘PCB’ and carried after it ‘FPJ, March.’

He checked the date, but he knew what it would be even before he looked at it. Family Practice Journal, the March issue. He opened the magazine and began to read. He noticed that the editorial board was almost all men, that men had written most of the articles, and that the articles listed in the Table of Contents dealt with everything from the article about feet that had so horrified him to one that dealt with the increase in the incidence of tuberculosis as a result of the AIDS epidemic. There was even an article about the transmission of parasites from domestic pets to children.

Seeing no help in the Table of Contents, he began to read from the first page, including all the ads and the letters to the editors. It was on page 62, a brief reference to a case that had been reported in Newark, New Jersey, of a young child, a girl, who had been playing in an empty car park and had stepped into what she thought was a puddle of oil leaked from an abandoned car. The liquid had spilled over the top of her shoe and soaked through her sock. The next day, she developed a rash on the foot, which soon changed into something that had every appearance of a burn and which gradually spread up her leg to her knee. The child had a high fever. All treatment proved futile until a public health official went to the car park and took a sample of the liquid, which proved to be heavy in PCBs, which had leaked there from barrels of toxic waste dumped there. Though the burns eventually healed, the child’s doctors were fearful for her future because of the neurological and genetic damage that had often been noted in animal experimentation with substances containing PCBs.

He set the magazine aside and went back to the medical record, reading it through a second time. The symptoms were identical, though no mention was made of where or how the child had made the original contact with the substance that must have produced the rash. ‘While on a picnic with his family,’ was the only thing the record said. Nor did the record carry any report of the treatment given to the child in Germany.

He picked up the envelope and examined it. The stamps were cancelled by a circular imprint that bore, within it, the words ‘Army Postal System’ and Saturday’s date. So, sometime on Friday or Saturday, she had put this in the mail for him, then tried to call him. It hadn’t been ‘Basta’ or ‘Pasta’, but ‘Posta’, to alert him to its arrival in the mail. What had happened to warn her? To make her send these papers off to him?

He remembered something Butterworth had said about Foster; it was his job to see that used X-rays were taken away from the hospital. He had said something about other objects and substances, but he had said nothing about what they were or where they were dumped. Surely, the Americans would have to know.

This had to be the connecting link between the two deaths or else she would not have sent the envelope to him, then tried to call. The child had been her patient, but then he had been taken away and sent up to Germany, and there the medical record ended. He had the child’s last name, and Ambrogiani would certainly have access to a list of all the Americans stationed at the base, so it would be easy enough to learn if the boy’s family was still there. And if they weren’t?

He picked up the phone and asked the operator to get him Maggiore Ambrogiani at the American base in Vicenza. While he waited for the call to go through, he tried to think of a way all of this could be made to connect, hoping that it would lead him to whoever it was had pushed the needle into the doctor’s arm.

Ambrogiani answered by giving his name. He showed no surprise when Brunetti told him who it was, merely held the line and allowed the silence to lengthen.

‘Has there been any progress there?’ Brunetti asked.

‘They seem to have instituted a whole new series of drug tests. Everyone is subject to it, even the commander of the hospital. The rumour is he had to go into the men’s room and give a urine sample while one of the doctors waited outside. Apparently, they’ve done more than a hundred this week.’

‘With what results?’

‘Oh, none yet. All of the samples have to be sent up to Germany, to the hospitals there, to be tested. Then the results come down after a month or so.’

‘And they’re accurate?’ Brunetti asked, amazed that any organization could or would trust results that passed through so many hands, over so long a period of time.

‘They seem to believe so. If the test is positive, they simply throw you out.’

‘Who’s being tested?’

‘There’s no pattern. The only ones they’re leaving alone are the ones who keep coming back from the Middle East.’

‘Because they’re heroes?’ Brunetti asked.

‘No, because they’re afraid too many of them will test positive. Drugs are as easy to get in that part of the world as they were in Vietnam, and apparently they’re afraid it will create too much bad publicity if all of their heroes come back with souvenirs in their bloodstreams.’

‘Is it still given out that it was an overdose?’

‘Absolutely. One of my men told me her family wouldn’t even come to accompany the body back to America.’

‘So what happened?’

‘They sent it back. But it went back alone.’

Brunetti told himself it didn’t matter. The dead didn’t care about such things; it made no difference to them how they were treated or what the living thought of them. But he didn’t believe this.

‘I’d like you to try to get some information for me, Maggiore.’

‘If I can. Gladly.’

‘I’d like to know if there’s a soldier stationed there named Kayman.’ He spelled the name for Ambrogiani. ‘He has a son, nine years old, who was a patient of Doctor Peters. The boy was sent up to a hospital in Germany, at Landstuhl. I’d like to know if the parents are still there, and if they are, I’d like to be able to speak to them.’

‘Unofficial, all of this?’

‘Very.’

‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’

‘I’m not sure. She sent me a copy of the boy’s medical file, and an article about PCBs.’

‘About what?’

‘Toxic chemicals. I’m not sure what they’re made of or what they do, but I know disposing of them is difficult. And they’re corrosive. The child had a rash on his arm, probably caused by exposure to them.’

‘What’s that got to do with the Americans?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I want to speak to the boy’s parents.’

‘All right. I’ll get busy with this now and call you this afternoon.’

‘Can you find him without the Americans finding out?’

‘I think so,’ Ambrogiani answered. ‘We have copies of the vehicle registrations, and almost all of them have cars, so I can find out if he’s still here without having to ask them any questions.’

‘Good,’ Brunetti said. ‘I think it would be best if this stayed with us.’

‘You mean, as opposed to the Americans?’

‘For now, yes.’

‘Fine. I’ll call you after I check the records.’

‘Thanks, Maggiore.’

‘Giancarlo,’ the Carabiniere said. ‘I think we can call one another by our first names if we’re going to do something like this.’

‘I agree,’ Brunetti said, glad to find an ally. ‘Guido.’

When he hung up, Brunetti found himself wishing he were in America. One of the great revelations to him when he was there was the system of public libraries: a person could simply walk in and ask questions, read any book he wanted, easily find a catalogue of magazines. Here in Italy, either one bought the book or found it in a university library, and even there it was difficult to gain access without the proper cards, permissions, identification. And so how to find out about PCBs, what they were, where they came from, and what they did to a human body that came in contact with them?

He glanced at his watch. There was still time to get to the bookshop at San Luca if he hurried; it was likely to have the sort of book that might be useful to him.

He got there fifteen minutes before it closed and explained what he wanted to the sales assistant. He said that there were two basic books on toxic substances and pollution, though one had more to do with emissions that went directly into the atmosphere. There was a third book, a sort of general guide to chemistry for the layman. After glancing through them, Brunetti bought the first and the third, then added a rather strident-looking text, published by the Green party, that bore the title, Global Suicide. He hoped that the treatment of the subject would be more serious than either the title or the cover promised.

He stopped at a restaurant and had a proper lunch, then went back to the office and opened the first book. Three hours later, he had begun to see, with mounting shock and horror, the extent of the problem that industrial man had created for himself and, worse, for those who would follow him on the planet.

These chemicals, it seemed, were essential in many of the processes necessary to modern man, among them refrigeration, for they served as the coolant in domestic refrigerators and air conditioners. They were also used in the oil for transformers, but the PCBs were only a single flower in the deadly bouquet industry had presented to mankind. He read the chemical names with difficulty, the formulae with incomprehension. What remained were the numbers given for the half-life of the substances involved. He thought this was the time it took the substance to become half as deadly as it was when measured. In some cases, the number was hundreds of years; in some it was thousands. And it was these substances which were produced in enormous quantities by the industrialized world as it hurtled towards the future.

For decades, the Third World had been the rubbish dump of the industrialized nations; taking in shiploads of toxic substances, which were scattered around on their pampas, savannahs, and plateaux, placed there in exchange for current wealth, no thought given to the future price that would come due and be paid by future generations. And now, with some of the countries in the Third World refusing any longer to serve as the dumping ground of the First, the industrial countries were constrained to devise systems of disposal, many of them ruinously expensive. As a result, fleets of phantom trucks with false manifests travelled up and down the Italian peninsula, seeking and finding places to unload their lethal cargoes. Or boats sailed from Genoa or Taranto, holds filled with barrels of solvents, chemicals, God alone knew what, and when they arrived at their final ports, those barrels were no longer on board, as though the god who knew their contents had decided to take them to his bosom. Occasionally, they washed ashore in North Africa or Calabria, but no one, of course, had any idea where they might have come from, nor did anyone notice when they were delivered back to the waves that had brought them to the beaches.

The tone of the book published by the Green party irritated him; the facts terrified him. They named the shippers, named the companies that paid them, and, worst, showed photos of the places where these illegal dumps had been found. The rhetoric was accusatory, and the culprit, according to the authors, was the entire government, hand in glove with the companies which produced these products and were not constrained by law to account for their disposal. The last chapter of the book dealt with Vietnam and the results that were just now beginning to be seen of the genetic cost of the tons of dioxin that had been dumped on that country during its war with the United States. The descriptions of birth defects, elevated rates of miscarriage, and the lingering presence of dioxin in fish, water, the very land itself were clear and, even allowing for the inevitable exaggerations of the writers, staggering. These same chemicals, the authors maintained, were being dumped all over Italy on a day-to-day, business-as-usual basis.

When Brunetti stopped reading, he realized that he had been manipulated, that the books all had enormous flaws in their reasoning, that they assumed connections where none could be shown, placed guilt where the evidence didn’t. But he realized as well that one of the basic assumptions made in all of the books was probably true: a violation of the law this widespread and unpunished - and the refusal of the government to pass more stringent laws - argued for a strong link between the offenders and the government whose job it was to prevent or prosecute them. Was it into this vortex that those two innocents at the base had stepped, brought there by a child with a rash on his arm?

* * * *

18

Ambrogiani called him back about five to tell him that the boy’s father, a sergeant who worked in the contracting office, was still stationed at Vicenza; at least his car was still there and had had its registration renewed only two weeks before, and since that process required the signature of the owner of the vehicle, it was safe to assume that he was still in Vicenza.

‘Where does he live?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered Ambrogiani. ‘The papers have only his mailing address, a postbox here at the base, but not his home address.’

‘Can you get it?’

‘Not without their learning that I’m interested in him.’

‘No. I don’t want that,’ Brunetti said. ‘But I want to be able to talk to him, away from there.’

‘Give me a day. I’ll have one of my men go into the office where he works and find out who he is. Luckily, they all wear those name tags on their uniforms. Then I’ll see about having him followed. It shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll call you tomorrow, and then you can think about setting up a meeting with him. Most of them live off the base. In fact, if he’s got children, he’s certain to. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know what I manage, all right?’

Brunetti could see no better way. He realized how much he wanted to get on a train to Vicenza immediately, speak to the boy’s father, and begin to piece together the puzzle of how the picnic and the rash and that pencilled notation in the margin of the medical record had led to the murder of those two young people. He had some of the pieces; the boy’s father must have another one; sooner or later, by putting them together and examining them, switching them to new positions, he would be sure to see the pattern that now lay hidden.

Seeing no other solution, he agreed to Ambrogiani’s suggestion that he wait for his call the following day. He opened the third book again, drew a piece of paper from his desk, and began to make a list of all of the companies which were suspected of hauling or shipping toxic wastes without the proper authorization and another of all of the companies which were named as having already been formally accused of illegal dumping. Most of them were located in the North and most of those in Lombardy, me manufacturing heart of the country.

He checked the copyright of the book and saw that it had been printed only the year before, so the list was current. He turned to the back and saw a region-by-region map of the places where illegal dumping sites had been found. The provinces of Vicenza and Verona were heavily dotted, especially the region just north of both cities, leading up to the foothills of the Alps.

He closed the book, folding the list carefully inside it. There was nothing more he could do until he spoke to the boy’s father, but still he burned with the desire to go there now, futile as he knew that desire to be.

The intercom buzzed. ‘Brunetti,’ he said, picking it up.

‘Commissario,’ Patta’s voice said, ‘I’d like you to come down to my office right now.’

For a fleeting instant, Brunetti wondered if Patta was having his phone tapped or a record kept of his calls and somehow knew that he was still in contact with the American base. Even this new information about the toxins, Brunetti knew, would not deflect the other man from his attempt to keep things quiet. And the instant he learned that Brunetti suspected that so lofty an institution as something that could be graced with the name of ‘company’ might be involved, Patta was sure to threaten to reprimand him officially if he persisted in his attempt to learn what had happened. If the forces of law were not to defer to the desires of business, then surely the Republic was imperilled.

He went immediately down to Patta’s office, knocked, and was told to enter. Patta was poised at his desk, looking as though he had just come from a film audition. A successful one. As Brunetti entered, Patta was busy fitting one of his Russian cigarettes into his onyx holder, careful to hold both away from his desk, lest a particle of tobacco fall upon and somehow diminish the gleaming perfection of the Renaissance desk behind which he sat. The cigarette proving resistant, Patta kept Brunetti waiting in front of him until he had managed to fit it carefully within the gold circle of the holder. ‘Brunetti,’ he said, lighting the cigarette and taking a few cautious exploratory puffs, perhaps seeking to taste the effect of the gold, ‘I’ve had a very upsetting phone call.’

‘Not your wife, I hope, sir,’ Brunetti said in what he hoped was a meek voice.

Patta rested the cigarette on the edge of his malachite ashtray, then grabbed quickly at it as the weight of the holder caused it to topple back onto the desk. He replaced it, this time resting it level, burning end and mouthpiece balanced on opposing sides of the round ashtray. As soon as he took his hand from it, the weight of the head of the holder pressed it down. The end of the cigarette slipped out, and both cigarette and holder fell, the holder with a rich clatter, into the bowl of the ashtray.

Brunetti folded his hands behind him and looked out of the window, bouncing up and down a few times on the balls of his feet. When he looked back, the cigarette was extinguished, the holder gone.

‘Sit down, Brunetti.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, ever-polite, taking his usual place in the chair in front of the desk,

‘I’ve had,’ Patta resumed, ‘a phone call.’ He paused just long enough to dare Brunetti to repeat his suggestion, then continued, ‘From Signor Viscardi, from Milan.’ When Brunetti asked nothing, he added, ‘He called to tell me that you are calling his good name into question.’ Brunetti did not jump to his own defence, so Patta was forced to explain. ‘He said that his insurance agent has received a phone call, from you, I might add, asking how he knew so quickly that certain things had been taken from the palazzo.’ Had Patta been in love with the most desirable woman in the world, he could not have whispered her name with more adoration than he devoted to that last word. ‘Further, Signor Viscardi has learned that Riccardo Fosco, a known leftist’ - and what did this mean, Brunetti wondered, in a country where the President of the Chamber of Deputies was a Communist? - ‘has been asking suggestive questions about Signor Viscardi’s financial position.’

Patta paused here to give Brunetti an opportunity to jump to his own defence, but he said nothing. ‘Signor Viscardi,’ Patta continued, voice growing more indicative of the concern he felt, ‘did not volunteer this information; I had to ask him very specific questions about his treatment here. But he said that the policeman who questioned him, the second one, though I see no reason why it was necessary to send two, that this policeman seemed not to believe some of his answers. Understandably, Signor Viscardi, who is a well-respected businessman, and a fellow member of the Rotary International’ - it was not necessary here to specify who his fellow member was -’found this treatment upsetting, especially as it came so soon after his brutal treatment at the hands of the men who broke into his palace and made off with paintings and jewellery of great value. Are you listening, Brunetti?’ Patta suddenly asked.

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Then why don’t you have anything to say?’

‘I was waiting to learn about the upsetting phone call, sir.’

‘Damn it,’ Patta shouted, slamming his hand down on the desk. ‘This was the upsetting call. Signor Viscardi is an important man, both here and in Milan. He has a great deal of political influence, and I won’t have him thinking, and saying, that he has been treated badly by the police of this city.’

‘I don’t understand how he has been badly treated, sir.’

‘You understand nothing, Brunetti,’ Patta said in tight-lipped anger. ‘You call the man’s insurance agent the same day the claim is made, as if you suspected there was something strange about the claim. And two separate policemen go to the hospital to question him and show him photos of people who had nothing to do with the crime.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Yes, after we’d been speaking a while and I assured him that I had every confidence in him.’

‘What did he say, exactly, about the photo?’

‘That the second policeman had shown him a photo of a young criminal and had seemed not to believe him when he said he didn’t recognize the man.’

‘How did he know the man in the photo was a criminal?’

‘What?’

Brunetti repeated himself. ‘How did he know that the photo of the man he was shown was the photo of a criminal? It could have been a photo of anyone, the policeman’s son, anyone.’

‘Commissario, who else would they show him a picture of if not of a criminal?’ When Brunetti didn’t answer, Patta repeated his exasperated sigh. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Brunetti.’ Brunetti started to speak but Patta cut him off. ‘And don’t try to stick up for your men when you know they’re in the wrong.’ At Patta’s insistence that the offending police were ‘his’, there slipped into Brunetti’s mind a vision of what it must be like when Patta and his wife tried to portion out responsibility for the failures and achievements of their two sons. ‘My’ son would win a prize at school, while ‘yours’ would be disrespectful to teachers or fail an exam.

‘Have you anything to say?’ Patta finally asked.

‘He couldn’t describe the men who attacked him, but he knew which pictures they were carrying.’

Once again, Brunetti’s insistence did no more than display to Patta the poverty of the background from which he came. ‘Obviously, you’re not accustomed to living with precious objects, Brunetti. If a person lives for years with objects of great value, and here I mean aesthetic value, not just material price’ - his voice urged Brunetti to stretch his imagination to encompass the concept – ‘then they come to recognize them, just as they would members of their own family. So, even in a flashing moment, even under stress such as Signor Viscardi experienced, he would recognize those paintings, just as he would recognize his wife.’ From what Fosco had said, Brunetti suspected Viscardi would have less trouble recognizing the paintings.

Patta leaned forward, paternally, and asked, ‘Are you capable of understanding any of this?’

‘I’ll understand a lot more when we speak to Ruffolo.’

‘Ruffolo? Who’s he?’

‘The young criminal in the photo.’

Patta said no more than Brunetti’s name, but he said it so softly that it called for an explanation.

‘Two tourists were sitting on a bridge and saw three men leave the house with a suitcase. Both of them identified the photo of Ruffolo.’

Because he had not bothered to read the report on the case, Patta didn’t ask why this information wasn’t contained in it. ‘He could have been hiding outside,’ he suggested.

‘That’s entirely possible,’ Brunetti agreed, though it was far more likely to him that Ruffolo had been inside, and not hiding.

‘And what about this Fosco person? What about his phone calls?’

‘All I know about Fosco is that he’s the Financial Editor of one of the most important magazines in the country. I called him to get an idea of how important Signor Viscardi was. So we’d know how to treat him.’ This so precisely mirrored Patta’s thinking that he was incapable of questioning Brunetti’s sincerity. Brunetti hardly thought it necessary to make an excuse for the seriousness with which the policemen had seen fit to question Viscardi. Instead, he said, ‘All we’ve got to do is get our hands on this Ruffolo, and everything will be straightened out. Signor Viscardi will get his paintings back, the insurance company will thank us, and I imagine the Gazzettino would run a story on the front page of the second section. After all, Signor Viscardi is a very important man, and the quicker this is settled, the better it will be for all of us.’ Suddenly Brunetti felt himself overwhelmed with a wave of disgust at having to do this, go through this stupid charade every time they spoke. He looked away, then back at his superior.

Patta’s smile was as broad as it was genuine. Could it be that Brunetti was finally beginning to have some sense, to take some heed of political realities? If so, then Patta believed that the credit for this might not unjustly be laid at his own door. They were a headstrong people, these Venetians, clinging to their own ways, outdated ways. Lucky for them that his appointment as Vice-Questore had brought them some exposure to the larger, more modern world, the world of tomorrow. Brunetti was right. All they had to do was find this Ruffolo character, get the paintings back, and Viscardi would be firmly behind him.

‘Right,’ he said, speaking crisply, the way policemen in American films spoke, ‘let me know as soon as this Ruffolo is in custody. Do you need any more men assigned to this?’

‘No, sir,’ Brunetti said after a reflective pause. ‘I think we’ve got enough on it right now. It’s just a question of waiting until he makes a false step. That’s bound to happen soon enough.’

Patta was completely uninterested in what it was or was not a question of. He wanted an arrest, the return of the paintings, and Viscardi’s support should he decide to run for city councillor. ‘Fine, let me know when you have something,’ he said, dismissing Brunetti with the tone, if not with the words. Patta reached for another cigarette and Brunetti, unwilling to wait and watch the ceremony, excused himself and went down to speak to Vianello.

‘Any word on Ruffolo?’Brunetti asked when he went into the office.

‘There is and there isn’t,’ Vianello answered, rising minimally from his chair in deference to his superior, then lowering himself back into it.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that the word is that he’d like to talk.’

‘Where’d the word come from?’

‘From someone who knows someone who knows him.’

‘And who spoke to this someone?’

‘I did. It’s one of those kids out on Burano. You know, the ones who stole the fishing boat last year. Ever since we let them off on that, I’ve figured he’s owed me a favour, so I went out to talk to him yesterday. I remembered that he went to school with Ruffolo. And he called me back about an hour ago. No questions asked. He just said that this other person had talked to someone who saw Ruffolo, and he wants to talk to us.’

‘To anyone in particular?’

‘Not to you, I’d imagine, sir. After all, you’ve put him away twice.’

‘You want to do it, Vianello?’

The other man shrugged. ‘Why not? I just don’t want it to be a lot of bother. He’s had nothing to do for the last two years but sit in jail and watch American police movies, so he’ll probably suggest that we meet at midnight in a boat on the laguna.’

‘Or in the cemetery at dawn, just when the vampires are flying back to nest.’

‘Why can’t he just make it a bar, so we can be comfortable and have a glass of wine?’

‘Well, wherever it is, go and meet him.’

‘Should I arrest him when he shows up?’

‘No, don’t try it. Just ask him what he wants to tell us, see what sort of deal he wants to make.’

‘Do you want me to have someone there to follow him?’

‘No. He’ll probably be expecting mat. And he’d panic if he thought he was being followed. Just see what he wants. If it isn’t too much, make a deal with him.’

‘You think he’s going to tell us about Viscardi?’

‘There’s no other reason for him to want to talk to us, is there?’

‘No, I suppose not.’

When Brunetti turned to leave, Vianello asked, ‘What about the deal I make with him? Will we keep our part of it?’

At this, Brunetti turned back and gave Vianello a long look. ‘Of course. If criminals can’t believe in an illegal deal with the police, what can they believe in?’

* * * *

19

He heard nothing from Ambrogiani that afternoon, nor did Vianello manage to make contact with the boy on Burano. The next morning, no call had come in, nor had there been any by the time he got back from lunch. Vianello came in at about five to tell him that the boy had called and a meeting had been set up for Saturday afternoon, at Piazzale Roma. A car would come to meet Vianello, who was not to be in uniform, and would take him to where Ruffolo would talk to him. After he explained this to Brunetti, Vianello grinned and added, ‘Hollywood.’

‘It probably means they’ll have to steal a car to do it, too.’

‘And no chance of a drink, either, I suppose,’ said Vianello resignedly.

‘Pity they pulled down the Pullman Bar; at least that way you could have had one before you left.’

‘No such luck, I have to stand where the number five bus stops. They’ll pull up and I have to get in.’

‘How are they going to recognize you?’

Did Vianello blush? ‘I have to be carrying a bouquet of red carnations.’

At this, Brunetti could not restrain himself and exploded into laughter. ‘Red carnations? You? My God, I hope no one who knows you sees you, standing at a bus stop, leaving the city, with a bouquet of red carnations.’

‘I’ve told my wife. She doesn’t like it, not one bit, especially that I have to use my Saturday afternoon to do it. We were supposed to go out to dinner, and I won’t hear the end of this for months.’

‘Vianello, I’ll make a deal. Do this, we’ll even pay for the carnations, but you’ll have to get a receipt, but do it and I’ll fix the duty rosters so that you get next Friday and Saturday off, all right?’ It seemed the least he could do for the man who was willing to take the risk of putting himself into the hands of known criminals and who, more courageously, was willing to take the risk of angering his wife.

‘It’s all right, sir, but I don’t like it.’

‘Look, you don’t have to do this, Vianello. We’re bound to get our hands on him sooner or later.’

‘That’s all right, sir. He’s never been stupid enough to do anything to one of us before. And I know him from the last time.’

Vianello, Brunetti remembered, had two children and a third on the way. ‘If this works, you get the credit for it. It’ll help towards a promotion.’

‘Oh, fine, and how’s he going to like that?’ Vianello lowered his eyes in the direction of Patta’s office. ‘How’s he going to like our arresting his friend, Signor Politically Important Viscardi?’

‘Oh, come on, Vianello, you know what he’ll do. Once Viscardi’s behind bars and the case looks strong enough, Patta’ll talk about the way he was suspicious from the very beginning but remained friendly with Viscardi, the better to lead him into the trap that he himself had devised.’ Both of them knew from long experience that this was true.

Further ruminations on the behaviour of their superior were cut short by Vianello’s phone. He answered it with his name, listened for a moment, then handed it to Brunetti. ‘For you, sir.’

‘Yes,’ he said, then felt a rush of excitement when he recognized Ambrogiani’s voice.

‘He’s still here. One of my men followed him to his home; It’s in Grisignano, about twenty minutes from the base.’

‘The train stops there, doesn’t it?’ Brunetti asked, already planning.

‘Only the local. When do you want to see him?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘Hold on a minute; I’ve got the schedule here.’ While Brunetti waited, he heard the phone being set down for a moment, then Ambrogiani’s voice. ‘There’s one that leaves Venice at eight; gets into Grisignano at eight-forty-three.’

‘And before that?’

‘Six-twenty-four.’

‘Can you have someone meet that?’

‘Guido, that gets in at seven-thirty,’ Ambrogiani said, voice almost pleading.

‘I want to speak to him at his house, and I don’t want him to leave before I get a chance to talk to him.’

‘Guido, you can’t go barging in on people’s homes at seven-thirty in the morning, even if they are Americans.’

‘If you give me the address, maybe I can get a car here.’ Even as he said it, he knew it was impossible; news of the request was bound to get back to Patta, and that was bound to cause nothing but trouble.

‘You’re a stubborn devil, aren’t you?’ Ambrogiani asked, but with more respect than anger in his voice. ‘All right, I’ll meet the train. I’ll bring my own car; that way we can park near his house and not have the entire neighbourhood wondering what we’re doing there.’ Brunetti, to whom cars were alien, strange things, hadn’t stopped to consider this, how a car that clearly belonged either to the Carabinieri or the police was bound to cause a stir in any small neighbourhood.

‘Thanks, Giancarlo. I appreciate it.’

‘I would certainly hope so. Seven-thirty on Saturday morning,’ Ambrogiani said with disbelief and replaced the receiver before Brunetti could say anything else. Well, at least he didn’t have to carry a dozen red carnations.

The next morning, he managed to get to the station on time to have a coffee before the train left, so he was reasonably civil to Ambrogiani when he met him at the tiny station of Grisignano. The Maggiore looked surprisingly fresh and alert, as though he had been up for hours, something that Brunetti found, in his current mood, faintly annoying. Opposite the station, they stopped at a bar, and each had a coffee and a brioche, the Maggiore signalling to the barman with his chin that he wanted a dash of grappa added to his coffee. ‘It’s not far from here,’ Ambrogiani said. ‘A few kilometres. They live in a semi-detached house. On the other side there’s the landlord and his family.’ Seeing Brunetti’s inquisitive gaze, he explained. ‘I had someone come out and ask a few questions. Not much to say. Three kids. They’ve lived there for more than three years, always pay their rent on time, get on well with the landlord. His wife’s Italian, so that helps things in the neighbourhood.’

‘And the boy?’

‘He’s here, back from the hospital in Germany.’

‘And how is he?’

‘He began school in September. Nothing seems to be wrong with him, but one of the neighbours says he has a nasty scar on his arm. Like he was burned.’

Brunetti finished his coffee, put the cup down on the counter, and said, ‘Let’s go out to their house, and I’ll tell you what I know.’

As they drove though the sleepy lanes and tree-lined roads, Brunetti explained to Ambrogiani what he had learned from the books he read, told him about the Xerox copy of the medical report on Kayman’s son, and about the article in the medical journal.

‘It sounds like she, or Foster, put it together. But that still doesn’t explain why they were both killed.’

‘You think they were, too?’ Brunetti asked.

Ambrogiani turned his attention from the road and looked at Brunetti. ‘I never believed Foster was killed in a robbery, and I don’t believe in an overdose. No matter how good both of them were made to look.’

Ambrogiani turned into an even smaller road and pulled up a hundred metres before a white cement house that stood back from the road, surrounded by a metal fence. The double entry doors to the semi-detached house opened from a porch raised above the doors of twin garages. In the driveway two bicycles lay, one beside the other, with the complete abandon that only bicycles could achieve.

‘Tell me more about these chemicals,’ Ambrogiani said when he turned off the engine. ‘I tried to find out something about them last night, but no one I asked seemed to know anything precise about them, except that they were dangerous.’

‘I don’t know that I learned much more from what I read,’ Brunetti admitted. ‘There’s a whole spectrum of them, a real death cocktail. It’s easy to produce them, and most factories seem to need some of them, or create them doing whatever it is they do, but the trouble comes in getting rid of them. It used to be possible to dump them just about anywhere, but now it’s harder. Too many people complained about having them in their backyards.’

‘Wasn’t there something in the paper a few years ago, about a ship, Karen B or something like that, that got as far as Africa and got turned around, ended up in Genoa?’

When Ambrogiani mentioned it, Brunetti remembered it and remembered the headlines about the ‘Ship of Poisons’, a freighter that had tried to unload its cargo in some African port but was refused permission to dock. So the boat sailed around in the Mediterranean for what seemed like weeks, the Press as fond of it as it was of those crazy porpoises who tried to swim up the Tiber every couple of years. Finally, the Karen B had docked at Genoa, and that had been the end of it. As efficiently as if she had gone down in the waters of the Mediterranean, the Karen B sank off the pages of the newspapers and from the screens of Italian television. And the poisons she had been carrying, an entire boatload of lethal substances, had just as completely disappeared, no one to know or ask how. Or where.

‘Yes. But I don’t remember what her cargo was,’ Brunetti said.

‘We’ve never had a case of it out here,’ Ambrogiani said, not feeling it necessary to explain that ‘we’ were the Carabinieri and ‘it’ illegal dumping. ‘I don’t even know if it’s our job to look for it or arrest for it.’

Neither of them wanted to be the first to break the silence that thought led to. Finally, Brunetti said, ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’

‘That no one seems responsible to enforce the law? If there are laws?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Yes,’

Before they could follow this up, the front door on the left side of the house they were watching opened and a man stepped out onto the porch. He walked down the steps, pulled open the garage door, then bent to move both bicycles to the grass at the side of the driveway. When he disappeared back into the garage, both Brunetti and Ambrogiani got out of the car and started to walk towards the house.

Just as they got to the gate in the fence, a car came backing slowly out of the garage. It backed towards the gate, and the man got out, leaving the engine running, and moved to the gate to open it. Either he didn’t see the two men there or he chose to ignore them. He unlatched the gate, shoved it open, and then headed back towards the open door of his car.

‘Sergeant Kayman?’ Brunetti called over the sound of the engine.

At the sound of his name, the man turned and looked at them. Both policemen stepped forward but stopped at the gate, careful not to pass onto the man’s property uninvited. Seeing this, the man waved them ahead with his hand and bent into the car to switch off the engine.

He was a tall blond man with a slight stoop that might once have been intended to disguise his height but which had now become habitual. He moved with that loose-limbed ease so common to Americans, the ease that made them look so good in casual clothing, so awkward in formal dress. He walked towards them, face open and quizzical, not smiling but certainly not suspicious.

‘Yes?’ he asked in English. ‘You guys looking for me?’

‘Sergeant Edward Kayman?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Yeah. What can I do for you? Sort of early, isn’t it?’

Brunetti stepped forward and extended his hand. ‘Good morning, Sergeant. I’m Guido Brunetti, from the Venice police.’

The American shook Brunetti’s hand, his grasp firm and strong. ‘Long way from home, aren’t you, Mr Brunetti?’ he asked, turning the last two consonants into ’D’s.

It was meant as a pleasantry, so Brunetti smiled at him. ‘I suppose I am. But there are a few things I wanted to ask you, Sergeant.’ Ambrogiani smiled and nodded but made no attempt to introduce himself, leaving the conversation to Brunetti.

‘Well, ask away,’ said the American, then added, ‘sorry I can’t invite you gentlemen into the house for a cup of coffee, but the wife’s still asleep, and she’d kill me if I woke the kids up. Saturday’s her only morning to sleep in.’

‘I understand,’ Brunetti said. ‘Same thing at my house. I had to sneak out like a burglar myself this morning.’ They shared a grin at the unreasonable tyranny of sleeping women, and Brunetti began, ‘I’d like to ask you about your son.’

‘Daniel?’ the American asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so.’

‘You don’t seem surprised,’ Brunetti remarked.

Before he answered, the soldier moved over and leaned back against his car, bracing his weight against it. Brunetti took this opportunity to turn to Ambrogiani and asked in Italian, ‘Are you following what we say?’ The Carabiniere nodded.

The American crossed his feet at the ankles and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket He held the pack towards the Italians, but both shook their heads. He lit a cigarette with a lighter, careful to cup it between both hands from the nonexistent breeze, then slipped both packet and lighter back into his pocket.

‘It’s about this doctor business, isn’t it?’ he asked, putting his head back and blowing a stream of smoke up into the air.

‘What makes you say that, Sergeant?’

‘Doesn’t take much figuring, does it? She was Danny’s doctor, and she sure as heck was all upset when his arm got so bad. Kept asking him what happened, and then that boyfriend of hers, the one that got himself killed in Venice, then he started bein’ all over me with questions.’

‘You knew he was her boyfriend?’ Brunetti asked, honestly surprised.

‘Well, it wasn’t until after he was killed that anyone said anything, but I suspect a fair number of people must have known before. I didn’t, for one, but I didn’t work with them. Heck, there aren’t but a few thousand of us, all living and working cheek by jowl. Nobody gets to keep any secrets, leastways not for very long.’

‘What sort of questions did he ask you?’

‘About where it was that Danny had been walking that day. And what else we saw there. Stuff like that.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him I didn’t know.’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘Well, not exactly. We were up above Aviano that day, up near Lake Barcis, but we stopped at another place on the way back down from the mountains; that’s where we had our picnic. Danny went off for a while into the woods by himself, but he couldn’t remember where it was he fell down, which place it was. I told Foster, tried to describe where it was, but I couldn’t remember real clear where we parked the car that day. With three kids and a dog to keep an eye on, you don’t pay much attention to things like that.’

‘What did he do when you said you couldn’t remember?’

‘Heck, he wanted me to go up there with him, drive all the way up there with him some Saturday and look for the place, see if I could remember where it was we parked the car.’

‘And did you go back with him.’

‘Not on your life. I’ve got three kids, a wife, and, if I’m lucky, one day off a week. I’m not going to go spend one of them running around the mountains, looking for some place I once had a picnic in. Besides, that was the time when Danny was in the hospital, and I wasn’t about to leave my wife alone all day, just to go on some wild-goose chase.’

‘How did he behave when you told him?’

‘Well, I could see that he was pretty angry, but I just told him I couldn’t do it, and he seemed to quiet down He stopped asking me to go with him, but I think he went up there, looking, by himself, or maybe with Doctor Peters.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, he went and talked to a friend of mine who works in the dental clinic. He’s the X-ray technician, and he told me that, one Friday afternoon, Foster went into the lab and asked him to lend him his tab for the weekend.’

‘His what?’

‘His tab. At least that’s what he calls it. You know, that little card thing they all have to wear, the people who work with X-rays. You get overexposed, it turns a different colour. I don’t know what you call it.’ Brunetti nodded his head, knowing what it was. ‘Well, this guy lent it to him for the weekend, and he had it back to him on Monday morning, in time for work. Good as his word.’

‘And the sensor?’

‘Wasn’t changed at all. Same colour it was when he gave it to him.’

‘Why do you think that was why he borrowed it?’

‘You didn’t know him, did you?’ he asked Brunetti, who shook his head. ‘He was a funny guy. Real serious. Real serious about his work, well, about just about everything. I think he was religious, too, but not like those crazy born-agains. When he decided that something was right, there was no stopping him from doing it. And he had it in his head that...’ He paused here. ‘I’m not sure what he had in his head, but he wanted to find out where it was Danny touched that stuff he’s allergic to.’

‘Is that what it was? An allergy?’

‘That’s what they told me when he came down from Germany. His arm’s an awful mess, but the doctors up there said it would heal up pretty good. Might take a year or so, but the scar’ll go away, or at least it’ll fade a fair bit.’

Ambrogiani spoke for the first time. ‘Did they tell you what he was allergic to?’

‘No, they couldn’t find out. Said it was probably sap from some sort of tree that grows up in those mountains. They did all sorts of tests on the boy.’ Here his face softened and his eyes lit up with real pride. ‘Never complained, not once, that boy. Got the makings of a real man. I’m not half proud of him.’

‘But they didn’t tell you what he was allergic to?’ the Carabiniere repeated.

‘Nope. And then the dang fools went and lost Danny’s medical records, leastwise the records from Germany.’

At this, Brunetti and Ambrogiani exchanged a look, and Brunetti asked, ‘Do you know if Foster ever found the place?’

‘Couldn’t say. He got killed two weeks after he borrowed that sensor thing, and I never had occasion to talk to him again. So I don’t know. I’m sorry that happened to him. He was an OK guy, and I’m sorry his doctor friend had to take it so hard. I didn’t know they were that. . .’ Here he failed to find the right word, so he stopped.

‘Is that what people here believe, that Doctor Peters gave herself that overdose because of Foster?’

This time, it was the soldier who was surprised. ‘Doesn’t make sense any other way, does it? She was a doctor, wasn’t she? If anybody knew how much of that stuff to put in a needle, it should have been her.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Brunetti said, feeling his disloyalty even as he spoke.

‘Funny thing, though,’ began the American. ‘If I hadn’t ’ve been so bothered with worryin’ about Danny, I maybe would have thought of something to tell Foster. Might have helped him find the place he was looking for.’

‘What’s that?’ Brunetti asked, making the question casual.

‘While we were up there that day, I saw two of the trucks that come here, saw them turning into a dirt road off down the hill a ways from where we were. Just didn’t think of it when Foster asked me. Wish I had. Could have saved him a lot of trouble. All he’d have to do is go ask Mr Gamberetto where his trucks were that day, and he would have found the place.’

‘Mr Gamberetto?’ Brunetti inquired politely.

‘Yeah, he’s the fellow’s got the haulage contract from the post. His trucks pull in, here twice a week and take away the restricted stuff. You know, the medical waste from the hospital, and from the dental clinic. I think he picks up stuff from the motor pool, too. The oil they take out of the transformers and from the oil changes they do. The trucks don’t have his name on them or anything, but they have this red stripe down the side, and that’s the kind of trucks I saw up by Lake Barcis that day.’ He paused and grew reflective. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it that day, when Foster asked me. But Danny had just gone up to Germany, and I guess I wasn’t thinking all that clear.’

‘You work in the contracting office, don’t you, Sergeant?’ Ambrogiani asked.

If the American found it strange that Ambrogiani would know this, he gave no sign of it. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Do you ever have occasion to speak to this Mr Gamberetto?’

‘Nope. Never laid eyes on the man. I just know his name from seeing the contract in the office.’

‘Doesn’t he come in to sign the contract?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘No, one of the officers goes out to his office. I imagine he gets a free lunch out of him, then comes back with the signed contract, and we process it.’ Brunetti didn’t have to look at Ambrogiani to know he was thinking that someone might be getting a lot more out of Mr Gamberetto than a free lunch.

‘Is that the only contract Mr Gamberetto has?’

‘No, sir. He’s got the contract to build the new hospital. That was supposed to start a while back, but then we had the Gulf War, and all building projects got put on hold. But it looks like things are beginning to loosen up, and I imagine work will begin in the spring, soon as the ground is ready to be broke open.’

‘Is it a big contract?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Certainly sounds like it, a hospital.’

‘I don’t remember the exact figures, it’s been so long since we handled the contract, but I think it was something in the neighbourhood of ten million dollars. But that was three years ago, when it was signed. I imagine it’s increased a fair bit since then.’

‘Yes, I should certainly think so,’ Brunetti said. Suddenly they all turned towards the sound of wild barking from the house. As they watched, the front door opened a crack and a large black dog came catapulting from the door and down the steps. Barking dementedly, she ran directly to Kayman and jumped up at him, licking at his face. She turned to the two men, checked them over, then ran off a few metres to squat on the grass and relieve herself. That done, she was back at Kayman, leaping up, aiming her nose at his.

‘Get down, Kitty Kat,’ he said, no firmness at all in his voice. She soared up again and made contact. ‘Get down now, girl. Stop that.’ She ignored him, ran off, the better to gain momentum for her next leap, turned, and raced back. ‘Bad dog,’ Kayman said in a tone that meant the opposite. He pushed the dog down with both hands and latched them in the fur at her neck, where he began to scratch her roughly. ‘Sorry. I wanted to get away without her. Once she sees me get into the car, she goes crazy if she can’t come along. Loves the car.’

‘I don’t want to keep you, Sergeant. You’ve been very helpful,’ Brunetti said, putting out his hand. The dog followed his hand with her eyes, tongue lolling to the left of her mouth. Kayman freed one hand and shook Brunetti’s hand, but he did it awkwardly, still bent down over the dog. He shook Ambrogiani’s, then, when they turned away and went back towards the gate, he opened the door to the car and allowed the dog to leap in ahead of him.

As the car backed towards them, Brunetti stood by the metal gate. He waved to Sergeant Kayman to indicate that he would see to closing the gate and did just that. The American waited long enough to see that the gate was closed, put his car in gear, and drove off slowly. The last they saw was the head of the dog, poking out of the rear window of the car, nose prodding at the wind.

* * * *

20

As the head of the dog disappeared up the narrow road, Ambrogiani turned to Brunetti and asked, ‘Well?’

Brunetti began to walk towards the parked car. When they were both inside and the doors closed, Ambrogiani sat behind the wheel without starting the engine.

‘Big job, building a hospital,’ Brunetti finally said. ‘Big job for Signor Gamberetto.’

‘Very,’ the other agreed.

‘The name mean anything to you?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Ambrogiani said, then added, ‘he’s someone we’ve been told to stay away from.’

When Brunetti gave him a puzzled glance, Ambrogiani explained, ‘Well, it’s never been given as a specific order - nothing like that ever is - but the word has filtered down that Signor Gamberetto and his affairs are not to be examined too closely.’

‘Or else?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Oh,’ Ambrogiani said with a bitter chuckle, ‘It’s never as crude as that. It is simply suggested, and anyone who has any sense understands what it means.’

‘And stays away from Signor Gamberetto?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Interesting,’ Brunetti offered.

‘Very.’

‘So you treat him like he’s just a simple businessman with dealings in the area?’

Ambrogiani nodded.

‘And by Lake Barcis, it seems.’

‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’

‘You think you could find out about him?’

‘Well, I think I could try.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that, if he’s a medium-sized fish, then I’ll be able to find out about him. But if he’s a big fish, then there won’t be much to find out. Or what I do find out will tell me that he’s no more than a respectable local businessman, well-connected politically. And that will merely confirm what we know already, that he is a man with Friends in High Places.’

‘Mafia?’

Ambrogiani shrugged one shoulder by way of answer.

‘Even up here?’

‘Why not? They’ve got to go somewhere. All they do is kill one another down South. How many murders have there been so far this year? Two hundred? Two hundred and fifty? So they’ve started moving up here.’

‘The government?’

Ambrogiani gave the special snort of disgust that Italians reserve for use only when speaking of their government. ‘Who can tell them apart anymore, Mafia and government?’

This vision was more severe than Brunetti’s, but perhaps the nationwide network of the Carabinieri had access to more information than he did.

‘What about you?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘I can make some phone calls when I get back. Call in some favours.’ He didn’t tell Ambrogiani of the one call he thought would be most successful, one that had nothing to do with calling in a favour; quite the opposite.

They sat there for a long time. Finally, Ambrogiani reached forward and opened the glove compartment. He began to rifle though the stack of maps that lay inside until he finally pulled one out. ‘Have you got time?’ he asked.

‘Yes. How long will it take to get there?’

Instead of answering, Ambrogiani pulled open a map and spread it open in front of him, braced against the steering wheel. With a thick finger, he roved around the map until he found what he was looking for. ‘Here it is. Lake Barcis.’ His finger snaked to the right on the lake and then cut sharply down in a straight line leading to Pordenone. ‘An hour and a half. Maybe two. Most of it is autostrada. What do you say?’

By way of answer, Brunetti reached behind him and pulled his seat belt across his chest, snapping it into place between the seats.

Two hours later, they were driving up the snake-like road that led to Lake Barcis, one of at least twenty cars caught behind an immense gravel-filled truck that crawled along at about ten kilometres an hour, forcing Ambrogiani constantly to switch gears from second to first as they stopped on curves to allow the truck to manoeuvre its way around them. Every so often, a car swept past them on the left, then cut narrowly between two of the cars crammed behind the truck, forcing an opening with its front end and horn. Occasionally, a car pulled sharply to the right and sought a parking space on the too-narrow shoulder. The driver would pop out, pull open the bonnet, and sometimes make the mistake of opening the radiator.

Brunetti wanted to suggest that they pull over, since they were in no hurry, had no destination, but, even though he wasn’t really a driver, he knew enough not to suggest what to do. After about twenty minutes of this, the truck pulled off the road into a long parking area, no doubt designed for just this purpose, and the cars shot past, some waving their thanks, most not bothering. Ten minutes later, they pulled into the small town of Barcis, and Ambrogiani turned off to the left and down a sharp driveway that led to the lake.

Ambrogiani hauled himself out of the car, obviously rattled by the drive. ‘Let’s have something to drink,’ he said, walking towards a café that filled an enormous veranda behind one of the buildings beside the lake. He pulled out a chair at one of the umbrella-shaded tables and dropped into it. Before them stretched the lake, water eerily blue, mountains shooting up behind it. A waiter came and took their order, returned a few minutes later with two coffees and two glasses of mineral water.

After Brunetti had finished his coffee and taken a sip of the water, he asked, ‘Well?’

Ambrogiani smiled. ‘Pretty lake, isn’t it?’