Suffer the Little Children

SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

DONNA LEON

Donna Leon has lived in Venice for many years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed and include Friends in High Places, which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Uniform Justice, Doctored Evidence, and Blood from a Stone.

Praise for SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

'Suffer the Little Children is Donna Leon at her best, deftly mixing Commissario Guido Brunetti's detective work with perceptive awareness of social issues’ The Times

"Leon tackles this difficult issue sensitively, without stinting on mouth-watering descriptions of Venice’ Daily Telegraph

'Summarizing Leon's plot, like telling the story of an opera, cannot do justice to the subtlety, drama and narrative skill that keep us turning the pages, wondering until the end how she will manage to tie up so many loose ends . . . [and]

Leon's fans who use Brunetti as an insider's guide to Venice will not be disappointed.' TLS

'As ever, Leon writes with an insider's knowledge of Venice, expertly navigating its complex geography’ Sunday Times

Wenn die Gotter tins bedenken, Unsrer Liebe Kinder schenken, So Hebe Heine Kinderlein!

How happy we will be

If the gods are gracious

And bless our love with children.

With darling little children!

Die Zauberflote The Magic Flute Mozart

I

'... and then my daughter-in-law told me that I should come in and tell you about it. I didn't want to, and my husband told me I was an idiot to get involved with you because it would only lead to trouble, and he's got enough trouble at the moment. He said it would be like the time when his uncle's neighbour tapped into the ENEL line and started to steal his electricity, and he called to report it, and when they came, they told him he had to .. ‘

'Excuse me, Signora, but could we go back to what happened last month?'

'Of course, of course, but if s just that it ended up costing him three hundred thousand lire’

'Signora’

'My daughter-in-law said if I didn't do it, she'd call you herself, and since I'm the one who saw it, it’s probably better that I come and tell you, isn't it?' 'Certainly’

'So when the radio said it was going to rain this morning, I put my umbrella and boots by the door, just in case, but then it didn't, did it?'

'No, it didn't, Signora. But you said you wanted to tell me about something unusual that happened in the apartment opposite you?'

'Yes, that girl’

'Which girl, Signora?'

'The young one, the pregnant one’

'How young do you think she was, Signora?'

'Oh, maybe seventeen, maybe older, but maybe younger. I have two boys, you know, so I could tell if she was a boy, but she was a girl’

'And you said she was pregnant, Signora?'

'Yes. And right at the end of it. In fact, that's why I told my daughter-in-law, and that's when she told me I had to come and tell you about it’

"That she was pregnant?'

That she had the baby’

'Where did she have the baby, Signora?'

'Right there, in the calle across from my place. Not out in the calle, you understand. In the apartment across the mile. Ifs a little way down from my place, opposite the house next door, really, but because the house sticks out a little bit, I can see into the windows, and that's where I saw her.'

'Where is this exactly, Signora?'

'Calle dei Stagneri. You know it. It's near San Bortolo, the calle that goes down to Campo de la Fava. I live down on the right side, and she was on the left, on the same side as that pizzeria, only we're both down at the end, near the bridge. The apartment used to belong to an old woman - I never knew her name - but then she died and her son inherited it, and he started to rent it out, you know, the way people do, by the week, to foreigners, or by the month.

'But when I saw the girl in there, and she was pregnant, I thought maybe he'd decided to rent it like a real apartment, you know, with a lease and all. And if she was pregnant, she'd be one of us and not a tourist, right? But I guess there's more money if you rent by the week, especially to foreigners. And then you don't have to pay the...

'Oh, I'm sorry. I suppose that isn't important, is it? As I was saying, she was pregnant, so I thought maybe they were a young couple, but then I realized I never saw a husband in there with her.'

'How long was she there, Signora?'

'Oh, no more than a week, maybe even less. But long enough for me to get to know her habits, sort of’

'And could you tell me what they were?'

'Her habits?'

'Yes.'

'Well, I never saw too much of her. Only when she walked past the window and went into the kitchen. Not that she ever cooked anything, at least not that I saw. But I don't know anything about the rest of the apartment, so I don't know what she did, really, while she was there. I suppose she was just waiting’ 'Waiting?'

'For the baby to be born. They come when they want’

'I see. Did she ever notice you, Signora?'

'No. I've got curtains, you see, and that place doesn't. And the calle's so dark that you can't really see into the windows on the other side, but about two years ago, whenever it was, they put one of those new street lamps just across from her place, so if s always light there at night. I don't know how people stand them. We sleep with our shutters closed, but if you didn't have them, I don't know how you'd get a decent nights sleep, do you?'

'Not at all, Signora. You said you never saw her husband, but did you ever see any other people in there with her?'

'Sometimes. But always at night. Well, in the evening, after dinner, not that I ever saw her cook anything. But she must have, mustn't she, or someone must have taken her food? You have to eat when you're pregnant. Why, I ate like a wolf when I was expecting my boys. So I'm sure she must have eaten, only I never saw her cook anything. But you can't just leave a pregnant woman in a place and not feed her, can you?'

'Certainly not, Signora. And who was it you saw in the apartment with her?'

'Sometimes men would come in and sit around the table in the kitchen and talk. They smoked, so they'd open the window’

'How many men, Signora?'

'Three. They sat in the kitchen, at the table, with the light on, and they talked’

‘In Italian, Signora?'

'Let me think. Yes, they spoke Italian, but they weren't us. I mean they weren't Venetian. I didn't know the dialect, but it wasn't Veneziano’

'And they just sat at the table and talked?'

'Yes’

'And the girl?'

‘I never saw her, not while they were there. After they left, sometimes she would come out into the kitchen and maybe get a glass of water. At least, I'd see her at the window’

'But you didn't speak to her?'

'No, as I told you, I never had anything to do with her, or with those men. I just watched her and wished she'd eat something. I was so hungry when I was pregnant with Luca and Pietro. I ate all the time. But I was lucky that I never gained too much .. ‘

'Did the men eat, Signora?'

'Eat? Why, no, I don't think they ever did. That's strange, isn't it, now that you mention it? They didn't drink anything, either. They just sat there and talked, like they were waiting for a vaporetto or something. After they left, sometimes she'd go into the kitchen, but she never turned the light on. That was the funny thing: she never turned the lights on at night, not anywhere in the apartment, at least anywhere I could see. I could see the men sitting there, but I saw her only during the day or, sometimes, when she walked past a window at night’

'And then what happened?^’

Then one night I heard her calling out, but I didn't know what she was saying. One of the words might have been "mamma," but I'm not really sure. And then I heard a baby. You know the noise they make when they're born? Nothing like it in the world. I remember when Luca was born...'

'Was anyone else there?'

'What? When?'

'When she had the baby.'

'I didn't see anyone, if that's what you mean, but there must have been someone. You can't just leave a girl to have a baby on her own, can you?'

'At the time, Signora, did you wonder why she was living in the apartment alone?'

'Oh, I don't know. Maybe I thought her husband was away or that she didn't have one, and then the baby came too fast for her to get to the hospital’

'It's only a few minutes to the hospital from there, Signora, isn't it?'

'I know, I know. But it can happen, you know, that it comes on you very fast. My two boys took a long time, but I've known women who had only a half-hour, or an hour, so I figured that’s what happened with hen I heard her, and then I heard the baby, and then I didn't hear anything.'

'And then what happened, Signora?'

"The next day, or maybe it was the day after that -I don't remember -I saw another woman, standing at the open window and talking on the telefonino.'

'In Italian, Signora?'

'In Italian? Wait a minute. Yes, yes, it was Italian.'

'What did she say?'

'Something like, ''Everything's fine, We'll see one another in Mestre tomorrow’"

'Could you describe this woman, Signora?' 'You mean what she looked like?' 'Yes.'

'Oh, let me think a minute. She was about the same age as my daughter-in-law. She's thirty-eight. Dark hair, cut short. Tall, like my daughter-in-law, but perhaps not as thin as she is. But, as I told you, I saw her only for a minute, when she was talking on the telefonino’

'And then?'

'And then they were gone. The next day, there was no one in the apartment, and I didn't see anyone there for a couple of weeks. They just vanished.'

'Do you know if any of your neighbours noticed any of this, Signora?'

'Only the spazzino. I saw him one day, and he said he knew there was someone in there because they left a garbage bag outside the door every morning, but he never saw anyone going in or out’

'Did any of the neighbours ever say anything to you about it?'

'No, not to me. But I imagine some of them must have noticed that someone was in there, or heard something’

‘Had you speak to anyone about this, Signora?'

'No, not really. To my husband, but he told me not to have anything to do with it, that it wasn't any of our business. If he knew I was here now, I don't know what he'd do. We've never been involved with the police before, and it always leads to trouble... oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that, not really, but you know how it is, I mean, you know how people think’

'Yes, Signora, I do. Can you remember anything else?' 'No, not really.'

'Do you think you'd recognize the girl again if you saw her?'

'Maybe. But we look so different when we're pregnant, especially at the end like she was. With Pietro, I looked like a .. ‘

'Do you think you'd recognize any of the men, Signora?'

'Maybe, maybe I would. But maybe I wouldn't’

'And the woman?'

'No, probably not. She was there, at the window, for only a minute and she was standing sort of sideways, like she was keeping her eye on something in the apartment. So no, not her’

'Can you think of anything else that might be important?'

'No, I don't think so’

‘I’d like to thank you for coming to see us, Signora’

I wouldn't have if my daughter-in-law hadn't made me. You see, I told her about it while it was going on, how strange it all was, with the men and no lights and all. It was something to talk about, you see. And then when she had the baby and then they all disappeared, well, my daughter-in-law told me I had to come and tell you about it. She said I might get into trouble if anything happened and you found out I saw her there and hadn't come in to tell you. She's like that, you see, my daughter-in-law, always afraid she's going to do something wrong. Or that I will’

‘I understand. I think she told you to do the right thing’

'Maybe. Yes, it's probably a good thing I told you. Who knows what it's all about, eh?'

'Thank you again for your time, Signora. The Inspector will go downstairs with you and show you the way out’

Thank you. Er ... ?'

'Yes, Signora?'

'My husband won't have to find out that I've been here, will he?'

'Certainly not from us, Signora’

'Thank you. I don't want you to think anything bad of him, but he just doesn't like us to.get mixed up in things.'

'I understand completely, Signora. You can be perfectly sure that he won't find out.'

'Thank you. And good morning.'

'Good morning, Signora. Inspector Vianello, will you take the Signora to the front door?'

2

Gustavo Pedrolli lay on the edge of the sleep of the just, curled round the back of his wife. He was in that cloudy space between waking and sleeping, reluctant to trade his happiness for there sleep. The day had brought him an emotion different from any he had ever known, and he refused to let himself drift away from the radiance of memory. He tried to remember when he had ever been this happy. Perhaps when Bianca had said she would marry him, or on the actual day of their wedding, the Miracoli filled with white flowers and Bianca stepping up to the landing from the gondola, as he hurried down the steps to take her hand and her into his care for ever.

He had known happiness, certainly – on completing his medical studies and finally becoming un dottore, on being appointed assistant chief of paediatrics - but those happinesses were far removed from the flooding joy he had felt just before dinner, when he finished giving Alfredo his bath. He had fastened both sides of the diaper with practised hands and pulled on the flannel bottoms of his son's pyjamas. Then he slipped the duck-covered pyjama top over his head, and when it emerged, had played their usual game of hunting for the child's hands before pulling them one at a time through the sleeves. Alfredo squealed with delight, as surprised as his father at the sight of his tiny fingers as they peeped through the open ends of the sleeves.

Gustavo picked him up by the waist, hefting him up and down as Alfredo waved his arms in the same rhythm. 'And who's a beautiful boy? And who's his father's darling?' Gustavo asked. As always, Alfredo raised one of those clenched marvels, unfurled a finger, and placed it on his own nose. Dark eyes intent on his father's, he pressed his broad nose flat to his face, then lifted his finger away, only to point to himself repeatedly, throwing his arms around and squealing all the while with delight.

"That's right, Alfredo is his papa's darling, papa's darling, papa's darling.' There followed more dangling, more lifting up, more waving. He did not toss the boy into the air: Bianca said the baby became too excited if they played like that before bedtime, so Gustavo merely raised him up and down repeatedly, occasionally drawing him close to kiss the end of his nose.

He took the boy into his bedroom and carried him over to the cot. Above it hung a galaxy of floating, turning shapes and animals; the top of the dresser was a zoo. He hugged the boy to his chest, careful to exert only the gentlest of pressure, well aware of the fragility of those ribs. Alfredo squirmed, and Gustavo buried his face in the soft folds of his son's neck.

He moved his hands down and held the boy at arm's length. 'And who is Papa's darling?' he asked again in a singsong voice; he could not stop himself. Again Alfredo touched his own nose, and Gustavo felt his heart turn. The tiny fingers moved through the air until one of them rested on the tip of Gustavo's nose, and the boy said something that sounded like 'Papa', waved his arms and gave a goofy, toothless smile.

It was the first time Gustavo had heard the boy say the word, and he was so moved that one of his hands flew to his own heart. Alfredo fell against his shoulder; luckily, Gustavo had the presence of mind, and enough experience with frightened children, to make a joke of it and ask, 'And who is trying to climb into his papa's sweater?' Holding Alfredo against his chest, he pulled at one side of his cardigan and wrapped it around the boy's back, laughing out loud to show what a wonderful new game this was.

'Oh, no, you can't try to hide in there. Not at all. It's time to go to sleep.' He lifted the boy and placed him on his back in the cot. He pulled up the woollen blanket, making sure his son's chest was covered.

'Sweet dreams, my little prince,' he said, as he had said every night since Alfredo had begun to sleep in the cot. At the door he lingered, but only for a moment, so that the boy would not develop the habit of trying to delay his father's exit from the room. He looked back at the tiny lump and found tears in his eyes. Embarrassed at the thought that Bianca would see them, he wiped them away as he turned from the open door.

When he reached the kitchen, Bianca had her back to him, just pouring the penne through the strainer. He opened the refrigerator and took a bottle of Moet from the bottom shelf. He put it on the counter, then took a pair of crystal flutes, from a set of twelve that Bianca's sister had given them as a wedding present.

'Champagne?' she asked, as curious as she was pleased.

'My son called me Papa’ he said and peeled the golden foil from the cork. Avoiding her sceptical glance, he said, 'Our son. But just this once, because he called me Papa, I want to call him my son for an hour, all right?'

Seeing his expression, she abandoned the steaming pasta and moved to his side. She picked up the glasses and tilted them towards him. 'Fill both of these, please, so we can toast your son’ Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

As in the first days of their marriage, the pasta grew cold in the sink, and they drank the champagne in bed. Long after it was gone, they went into the kitchen, naked and famished. Ignoring the dry pasta, they ate the tomato sauce on thick slices of bread, standing at the sink and feeding chunks to one another, then washed it down with half a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Then they went back to the bedroom.

He lay suspended in the afterglow of the evening and marvelled that, for some months now, he had feared that Bianca had somehow changed in her ... in her what? It was natural - he knew this from his practice - for a mother to be distracted by the arrival of a new child and thus to seem less interested in or responsive to the father. But that night, with the two of them behaving like teenagers gone wild at the discovery of sex, had eliminated any uncertainties.

And he had heard that word: his son had called him Papa. His heart filled again and he slid himself closer to Bianca, half hoping she would wake and turn to him. But she slept on, and he thought of the morning, and the early train to Padova he had to catch, so he began to will himself towards sleep, ready now to drift off to that gentle land, perhaps to dream of another son, or a daughter, or both.

He became vaguely conscious of a noise beyond the door to the bedroom, and he forced himself to listen, to hear if it was Alfredo calling or crying. But the ringing noise was gone, and so he followed it, his lips curved in memory of that word.

As Doctor Gustavo Pedrolli sank into the first and most profound sleep of the night, the sound came again, but he no longer heard it, nor did his wife, sleeping beside him, naked and exhausted and satisfied. Nor did the child in the other room, sunk in happiness and dreaming, perhaps, of the wonderful new game he had learned that night, hidden and safe under the protection of the man he now knew was Papa.

Time passed, and dreams played in the minds of the sleepers. They saw motion and colour; one of them saw something that resembled a tiger; and all of them slept on.

The night exploded. The front door of the apartment burst inward and slammed against the wall: the handle gouged a hole in the plaster. A man leaped into the apartment: he wore a ski mask, something that resembled a camouflage uniform, and heavy boots; and he carried a machine-gun. Another masked man, similarly uniformed, followed him. Behind them came another man in a dark uniform but without a mask. Two more men in the same dark uniform remained outside the house.

The two masked men ran through the living room and down the hall towards the bedrooms. The man without a mask followed more cautiously. One of the masked men opened the first door, and seeing it was a bathroom, left it open and moved down the hallway towards an open door. He saw the cot, the mobiles moving slowly in the draught created by the open door.

'He's here,' the man called out, making no attempt to keep his voice down.

The second masked man went to the door of the bedroom opposite. Still holding his machine-gun, he ran in, the other man close behind him. The two people in the bed sat up, startled by the light from the hallway: the third man had switched on the light before going into the room where the baby slept.

The woman screamed and pulled the covers up over her breasts. Dottor Pedrolli launched himself from the bed so suddenly that the first intruder was taken by surprise. Before he could react, the naked man was on him, one fist crashing down on his head, the other slamming into his nose. The intruder cried out in pain and went down as Pedrolli screamed to his wife, 'Call the police, call the police!'

The second masked figure raised his gun and pointed it at Pedrolli. He said something, but the mask over his mouth distorted the words, and no one in the room could understand them. Pedrolli was beyond hearing him, anyway, and came at him, hands raised to attack. Instinctively, the masked man reacted. Raising the butt of his gun towards the head of the approaching figure, he caught him above the left ear.

The woman screamed, and from the other room the baby sent up an answering wail, that high keening noise of infant panic. She pushed back the covers and, driven by instinct and no longer conscious of her nakedness, ran towards the door.

She stopped abruptly when the man without a mask stepped into the doorway, blocking her escape. She raised her arms to cover her breasts in a gesture she was not conscious of making. Seeing the tableau in the room, he moved quickly to the side of the man with the rifle that pointed at the naked man who lay motionless at his feet. 'You fool,' he said and grabbed at the thick material of the other's jacket. He pulled the man around in a semicircle and pushed him stumbling away. He turned back towards the woman and raised his hands, palms towards her. 'The baby's all right, Signora. Nothing will happen to him.'

She stood, frozen in panic, unable to scream.

The tension was broken by the masked man on the floor, who moaned and then struggled, as if drunkenly, to his feet. He put one gloved hand over his nose, and when he pulled it away he seemed shocked by the sight of his own blood. 'He broke my nose,' he said in a muffled voice, then pulled his mask over his face and let it fall to the floor. Blood continued to drip from his nose on to the front of his jacket. As he turned towards the man who appeared to be in charge, the woman saw the single word spelled out in iridescent letters on the back of his padded jacket.

'"Carabinieri?"' she asked, her voice, barely audible over the continued screams of the baby.

‘Yes, Signora. Carabinieri’ said the man who had spoken to her. ‘Didn't you know we'd come, Signora?' he asked, something close to sympathy in his voice.

3

Guido Brunetti lay just on the edge of the sleep of the just, curled round the back of his wife. He was in that cloudy space between sleeping and waking, reluctant to let go of the happiness of the day. His son had casually mentioned at dinner how stupid one of his classmates was to fool around with drugs and had failed to see the look of relief that passed between his parents. His daughter had apologized to her mother for an angry remark made the previous day, and the words 'Mohammad' and 'mountain' sounded just at the edge of Brunetti's consciousness. And his wife, his sweet wife of more than twenty years, had surprised him with an outburst of amorous need that had inflamed him as though those two decades had never passed.

He drifted, full of contentment and greedy to run each of the events through his mind again. Unsolicited repentance from a teenager: should he alert the press? What caused him to marvel even more was Paola's assurance that this was not an attempt on Chiara's part to achieve some quid pro quo in return for the seemly expression of sentiments proper to her age and station. Surely, Chiara was smart enough to realize how effective a ploy this would be, but Brunetti chose to believe his wife when she said that Chiara was fundamentally too honest to do that.

Was this the greatest delusion, he wondered, our belief in the honesty of our children? The question, unanswered, slipped away from him, and he drifted into sleep.

The phone rang.

It rang five times before Brunetti, in the thick voice of the drugged or mugged, answered it. 'SI?' he muttered, his mind flashing down the hall but instantly comforted by the memory of having wished both of his children goodnight as they went to bed.

'It's Vianello,' the familiar voice said. 'I'm at the hospital. We've got a mess.'

Brunetti sat up and turned on the light. The urgency in Vianello's voice, as much as the message, told him he would have no choice but to join the Inspector at the hospital. 'What sort of mess?'

'There's a doctor here, one of the paediatricians. He's in the emergency room, and the doctors are talking about possible brain damage’ This made no sense to Brunetti, regardless of his fuddled state, but he knew Vianello would get to it quickly, so he said nothing.

'He was attacked in his home,' the Inspector continued. Then, after a long pause, he added, 'By the police’

'By us?' Brunetti asked, astonished.

'No, the Carabinieri. They broke in and tried to arrest him. The captain who was in charge says he attacked one of them,' Vianello said. Brunetti's eyes narrowed as the Inspector added, 'But he would say that, wouldn't he?'

'How many of them were there?' Brunetti asked.

'Five,' Vianello answered. Three in the house and two outside as backup.'

Brunetti got to his feet. I'll be there in twenty minutes.' Then he asked, 'Do you know why they were there?'

Vianello hesitated but then answered, 'They went to take his son. He's eighteen months old. They say he adopted the child illegally’

Twenty minutes’ Brunetti repeated and put the phone down.

It was only as he was letting himself out of the house that he bothered to check the time. Two-fifteen. He had thought to put on a jacket and was glad of it now, in the first chill of autumn. At the end of the calle he turned right and headed towards Rialto. He probably should have asked for a launch, but he never knew how long one would take, while he was sure to the minute how long it would take to walk.

He ignored the city around him. Five men to take an eighteen-month-old baby. Presumably, especially if the man was in the hospital with brain damage, they had not rung the doorbell and politely asked if they could come in. Brunetti himself had taken part in too many early morning raids to have any illusions about the panic they caused. He had seen hardened criminals whose bowels had loosened at the sound and sight of armed men bursting in upon them: imagine the reaction of a doctor, illegally adopted baby or no. And the Carabinieri - Brunetti had encountered too many of them who loved bursting in and imposing their sudden, terrifying authority, as if Mussolini were still in power and no one to say them nay.

At the top of the Rialto, he was too preoccupied with these thoughts to think of looking to either side but hurried down the bridge and into Calle de la Bissa. Why should they need five men and how would they get there? Surely they'd need a boat, and by whose authority were they carrying out an action like this in the city? Who had been informed, and if official notice had been given, why had nothing been said to him about it?

The portiere seemed to be asleep behind the window of his office: certainly he did not look up as Brunetti entered the hospital. Blind to the magnificence of the entrance hall though aware of the sudden drop in temperature, Brunetti worked his way right and left and then left again until he arrived at the automatic doors of the emergency room. They slid aside to let him enter. Inside the second set of doors, he pulled out his warrant card and approached the white-jacketed attendant behind the glass partition.

The man, fat and jolly-faced and far more cheerful than either the time or the circumstances warranted, glanced at Brunetti's card, smiled at him and said, 'Down to the left, Signore. Second door on the right. He's in there.'

Brunetti thanked him and followed the directions. At the door, he knocked once and went in. Though Brunetti did not recognize the man in battle fatigues who lay on the examining table, he recognized the uniform of the man standing at the window. A woman in a white lab coat sat beside the man on the table, smoothing a strip of plastic tape across his nose. As Brunetti watched, she cut a second strip and placed it parallel to the other. They anchored a thick cotton bandage to the man's nose; both nostrils were plugged with cotton. Brunetti noticed that there were already dark circles under his eyes.

The second man leaned comfortably against the wall, arms and legs crossed, observing. He wore the three stars of a captain and a pair of high black leather boots more appropriate for riding dressage than a Ducati.

'Good morning, Dottoressa,' Brunetti said when the woman looked up. I'm Commissario Guido Brunetti, and I'd be very grateful if you could tell me what's going on.'

Brunetti expected the Captain to interrupt him here, but was both surprised and disappointed by the man's continued silence. The doctor turned back to her patient, pressing the ends of the tape a few times until they were secure on the man's face. 'Keep this in place for at least two days. The cartilage has been pushed to one side, but it should reattach itself without any trouble. Just be careful with it. Take the cotton out tonight before you go to bed. If the bandage comes loose, or if it starts to bleed again, see a doctor or come back in here. All right?'

'Si,' the man agreed with rather more sibilance than might have been heard in his normal voice.

The doctor extended a hand, and the man took it. She held him steady as he lowered his feet to the ground and stood, his other hand propped on the examining table. He needed a moment to steady himself. The doctor crouched down and looked upwards, at the cotton wadding in the man's nose, but evidently it did not trouble her, so she stood up and stepped back. 'Even if nothing happens, come back in three days, all right, and I'll take another look.' The man gave a very cautious nod, and looked as if he wanted to say something, but she cut him off and added, 'And don't worry. It should be fine.'

The man glanced at the Captain, then turned back to the doctor. ‘I’m from Verona, Dottoressa’ he said in a muffled voice.

'In that case’ she said briskly ’see your own doctor after three days or if it starts to bleed again. All right?'

He nodded and then turned to the Captain. 'And work, sir?'

I don't think you'd be much use to anyone with that’ the Captain said, pointing at the bandage, then added, ‘I’ll call your sergeant and explain.' He turned to the doctor and said, 'If you'd give him some sort of letter, Dottoressa, he can go on sick leave for a few days.'

Something, perhaps nothing more than a sense of theatre or the habit of suspicion, made Brunetti wonder if the Captain would have been so gracious had he not been there as witness and if he had not introduced himself as a police officer. The doctor walked to the desk and pulled a pad towards her. She wrote a few lines, tore off the paper, and handed it to the injured man, who thanked her, then saluted the Captain and left the room.

'I was told that another man came in with them, Dottoressa’ Brunetti said. 'Could you tell me where he is?'

She was young, he noticed now, far younger than a doctor had any right to be. She was not beautiful, but she had a pleasant face, the sort that would wear well through life, becoming more attractive as she grew older.

'He's a colleague of mine, the assistant chief of pediatria,' she began, emphasizing the title as though offering it as sufficient proof that the Carabinieri had no business being involved with him. I didn't like the look of his injuries' - this with a glance towards the Captain - 'so I sent him up to neurologia and called the assistant primario at home.' Brunetti was aware that she had the Captain's attention as well as his own. 'His pupils wouldn't dilate, and he. had trouble placing his left foot, so I thought someone from neurologia should take a look at him.'

At this, the Captain interrupted from his place against the wall. 'Couldn't it have waited until later, Dottoressa? There's no need to get a doctor out of bed because a man's hit his head, is there?'

She turned her attention to the Captain, and the look she gave him made Brunetti prepare for a barrage. Instead, she said in an entirely neutral voice, ‘I thought it wiser, Captain, as he seems to have hit his head against the butt of a rifle.'

So much for you. Captain, Brunetti thought. He caught the look the officer gave her in response and was surprised to see that the young man actually looked embarrassed.

'He said that, Dottoressa?' the Captain asked.

'No. He didn't say anything. Your man did. I asked what had happened to his nose, and he told me.' Her voice remained neutral.

The Captain nodded and pushed himself away from the wall. He approached Brunetti and put out his hand. 'Marvilli,' he said as they shook hands. Then he turned to the doctor and said, Tor what it's worth, Dottoressa, he's not my man. As he told you, he's from the command in Verona. All four of them are.' When neither Brunetti nor the doctor acknowledged this remark, the Captain revealed his youth and his uncertainty by explaining, 'The officer who was supposed to come with them had to replace someone in Milano, so they assigned me to the operation because I'm stationed here.'

'I see,' the doctor said. Brunetti, who had no idea of the extent - even the nature - of the operation, thought it wisest to remain silent.

Marvilli seemed to have run out of things to say, so after a pause, Brunetti said, 'I'd like to see this man, if I may, Dottoressa. The one in neurologia.'

'Do you know where it is?'

'Next to dermatologiaT Brunetti asked.

'Yes.'

"Then I see no reason why you can't go up,' she said.

Wanting to thank her by name, Brunetti looked at the tag on her jacket. 'Dottoressa Claudia Cardinale,' he read to himself. She'd had to live with that, he supposed, but had some parents no sense at all?

"Thank you, Dottoressa Cardinale,' he said formally and held out his hand. She shook it, then surprised Brunetti by also shaking the Captain's. Then she left them alone in the room.

'Captain,' Brunetti said in a neutral tone, 'would it be possible for me to know what's going on here?'

Marvilli raised his hand in a gesture that was curiously self-effacing. 'I can tell you at least part of it, Cornmissario’ When Brunetti said nothing, Marvilli went on, 'What happened tonight is part of an investigation that's been going on for some time: almost two years. Dottor Pedrolli,' he said, mentioning what Brunetti could only assume was the name of the man in neurologia, 'illegally adopted a baby eighteen months ago. In separate operations, he and a number of other people have been arrested tonight.'

Though curious about the number of people, Brunetti made no rejoinder, and Marvilli obviously thought no further explanation necessary.

Ts that what he's being accused of,' Brunetti asked, 'the illegal adoption of a child?' and by so doing became involved in Gustavo Pedrolli's exposure to the might and majesty of the law.

Marvilli said, ‘I imagine he's also likely to be charged with the corruption of a public official, falsification of state documents, kidnapping of a minor, and illegal transfer of funds.' He watched Brunetti's face, and when he saw how sombre his expression grew, the Captain went on. 'As the case continues, there will no doubt be further charges.' With the toe of one of his elegant boots, he prodded at a bloody piece of gauze that lay at his feet, then looked up at Brunetti. 'And I wouldn't be at all surprised if resisting arrest and violence to a public official in performance of his duties were added.'

Brunetti chose to stay silent, aware of how very little he knew about what was going on. He opened the door and stood back to let

Marvilli pass into the corridor. The Captain's accent, though from the Veneto, was not Venetian, so Brunetti doubted he would be familiar with the labyrinth of the hospital. Silently, Brunetti led the other man through the empty corridors, turning left or right with little conscious thought.

They stopped outside the doors to the neurology department. 'Do you have one of your men with him?' Brunetti asked the Captain.

'Yes. The one he didn't attack,' he explained, then, when he realized how this sounded, he corrected this to, 'One of the others from Verona.'

Brunetti pushed, open the doors to the ward. A young nurse with long black hair sat at a counter just inside. She looked up, and Brunetti thought she looked both tired and grumpy.

'Yes?’ she asked as they came in. 'What do you want?'

Before she could tell them the ward was closed, Brunetti walked towards her, smiling a placatory smile. 'I'm sorry to disturb you, nurse. I'm from the police and I'm here to see Dottor Pedrolli. I think my Inspector might be here, as well’

At the reference to Vianello, some of the sternness disappeared from her face and she said, 'He was, but I think he's gone downstairs. They brought Dottor Pedrolli in about an hour ago: Dottor Damasco is examining him now’ She turned her attention from the Veneziano-speaking Brunetti to the uniformed Marvilli. 'He's been beaten by the Carabinieri, it seems’

Brunetti felt Marvilli stiffen and start to move forward, so he stepped in front of him to prevent him. 'Would it be possible for me to see him?' he asked, then turned and gave Marvilli a glance severe enough to stop him from speaking.

I suppose so,' she said slowly. 'Come with me, please’ She rose from her chair. As they walked past her desk, Brunetti saw that the screen of the computer showed a scene from a historical film, perhaps Gladiator, perhaps Alexander.

He followed her down the corridor, aware of Marvilli's footsteps behind them. She stopped at a door on the right, knocked, and in response to a noise Brunetti did not hear, opened the door and put her head inside. 'A policeman's here, Dottore’ she said.

'One of them's in here already, damn it,' a man's voice said, with no attempt to disguise his anger. "That's enough. Tell him to wait.'

The nurse drew her head back and closed the door. 'You heard him,' she said, all pleasantness fled from her voice and from her face.

Marvilli looked at his watch. 'What time does the hospital bar open?' he asked.

'Five,' she answered. Seeing the face he made in response to this, her tone softened and she said, "There are some coffee machines on the ground floor.' She left them without another word and went back to her film.

Marvilli asked Brunetti if he wanted anything, but Brunetti declined. Saying he would be back soon, the Captain turned away. Brunetti immediately regretted his decision and was about to call after his retreating back, 'Caffe doppio, con due zuccheri, per piacere,' but something restrained him from breaking the silence. He watched Marvilli pass through the swinging doors at the end of the corridor, then went over to a row of orange plastic chairs. Brunetti took a seat and began to wait for someone to emerge from the room.

4

While Brunetti waited, he tried to make some sense of what was going on. If the assistant chief of neurology had been called in at three in the morning, then something serious had been done to this Dottor Pedrolli, despite Marvilli's attempts to downplay the situation. Brunetti could not understand the excessive use of force, though it was possible that a captain who was not part of the men's command unit might not have been able to control the operation as effectively as would someone more familiar with his men. No wonder Marvilli was uneasy.

Could it be that Dottor Pedrolli, as well as having illegally adopted a baby himself, was more deeply involved in whatever traffic was going on? As a paediatrician, he would have access to children and, through them, to their parents, perhaps to parents who wanted other children, or even to those who could be persuaded to part with an unwanted child.

Or he might have access to orphanages: those children must have as much need of a doctor's services - perhaps more - than children living at home with their parents. Vianello, he knew, had been raised with orphans: his mother had taken in the children of a friend, but she had done it to keep them from being sent to an orphanage, that atavistic terror of his parents' generation. Surely things were different now, what with the involvement of the social services, of child psychologists. But Brunetti was forced to admit that he didn't know how many orphanages still existed in the country and, in fact, even where any of them were.

His mind flashed to the early years of his marriage to Paola, when the university had assigned her to teach a class on Dickens, and he, with the solidarity of a new husband, had read the novels along with her. He remembered, with a shudder, the orphanage where Oliver Twist was sent, but then he recalled the passage in Great Expectations that had most chilled his blood at the time, Mrs Joe's admonition that children should be 'brought up by hand', a phrase neither he nor Paola could ever decipher but which had nevertheless unsettled them both.

But Dickens had written almost two centuries ago, when families, by today's standards, were enormous: his own parents had each had six siblings. Do we try today to treat children better, now that they are in short supply? he wondered.

Brunetti suddenly raised the fingers of his right hand to his forehead in an involuntary gesture of surprise. No formal charge had been brought against Dottor Pedrolli, Brunetti had seen no evidence, and here he was, assuming the man's guilt, just on the word of some captain in riding boots.

His reverie was broken by Vianello, who appeared at the end of the corridor and came to sit beside him. I'm glad you're here,' the Inspector said.

'What's going on?' Brunetti asked, no less relieved to see the Inspector.

Speaking softly, Vianello began to explain. ‘I was on night shift with Riverre when the call came in: I couldn't make any sense of it,' he said, then tried and failed to stop himself from yawning.

He slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and turned his head to Brunetti. 'A woman called, saying that there were men with guns in front of a house in San Marco. Over by La Fenice: Calle Venier. Near the old Carive offices. So we sent a patrol over, but by the time they got there, the men were gone, and someone shouted down from a window that it was the Carabinieri and that a man was hurt and they'd taken him to the hospital.'

Vianello glanced at Brunetti to see if he was following, then continued. 'It was the guys on the patrol - our guys - who called and told me all of this and that it was a doctor who was hurt, so I came over here to see what was going on, and that's when some jerk of a captain - wearing riding boots, for God's sake - told me it was their case and none of my business.' Brunetti let his Inspector's contempt for an officer go unremarked.

"That's when I decided to call you,' Vianello said.

The Inspector paused and Brunetti asked, 'What else?'

'After I did - call you, that is -I waited here for a while. I spoke to the neurologist when he got here and tried to tell him what was going on. But then Little Red Riding Boots came out of the room, and the doctor went in to see his patient. So I went down to the boat and talked to one of the Carabinieri who brought him in. He told me the squad making the arrest were from Verona, but the guy with the boots is stationed here. He's from Pordenone or some place like that, but he's been here for six months or so. Anyway, there was trouble when they went in to arrest this doctor. He'd fallen or something when he attacked one of them, and when they couldn't get him back on his feet, his wife started screaming, so they decided to bring him over here to have the doctors take a look.'

'Did he say anything about a baby?' Brunetti asked.

'No. Nothing’ Vianello answered with a confused look. 'The man I spoke to didn't seem to want to say much, and I wasn't sure what to ask. I just wanted to find out what happened to this doctor, how he got hurt’

Briefly, Brunetti told Vianello what he had learned from Marvilli about the raid, its purpose, and its result. Vianello muttered something; Brunetti thought he heard the word 'attacked'.

'You don't think he fell?' Brunetti asked, remembering what Dottoressa Cardinale had said.

Vianello let out his breath in a sudden noise of disbelief. 'Not unless he tripped over the Captain's spurs when they got him out of bed. He was naked when they brought him in. Or at least that’s what one of the nurses downstairs told me. Wrapped in a blanket, but naked.'

'And so?' Brunetti asked.

'Take a man's clothes off him, and he's only half a man,' Vianello said. 'A naked man doesn't attack a man with a gun,' he concluded, incorrectly in this case.

'Two, I think,' Brunetti observed.

'Exactly,' Vianello answered, refusing to abandon his conviction. .

'Yes’ Brunetti agreed, and then looked up at the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Marvilli was approaching them.

The Captain noticed Vianello and said, ‘I see your sergeant's filling you in on what happened’

Vianello started to speak, but Brunetti forestalled him by getting to his feet and taking a step towards Marvilli. 'The Inspector's telling me what he's been told, Captain,' Brunetti said with an easy smile, then added, 'That's not necessarily the same thing.'

Seamlessly, Marvilli replied, 'That would depend on whom he's spoken to, I suppose.'

'I'm sure someone will tell us the truth, in the end’ Brunetti countered, wondering if Marvilli was in some sort of caffeine-induced state of agitation.

Marvilli's response was cut off by the opening of the door to Pedrolli's room. A man in middle years, vaguely familiar to Brunetti, stepped into the corridor, looking back at something inside. He wore what seemed to be a Harris tweed jacket over a pale yellow sweater, and jeans.

He raised a hand and pointed into the corridor. 'Out’ he said in a dangerous voice, his eyes still on something or, it now seemed, someone.

A much younger man, dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying a machine-gun, appeared just in the doorway. He stopped, his face rigid with confusion, and looked down the corridor. He opened his mouth as if to speak.

The Captain waved him to silence and then jerked his head to one side, commanding him from the room. The man with the gun walked out into the corridor and down to Marvilli, but the Captain repeated the gesture, this time angrily, and the young man continued past him. All of them could hear the sound of his disappearing boots.

When silence returned, the doctor closed the door and approached them. He nodded in recognition of Vianello, then asked Marvilli, 'Are you the person in charge?' His voice was openly aggressive.

‘Yes, I am’ Marvilli answered, and Brunetti could hear him struggle to keep his voice calm. 'May I ask who you are?' the Captain asked, then added, 'and why you ask?'

'Because I'm a doctor and I've got a patient in there who's been the victim of an assault, and since you're a Carabiniere officer and presumably know what's going on, I'd like to report it and report it as a crime’

'Assault?' Marvilli asked with feigned curiosity. 'Your patient attacked two of my men and broke the nose of one of them. So if there's any talk of assault, he's the one who is more likely to be charged with it’

The doctor looked at Marvilli with contempt, and made no effort to keep it out of his voice. I have no idea what your rank is, officer, but unless your men decided to take his clothes off him after fracturing his skull, then your men -and I assume they were armed - were assaulted by a naked man’ After a brief pause, he added, I don't know where you come from, but in Venice we don't allow the police to beat people up’ He turned away from Marvilli, making it clear that he had said all he wanted to say to him. Addressing Vianello, he said, 'Inspector, could I have a word with you?' Then, as Vianello started to speak, he added, 'Inside’

'Of course, Dottore,' Vianello said. Indicating Brunetti with his right hand, he said, 'This is my superior, Commissario Brunetti. He's very concerned about what's gone on here.'

'Ah, that's who you are,' the doctor said, extending a hand to Brunetti and giving him an easy smile, as though it were perfectly natural to be introduced at four o'clock in the morning. 'I'd like to speak to you, as well,' he said, as though Marvilli were not standing less than a metre from them.

The doctor stood aside until Brunetti and Vianello had gone in; then he closed the door behind them. 'My name's Damasco’ he said, moving towards the bed. 'Bartolomeo.'

On the bed lay a man, who looked up at them with confused eyes. The overhead light was not on, and the only illumination came from a small lamp on the other side of the bed. Brunetti could make out a shock of light brown hair that fell across the man's forehead and a beard in which there seemed to be a great deal of grey. The skin above the beard was rough and pitted, and the top of his left ear swollen and red.

Pedrolli opened his mouth, but the other doctor bent over him and said, 'Don't worry, Gustavo. These men are here to help. And don't worry about your voice. It'll come back. You just need to rest and give the drugs a chance to work.' He patted the other man on his naked shoulder, then pulled the blanket up to his neck.

The man on the bed stared up at him intently, as if willing him to understand what it was he wanted to say. ‘Don't worry, Gustavo. Bianca's fine. Alfredo's fine.'

At the last name, Brunetti noticed the man's face twist in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut to avoid showing whatever emotion it was he felt, then turned his head away, eyes still closed.

'What happened to him?' Brunetti asked.

Damasco shook his head as if wanting to shake away both the question and the reason for it. 'It's your business to find that out, Commissario. My concern is treating the physical consequences.'

Damasco saw how surprised the other two were by his abruptness and led them away from the bed. At the door, he said, 'Dottoressa Cardinale called me at about two this morning. She said that there was a man in the emergency room - she told me who it was, Gustavo Pedrolli, one of our colleagues - who had been brought in by the Carabinieri. He had been hit behind the left ear, by something hard enough to have caused a fracture of the skull. Luckily, the skull is thick there, so it's only a hairline fracture, but still it's a serious injury. Or can be.

'Whenl got here about twenty minutes later, there were two Carabinieri guarding the door. They told me the injured man had to be kept under guard because he had assaulted one of their colleagues when they tried to arrest him.' Damasco closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in an indication of how credible he found this explanation.

'Soon after that, my colleague in Pronto Soccorso called to tell me that this man, this "assaulted" man, had nothing more than a displaced cartilage in his nose, so I'm not willing to believe he was the victim of a serious assault’ Curious, Brunetti asked, 'Is Dottor Pedrolli the sort of man who would react like this? So violently?'

Damasco started to speak but appeared to reconsider, then said, 'No. A naked man doesn't attack a man with a machine-gun, does he?' He paused and then added, 'Not unless he's defending his family, he doesn't.' When he saw that he had their attention, he went on, 'They tried to stop me from coming in here to see my patient. Perhaps they thought I'd try to help him escape through a window or something: I have no idea. Or help him concoct some sort of story. I told them I'm a doctor, and when I demanded the name of their commanding officer, they let me in, though the one in charge insisted that the other stay in here with me while I examined Gustavo.' He added, not without pride, 'But then I threw him out. They can't do that here.'

The way Damasco spoke the last word struck a responsive chord in Brunetti. No, not here, and certainly not without asking permission of the local police. Brunetti saw no sense, however, in mentioning this to Damasco and so limited himself to saying, 'The way you spoke to him, Dottore,' Brunetti began, 'made it sound like your patient's unable to speak. Could you tell me more about that?'

Damasco glanced away, as if looking for the answer to this question on the wall. Finally he said, ^‘He seems to want to speak, but no words come out’

'The blow?' Brunetti asked.

Damasco shrugged. It could be.' He looked at the two men one by one, as if judging how much he should tell them. 'The brain's a strange thing, and the mind's even stranger. I've been working with the one for thirty years, and I've learned something about the way it works, but the other is still a mystery to me’

'Is that the case here, Dottore?' Brunetti asked, sensing that the doctor wanted to be asked.

Again, the shrug, and then Damasco said. Tor all I know, the blow isn't the cause of the silence. It could be shock, or it could be that he's decided not to speak until he has a clearer idea of what’s going on’ Damasco reached up and rubbed at his face with open palms.

When he lowered his hands, he said, ‘I don't know. As I say, I work with the physical brain, the neurons and synapses, and the things that can be tested and measured. All the rest - the non-physical stuff, the mind, if you will -I leave that to other people’

'But you mention it, Dottore,' Brunetti said, keeping his voice as low as the doctor's.

‘Yes, I mention it. I've known Gustavo for a long time, so I know a little about the way he thinks and reacts to things. So I mention it’

'Would you be willing to expand on that, Dottore?' Brunetti asked.

'About what?'

'About the way your patient thinks and reacts?'

Damasco turned his full attention to Brunetti, and his consideration of the question was as clear as it was serious. 'No, I don't think I can, Commissario, except to say that he is rigorously honest, a quality which, at least professionally, has sometimes worked to his disadvantage,' he said, then paused, as though listening to his own words. Then he added, 'He's my friend, but he's also my patient, and my responsibility is to protect him as best I can.'

'Protect him from what?' Brunetti asked, choosing to ignore for the moment Dottor Damasco's observations about the consequences of his friend's honesty.

Damasco's smile was both natural and good-natured as he said, 'If from nothing else, Commissario, then from the police.' He turned away and walked over to the figure on the bed. Glancing back, he said, 'I'd like to be left alone with my patient, gentlemen, if you don't mind.'

5

As Brunetti and Vianello left the room, they saw that Marvilli was still there, propped against the wall, his arms and legs crossed, as he had been when Brunetti first saw him.

'What did the doctor have to say?' Marvilli asked.

That his patient can't talk and that if s caused by a blow to his head,' Brunetti said, opting to provide only one of the possibilities the doctor had offered. He allowed the Captain to consider this before asking, 'Do you want to tell me what happened?'

Marvilli's eyes shot up and down the corridor, as if checking for unsympathetic listeners, but there was no one in sight. He uncrossed his legs and unfolded his arms, then pushed up his sleeve and looked at his watch. 'The bar's still not open, is it?' he asked, suddenly sounding more tired than wary. Then he added, 'The machine's broken. And I'd really like a coffee.'

'Sometimes the bar downstairs opens early,' Vianello said.

Nodding by way of thanks, Marvilli started to walk away, not waiting to see if the policemen would follow. He passed through the door into the Department of Dermatology, and Brunetti was too surprised and too slow to call him back. 'Come on,' said Vianello, turning in the opposite direction. 'He’ll find it eventually.'

Downstairs, as they approached the open door of the bar, they heard the rasping noise of the coffee grinder and the hiss of the espresso machine. As they walked in, the barman started to object, but when Brunetti identified them as police, he agreed to serve them. The two men stood at the bar, stirring sugar into their coffees, waiting for Marvilli. Two attendants in blue smocks entered and ordered caffe coretto, one with a stiff shot of grappa and the other with Fernet-Branca. They drank quickly and left without paying, though Brunetti watched the barman take a notebook wedged beside the cash register, thumb through it, and write in it briefly.

'Good morning, Commissario’ a soft voice said from behind him, and he turned to see Dottor Cardinale.

'Ah, Dottoressa,' Brunetti said, making room for her at the bar. 'May I offer you a coffee?' he asked, making his voice loud enough for the barman to hear.

'And save my life’ she said, smiling. She set her doctor's bag on the floor. 'The last hour is the worst. Usually no one comes in, and by then I've started to think about coffee. I suppose that's what it's like if you're stranded in die desert’ she said. 'All you can think of is that first sip, the first taste of it saving your life.'

Her coffee came and she poured three sugars into it. Seeing the looks on the policemen's faces, she said, If I saw my patients doing this, I'd scream at them.' She swirled the cup around a few times, and Brunetti had the feeling she knew exactly how many times to swirl it before it would be cool enough to drink.

With one gulp, she downed the coffee, set the cup back in the saucer, looked at Brunetti and said, ‘I am saved. I am human again.'

'Dare you risk another?' Brunetti asked.

'Not if I want to sleep when I get home’ she said, 'but thank you for the offer.'

She bent to pick up her bag and Brunetti said, 'How badly was that policeman hurt, Dottoressa?'

'Aside from his pride, not very much at all, I'd say.' She hefted the bag, adding. If he'd been hit really hard, the bone would have been broken or the cartilage knocked entirely out of place. This was nothing more than if he'd walked into a door. That is, if he was standing very near.'

'And Dottor Pedrolli?' Brunetti asked.

She shook her head. 'I told you: neurologia is not something I know much about. That's why I called Dottor Damasco.'

Over her shoulder, Brunetti saw Marvilli. The Captain, not bothering to conceal his irritation at having got lost, came up to the bar and ordered a coffee.

Dottoressa Cardinale shifted her bag to her left hand, shook hands with Brunetti and then leaned forward to shake Vianello's. 'Thanks again for the coffee, Commissario’ she said. She smiled at Marvilli and extended her hand. After only a moment's hesitation, he relented and took it.

The doctor went out into the corridor and looked back into the bar. She waited for Marvilli to turn and look at her. With an enormous smile, she said, 'Great boots, Captain,' turned, and was gone.

Brunetti kept his eyes on his coffee, finished it, and set down the cup quietly in its saucer. Seeing that they were the only customers in the bar, he turned to Marvilli. 'Do you think you could tell me a bit more about this operation. Captain?'

Marvilli took a sip and set down his cup before saying, 'As I told you before, Commissario, the investigation has been going on for some time.'

'Since when?' Brunetti asked.

'As I told you: almost two years.'

Vianello set down his cup perhaps a bit too loudly and asked the barman for three more coffees.

‘Yes, Captain, you told me that,' answered Brunetti. 'But what I meant was what event triggered the investigation, especially this part of it?'

I'm not sure I can tell you that, Commissario. But I can say that the action here was only part of a series of actions in other cities that took place last night.' He pushed his cup away and added, 'Beyond that, I'm not sure what I can tell you.'

Brunetti resisted the impulse to point out that one of the 'actions' had put a man in hospital. 'Captain,' he said softly, ‘I, however, am sure that I'm at liberty to arrest you - or whichever of your men struck Dottor Pedrolli - for assault’ Brunetti smiled and added, 'I'm not going to, of course, but I mention it as an example of how we need not feel ourselves bound by what we are or are not at liberty to do’ He flirted with the idea of suggesting that the Captain's boots were enough to cause him to charge him with impersonating a cavalry officer, but good sense prevailed.

He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it in. Stirring gently and keeping his eyes on his spoon, he continued in an entirely conversational tone. In the absence of any information about this operation of yours and thus entirely unsure if your men had any right to carry it out in this city. Captain, I'm left with no choice but to protect the safety of the people of Venice. Which is my duty’ He looked up. 'That's why I would like more information.'

Wearily, Marvilli reached for his second coffee and pushed his empty cup and saucer across the bar. He pushed so hard that they slid off the other side and clattered, without breaking, into the sink below. 'Sorry,' he said automatically. The barman retrieved the cup and saucer.

Marvilli shifted his attention to Brunetti and asked, 'And if all this is only a bluff, Commissario?'

'If that's your response. Captain,' Brunetti said, 'I'm afraid I'll have to lodge an official complaint about the excessive violence used by your men and request an official investigation.' He put down his cup. 'In the absence of a warrant from a judge authorizing your entry into Doctor Pedrolli's home, your men remain guilty of assault.'

'There's a warrant,' Marvilli said.

'Issued by a judge in this city?'

After a long pause, Marvilli said, ‘I don't know that the judge is from this city, Commissario. But I know there is a warrant. We would never have done something like this without one - not here and not in the other cities’

That was certainly likely enough, Brunetti agreed. The times when the police could break in anywhere without a warrant were not upon them, not yet. After all, this was not the United States.

In a voice into which he put all the tiredness of a man woken long before his usual time and out of patience with what had happened since then, Brunetti said, 'If we can both stop being tough guys. Captain, perhaps we could walk back to the Questura together, and you could tell me along the way just what's going on’ He dug out a ten-Euro note and placed it on the bar then turned towards the door.

'Your change, Signore’ the barman called after him.

Brunetti smiled at him. 'You saved the Dottoressa's life, remember? That's beyond price, I'd say’ The barman laughed and thanked him, and Brunetti and Vianello headed down the corridor towards the entrance hall. A thoughtful Marvilli followed.

Outside, Brunetti felt the growing warmth of the day and observed that the pavement was damp in places: he could not remember if it had been raining when he had arrived at the hospital; while inside he had not been aware of rain. There was no sign of it now, and the air had been washed clean, presenting them with one of those pellucid days that early autumn gives the city, perhaps as consolation for having stolen the summer. Brunetti was tempted to walk down to the end of the canal to see if the mountains were visible beyond the laguna, but he knew that would most likely provoke Marvilli, so he abandoned the idea. If he waited until the afternoon, smog and gathering humidity would have obscured the mountains again, but perhaps tomorrow they would be visible.

As they crossed the campo, Brunetti noticed that the statue of Colleoni was finally free of the scaffolding that had covered it for years: it was wonderful to see the old villain again. He cut right beyond Rosa Salva, still not open, and started down Calle Bressana. At the top of the bridge he waited for Vianello and Marvilli to join him, but Vianello opted to remain at the bottom of the steps, leaning back against the low wall, establishing a distance between Brunetti and himself. Brunetti turned and leaned against the low wall of the bridge. Marvilli, standing beside him but looking in the other direction, started to speak. 'About two years ago, we were informed that a Polish woman, in the country legally, employed as a domestic, unmarried, was about to give birth in a hospital in Vicenza. Some days later, a married couple from Milano, in their late thirties, childless, came out of the same hospital with the baby and a birth certificate with the man's name on it. He claimed that the Polish woman was his lover and that the child was his, and the Polish woman testified that this was true.'

Marvilli rested his forearms on the flat surface of the bridge, gazing off at the buildings at the end of the canal. As if there had been no break in the conversation, he continued, 'What made no sense was that the man, the supposed father, had been working in England at the time the child would have been conceived. She must have been pregnant when she arrived in Italy: her work permit says she entered the country six months before the baby was born. The man claiming to be the father has never been to Poland, and she never left there before she came here’ Before Brunetti could ask, Marvilli said, 'We're sure. Believe me’ He paused and studied Brunetti's face. 'He's not the father’

'How did you find out about all of this?' Brunetti asked.

His eyes still on the water, Marvilli replied, his voice suddenly grown nervous, as if he were divulging information he was not authorized to provide. 'One of the women in the room with the Polish woman. She had a baby at the same time. She said that all the Polish woman could talk about was her boyfriend and how much she wanted to make him happy. It seemed that the way she was going to make him happy was by taking a lot of money back to Poland, which is what she told him every time she phoned him’

'I see,' said Brunetti. 'And this other woman in the room with her called you?'

'No, she told her husband, who works for the social services, and he called the command in Vicenza’

Brunetti turned and started off in the same direction as Marvilli, his attention drawn by an approaching taxi, and said, 'How wonderfully convenient, Captain. How very lucky indeed are the forces of order to be graced by such fortunate coincidences. The other woman just happened to speak enough Polish to understand what she told her boyfriend.' Brunetti glanced sideways at the Captain. 'Not to mention the convenient fact that her husband just happened to work for the social services and that he was conscientious enough to think of alerting the

Carabinieri’ His look was long, and he made no attempt to disguise his anger.

Marvilli hesitated for a long time before he said, 'All right, Commissario’ He raised his hands in surrender. 'We knew about it before, from another source, and she was already planted in the room when the Polish woman got there’

'And the concerned call you received from the man from social services?'

'These operations are secret,' said an irritated Marvilli.

'Go on, Captain’ Brunetti said, slipping open the buttons on his jacket as the morning light advanced and the temperature rose.

Marvilli turned to him abruptly. 'May I speak honestly, Commissario?' As the light increased, Brunetti noticed that Marvilli looked younger.

‘I shouldn't bother to point this out, Captain, but your question suggests that you haven't been so far; but, yes, you may speak honestly’ Brunetti said in a voice grown suddenly gentle.

Marvilli blinked, not sure whether to respond to Brunetti's words or to his tone. He rose up on his toes and stretched backwards, saying, 'God, I hate these early morning things. We didn't even bother to sleep.'

'Another coffee?' Brunetti suggested.

For the first time, Marvilli smiled, and it made him look still younger. ‘You told the barman the coffee saved that doctor's life. It'll probably save mine, too.' -

"Vianello,' Brunetti called to the Inspector, who was still at the bottom of the steps, pretending to admire the facade of the building to his left. 'What’s open around here?'

Vianello looked at his watch. Tonte dei Greci’ he said and started up the steps towards them.

When they reached the bar, the metal grille that protected the door and front windows was raised a few centimetres, enough to suggest that coffee was available inside. Brunetti tapped on the grille, calling out, 'Sergio, you in there?' He tapped again, and after a moment four hirsute fingers appeared at the bottom of the grille, and it slowly began to rise. Marvilli surprised them by squatting down and helping to lift the grille until it slid into place above the door and Sergio stood before them: thick, dark, hairy and as welcome a sight as Brunetti could imagine.

'Don't you guys ever sleep?' Sergio asked, more bark than bite. He retreated into the bar and went behind the counter.

'Three?' he asked, not bothering to specify: the sight of them was enough.

Brunetti nodded and led me others to a booth by the front window.

He heard the hiss of the coffee machine, and a banging at the door; he looked up to see a tall African in a light blue jellaba and woollen jacket carrying a paper-covered tray of fresh pastries. Sergio called out, 'Take it over to the men at the table, Bambola, would you?'

The African turned towards them, and when he saw Marvilli's uniform jacket gave an instinctive jerk of recognition and fear. He stopped and pulled the tray defensively closer to his chest.

Vianello made a casual gesture. It's before work’ he called. Bambola looked from Vianello to the other two, and they nodded in agreement. His face relaxed and he walked over to their table and set the tray down; then, like a magician, he whipped back the paper, filling the space between them, with the aromas of cream, eggs, sugar, raisins, and fresh baked dough.

'Just leave it,' Marvilli said, then added, 'please.'

The African went over to the counter and said something to Sergio, then left the bar.

Each of them chose a pastry, and then Sergio was there with three coffees on a tray and a plate on to which he placed several of the pastries. He picked up the remainder and carried them behind the counter, where he began to place them on a Plexiglas tray.

As if in silent acknowledgement that it is difficult to discuss police business while eating cream-filled brioche, the three men remained silent until the coffees and the pastries were gone. Brunetti felt the rush of caffeine and sugar, and saw that the others were looking more alert.

Then, after this couple from Milano took the Polish woman's baby home, what happened?' Brunetti asked. In the hospital, the Captain had said that the Pedrolli operation was 'separate,' but Brunetti was certain that he could, sooner or later, be led to explain this.

Tossing his paper napkin on to the plate.

Marvilli said, 'A judge issued an order allowing them to be kept under surveillance’

'Which means?' Brunetti asked, as though he didn't already know.

'Their home phone and fax and email were tapped, so were their telefonini. Their mail was opened, and they were followed occasionally,' Marvilli answered.

'And was the same true for Dottor Pedrolli and his wife?' Brunetti asked.

'No, they were different,' said Marvilli.

'In what way?'

Marvilli's lips flattened into a straight line and he said, 'I can't say more than that we received the information about them from a different source.'

'Can't or won't?' Brunetti asked.

'Can't,' Marvilli said, sounding displeased. Brunetti was unsure whether this resulted from being asked the question or from not being able to answer it.

He decided to risk one more question. 'Did you know about them from the beginning, too?'

Marvilli shook his head but said nothing.

Brunetti accepted Marvilli's response with apparent resignation, intrigued by the repeated suggestion that Pedrolli's situation was somehow different and in some way separate from the long-planned action. He sensed that Vianello wanted to say something and decided to let him. It would serve as a jgraceful way to move the subject away from the anomalous case of the Pedrollis. He turned to Vianello and, careful to use his first name, asked, 'What is it, Lorenzo?'

'Captain,' Vianello began, 'if your superiors knew what these people had done, why weren't they simply arrested?'

'The middle man, the person behind the arrangements. That's who we wanted,' Marvilli explained. He turned to Brunetti and said, 'You realize by now that it's not just the people who were arrested last night that we're interested in, no?'

Brunetti nodded.

'These aren't isolated cases,' Marvilli continued. This is going on all over the country. We probably don't have any idea of how common it is.'

He turned back to Vianello. 'That's why we need the middle man, so we can find out who was providing the documents, the birth certificates, in one case even false medical papers, claiming that a woman had given birth to a child that wasn't hers.' He folded his hands on the table like an obedient schoolboy.

Brunetti waited a few moments before saying, 'We've had a few cases here, in the Veneto, but as far as I know, this is the first time anyone's been arrested in the city.'

Marvilli acknowledged this and Brunetti asked, Does anyone have any idea ... well, of the whole picture?'

‘I can't answer that, either, Commissario. I was assigned this case only last night, and I was briefed about it then.' It seemed to Brunetti that the Captain had certainly learned a great deal in a very short time.

Instead of commenting on this, Brunetti asked, 'And do you know if this man you call the middle man was arrested?'

Marvilli shrugged, leading Brunetti to assume that the answer was no. 'What I do know is that two of the couples who were to be arrested last night had visited the same clinic in Verona,' the Captain finally said.

The surprise Brunetti felt at the name of a city in the economic heart of the country forced him to accept how automatic was his assumption that crime was somehow the natural heritage of the South. But why should the willingness to go to criminal lengths to have a child be more prevalent there than in the comfortable, rich North?

He tuned back in to hear Marvilli say, '... Dottor Pedrolli and his wife.'

'Sorry, Captain, could you say that again? I was thinking about something else.'

Marvilli pleased Brunetti by showing no irritation that his listener's attention had drifted away. 'As I said, two of the other couples had been to the same clinic in Verona, a clinic that specializes in fertility problems. People are referred there from all over the country’ He watched them register this and added, 'About two years ago, the Pedrollis went to the same clinic for a joint exam.' Brunetti had no idea how many clinics in the Veneto specialized in fertility problems and wondered whether this need be anything more than coincidence.

'And?' Brunetti asked, curious as to how deeply and for how long the police might have concerned themselves with the clinic and with the lives of the people who went there as patients.

'And nothing,' Marvilli said angrily. 'Nothing. They had an appointment, and that's all we know.'

Brunetti forbore to ask whether the Carabinieri had kept both the Pedrollis and the clinic under surveillance and if so, to what extent. He wondered how, in fact, the Carabinieri had learned of their visit, and by what right, but the voice of patience whispered into his ear a list of the secrets open to the not inconsiderable skills of Signorina Elettra Zorzi, his superior's secretary, and so he held close to his bosom his sense of righteous indignation at the thought of the invasion of a citizen's privacy. He asked, 'And did you find any connection to this clinic?'

Marvilli pushed the plate away. 'We're working on it,' he said evasively.

Brunetti stretched his legs out under the table, careful not to nudge Marvilli's. He slumped down slightly on the bench and folded his arms across his chest. 'Let me think out loud, Captain, if I may.' The glance Marvilli gave Brunetti was wary. 'Hundreds of people must consult this clinic every year.'

When Marvilli did not answer, Brunetti asked, 'Am I right, Captain?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' Brunetti said and smiled as though

Marvilli had confirmed in advance whatever theory he was about to propose. 'Then the Pedrollis are among hundreds of people with similar problems.' He smiled again at Marvilli, as though trying to encourage enthusiasm in a favourite pupil. 'So how is it, I wonder, that the Carabinieri decided that Dottor Pedrolli - out of all the people who went for a consultation at this clinic - also adopted a child illegally? That is, if this middle man has not been arrested.'

Marvilli hesitated too long before answering, 'I wasn't told.'

After another pause, the Captain added, 'I think that's something you should discuss with Dottor Pedrolli.'

A more brutal man than Brunetti, or a more unforgiving one, would have reminded Marvilli that Pedrolli was incapable of discussion in his current state. Instead, he surprised Marvilli by saying, ‘I shouldn't have asked you that.' Deciding to change the subject, Brunetti continued, 'And the children? What'll happen to them?'

The same thing as to all of them’ Marvilli said.

'Which is?' Brunetti asked. 'They'll be sent to an orphanage.'

6

Brunetti gave no sign of the effect Marvilli's words had had on him and resisted the desire to exchange glances with Vianello. He hoped the Inspector would follow his example and say nothing that would lessen, or spoil, the easy communication they seemed to have established with the Captain.

'And then what?' Brunetti asked professionally. 'What happens to the children?'

Marvilli could not disguise his confusion. 'I told you, Commissario. We see that they're taken to an orphanage, and then it’s the duty of the social services and the Children's Court to see that they're taken care of.'

Brunetti chose to let this lie and continued, 'I see. So in each case, you ...' Brunetti tried to think what word he was supposed to use here. Repossessed? Confiscated? Stole? -'got the baby and handed it over to social services.'

'That was our responsibility’ agreed Marvilli simply.

Brunetti asked, 'And Pedrolli? What will happen to him?'

Marvilli considered before answering, 'That will depend on the examining magistrate, I suppose. If Pedrolli decides to cooperate, then the charges will be minor.'

'Cooperate how?' Brunetti asked. From Marvilli's silence, Brunetti realized that he had asked the wrong question, but before he could ask another, Marvilli shot back his cuff and looked at his watch. 'I think I have to get back to headquarters, Signori.' He moved sideways and out of the booth. When he was standing, he asked, 'Will you let me pay for this?'

Thanks, Captain, but no,' Brunetti answered with a smile. 'I'd like to be able to save two lives in one day.'

Marvilli laughed. He offered his hand to Brunetti and then, with a polite, 'Goodbye, Inspector’ leaned across the table and shook Vianello's hand as well.

If Brunetti expected him to make some remark about keeping the local police informed, perhaps to ask them to share with the Carabinieri any information they might obtain, he was disappointed. The Captain thanked Brunetti again for the coffee, turned and left the bar.

Brunetti looked at the plates and discarded napkins. 'If I have another coffee, I'll be able to fly back to the Questura.'

'Same here,' muttered Vianello, then asked, 'Where do we start?'

'With Pedrolli, I think, and then perhaps we should find this clinic in Verona,' Brunetti answered. 'And I'd like very much to know how the Carabinieri found out about Pedrolli.'

Vianello gestured towards the place where Marvilli had been sitting. 'Yes, he was very coy about that, wasn't he?'

Neither proposed a solution, and finally, after a contemplative silence, Vianello said, 'The wife's probably at the hospital. You want to go and talk to her?'

Brunetti nodded. He got to his feet and went over to the bar.

'Ten Euros, Commissario,' said Sergio.

Brunetti placed the bill on the counter then half turned to the door, where Vianello was already waiting for him. Over his shoulder, Brunetti asked, 'Bambola?'

Sergio smiled. ‘I saw his real name on his work permit, and there was no way I was going to be able to pronounce it. So he suggested I call him Bambola, since it's as close as anyone can get to his real name in Italian.'

'Work permit?' Brunetti asked.

'At that pasticceria in Barbaria delle Tolle,' Sergio said, pronouncing the name of the calle in Veneziano, something Brunetti had never heard a foreigner succeed in doing. 'He actually has one.'

Vianello and Brunetti left the bar, heading back to the Questura. It was not yet seven, so they went to the squad room, where there was an ancient black and white television on which they could watch the early morning news. They sat through the interminable political reports, as ministers and politicians were filmed speaking into microphones while a voiceover explained what they had supposedly said. Then a car bomb. Government denials that inflation was rising. Three new saints.

Gradually, other officers drifted in and joined them. The programme moved on to a badly focused film of a blue Carabinieri sedan pulling up at the Questura in Brescia. A man with his face buried in his handcuffed hands emerged from the car. The voiceover explained that the Carabinieri had effected night-time raids in Brescia, Verona, and Venice to close up a ring of baby-traffickers. Five people had been arrested and three babies consigned to the care of the state.

‘Poor things,' Vianello muttered, and it was clear that he was speaking about the children.

'But what else to do with them?' Brunetti responded.

Alvise, who had come in unnoticed and now stood near them, interrupted loudly, as though speaking to the television but in reality addressing Brunetti, 'What else? Leave them with their parents, for the love of God’

'Their parents didn't want them’ Brunetti observed drily. 'That's why all this is happening.'

Alvise threw his right hand into the air. ‘I don't mean the people they were born to: I mean their parents, the people who raised them, who had them for -' he raised his voice further -'some of them had them for eighteen months. That's a year and a half. They re walking by then, talking. You can't just go in and take them away and put them in an orphanage. Porco Giuda, these are children, not shipments of cocaine we can sequester and put in a closet’ Alvise slammed his hand down on a table and gave his superior a red-faced look. 'What sort of country is this, anyway, where something like this can happen?'

Brunetti could only agree. Alvise's question was perfectly fair. What sort of country, indeed?

The screen was filled with soccer players, either on strike or being arrested, Brunetti could not tell and did not care, so he turned away from the television and left the room, followed by Vianello.

As they climbed the stairs, the Inspector said, 'He's right, you know. Alvise.'

Brunetti did not answer, so Vianello added, 'It might be the first time in recorded history that he has been right, but he's right.'

Brunetti waited at the top of the stairs, and when Vianello reached him, said, 'The law is a heartless beast, Lorenzo.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It means,' Brunetti said, stopping just inside the door to his office, 'that if these people are allowed to keep the babies, it establishes a precedent: people can buy babies or get them any way they want and from anywhere they want, and for any purpose they want, and it's completely legal for them to do so.'

'What other purpose could there be than to raise them and love them?' asked an outraged Vianello.

From the first time he had heard them, Brunetti had decided to treat all rumours of the buying of babies and children for use as involuntary organ donors as an urban myth. But, over the years, the rumours had grown in frequency and moved geographically from the Third World to the First, and now, though he still refused to believe them, hearing them unsettled him. Logic suggested that an operation as complicated as a transplant required a number of people and a controlled and well-staffed medical environment where at least one of the patients could recover. The chances that this could happen and that all of those involved would keep quiet were odds Brunetti was not willing to give. This, at least, surely held true in Italy. Beyond its borders, Brunetti no longer dared to speculate.

He still remembered reading - it must have been more than a decade ago - the agonized, and agonizing, letter in La Repubblica, from a woman who admitted that she had broken what she knew to be the law and taken her twelve-year-old daughter to India for a kidney transplant. The letter recounted the diagnosis, the assigning of her daughter's name to a ranking so low on the health service waiting list for transplants as to amount to a sentence of death.

The woman wrote that she was fully aware that some person, some other child, perhaps, would be constrained by poverty to sell a piece of their living flesh. She knew, further, that the donor's health would afterwards be permanently compromised, regardless of what they were paid and regardless of what they did with the money. But when she measured her daughter's life against the increased risk for some stranger, she had opted to accept that guilt. So she had taken her daughter to India with one badly functioning kidney and had brought her back to Italy with a healthy one.

One of the things Brunetti had always secretly admired about some of the ancients - and he had to admit that it was one of the reasons he read them so relentlessly - was the apparent ease with which they made ethical decisions. Right and wrong; white and black. Ah, what easy times they seemed.

But along came science to stick a rod between the spinning wheels of ethical decision while the rules tried to catch up with science and technology. Conception could be achieved any which way, the dead were no longer entirely dead, the living not necessarily fully alive, and maybe there did exist a place where hearts and livers were for sale.

He wanted to express this in his answer to Vianello, but could find no way to compress or phrase it so that it made any sense. Instead, he turned to Vianello and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I don't have any big answers, only small ideas’

'What does that mean?'

'It means,' he said, though the idea came to him only as he spoke, 'that because we didn't arrest him, maybe we can try to protect him’

‘I’m not sure I understand,' said Vianello.

'I'm not sure I do, either, Lorenzo, but I think he's a man who might need protection.'

‘From Marvilli?'

'No, not from him. But from the sort of men Marvilli works for.'

Vianello sat down in one of the chairs in Brunetti's office. 'Have you dealt with them before?' he asked.

Brunetti, still feeling the buzz of the caffeine and sugar and too restless to sit, leaned against his desk. 'No, not with the men in Verona. I suppose I meant the type’

'Men who'd give the babies to an orphanage?' Vianello asked, unable to evade the hold that thought had taken on him.

'Yes,' Brunetti agreed, 'I suppose you could refer to them that way.'

Vianello acknowledged this concept with a shake of his head. 'How can we protect him?'

'The first way would be to find out if he has a lawyer and, if so, who that is’ Brunetti answered.

With a wry smile, Vianello said, 'Sounds like you want to stack the deck against us.'

'If they're going to charge him with the list Marvilli gave us, then he needs a good one.'

'Donatini?' Vianello suggested, pronouncing the name as though it were a dirty word.

Brunetti raised his hands in feigned horror. 'No, I'd draw the line short of that. He'll need someone as good as Donatini, but honest.'

More because it was expected of him than because he fully meant it, Vianello repeated, 'Honest? A lawyer?'

'There are some, you know’ Brunetti said. 'There's Rosato, though I don't know how much criminal work she does. And Barasciutti, and Leonardi...' His voice wound down and stopped.

Without feeling it necessary to mention that they had been working among criminal lawyers for close to half a century between them and had come up with the names of only three honest ones, Vianello said, 'Instead of honest, we could settle for effective.' They chose to overlook the fact that this would place Donatini's name back at the top of the list.

Brunetti glanced at his watch. 'When I see his wife, I'll ask her if she knows one.' He pushed himself away from his desk, walked around behind it and sat down.

He noticed some papers that had not been there when he left the previous day but barely glanced at them. "There's one thing we have to find out’ he said.

'Who authorized it?' Vianello asked.

'Exactly. There's no way a squad of Carabinieri would come into the city and break into a home without having permission from a judge and without having informed us.'

'Patta?' Vianello asked. 'Could he have known?'

The Vice-Questore's name had been the first to come to Brunetti's mind, but the more he considered this, the less likely it seemed. 'Possibly. But then we would have heard.' He did not mention that the inevitable source of that information would not have been the Vice-Questore himself but his secretary, Signorina Elettra.

'Then who?' Vianello asked.

After some time, Brunetti said, 'It could have been Scarpa.'

'But he belongs to Patta,' Vianello said, making no attempt to disguise his distaste for the Lieutenant.

'He's mishandled a few things recently. He could have taken it straight to the Questore as a way of trying to bolster his position’

'But when Patta hears about it?' Vianello asked. 'He's not going to like having been hopped over by Scarpa.' . It was not the first time that Brunetti had considered the symbiosis between those two gentlemen from the South, Vice-Questore Patta and his watchdog. Lieutenant Scarpa. He had always assumed that Scarpa's sights were set on the Vice-Questore's patronage. Could it be, however, that the Lieutenant saw his liaison with Patta as nothing more than a flirtation, a stepping stone on the way to the realization of a higher ambition and that his real target was the Questore himself?

Over the years, Brunetti had learned that he underestimated Scarpa to his cost, so perhaps it was best to admit this possibility and bear it in mind in his future dealings with the Lieutenant. Patta might be a fool and much given to indolence and personal vanity, but Brunetti had seen no evidence that he was corrupt in anything beyond the trivial nor that he was in the hands of the Mafia.

He glanced away from Vianello to follow this train of thought. Have we arrived, then, he wondered, at the point where the absence of a vice equals the presence of its opposite? Have we all gone mad?

Vianello, accustomed to Brunetti's habits, waited until his superior's attention returned and asked, 'Shall we ask her to find out?'

‘I think she'd enjoy that,' Brunetti answered immediately, though he suspected he should not give even this much encouragement to Signorina Elettra's habit of undermining the system of police security.

'Do you remember that woman who came in about six months ago, the one who told us about the pregnant girl?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello nodded and asked, 'Why?'

Brunetti cast his mind back to the woman he had interviewed. Short, older than sixty, with much-permed blonde hair, and very worried that her husband would somehow become aware that she had been to see the police. But someone had told her to come. A daughter or a daughter-in-law, he remembered, was mixed up in it somehow.

'I'd like you to check if there was a transcript made of the interview. I don't remember whether I asked for one, and I don't remember her name. It was in the spring some time, wasn't it?'

‘I think so’ Vianello answered. 'I'll see if I can track it down’

It might not have anything to do with this, but I'd Uke to read what she said, maybe talk to her again’

If there is a transcript, I'll find it,' Vianello said.

Brunetti looked at his watch. 'I'm going over to the hospital to see what his wife will tell me,' he said to Vianello. 'And do ask Signorina Elettra if she can find out who was informed about the Carabinieri... operation’ He wanted to use a stronger word - attack, raid - but he restrained himself.

‘I’ll speak to her when she comes in this afternoon,' said the Inspector.

'Afternoon?' asked a puzzled Brunetti.

It's Tuesday,' Vianello said by way of explanation, as if to say, 'Food stores close on

Wednesday afternoon, fish restaurants don't open on Monday, and Signorina Elettra doesn't work on Tuesday mornings’ 'Ah, yes, of course’

7

She was strong. Had Brunetti been asked to explain why this word came to him when he first saw Pedrolli's wife, he would have been hard-pressed to answer, but the word came to his mind when he saw her and remained with him for as long as he dealt with her. She stood at the side of her husband's bed and gave Brunetti a startled look when he came in, even though he had knocked. Perhaps she expected someone else, someone in a white doctor's coat.

She was beautiful: that was the second thing that struck Brunetti: tall and slender with a mane of dark brown curls. She had high cheekbones and light eyes that might have been green or might have been grey, and a long, thin nose that tipped up at the end. Her mouth was large, disproportionately so below her nose, but the full lips seemed somehow to suit her face perfectly. Though she must have been in her early forties, her face was still unwrinkled, the skin taut. She looked at least a decade younger than the man in the bed, though the circumstances prevented that from being a fair comparison.

When she registered that Brunetti was not whoever she was expecting, she turned back to her husband, who appeared to be asleep. Brunetti could see Pedrolli's forehead and nose and chin, and the long shape of his body under the blanket.

She kept her eyes on her husband, and Brunetti kept his on her. She was wearing a dark green woollen skirt and a beige sweater. Brown shoes, expensive shoes, made for standing, and not for walking.

'Signora?' said Brunetti, remaining by the door.

'Yes?' she said, glancing at him quickly but then turning back to her husband.

'I'm from the police,' he said.

Her rage was instantaneous and caught him off guard. Her voice took on a threatening sibilance that sounded one remove from physical violence. 'You do this to us, and you dare to come into this room? You beat him unconscious and leave him lying there, speechless, and you come in here and you dare to talk to me?'

Fists clenched, she took two steps towards Brunetti, who could not stop himself from raising his hands, palms outward, in a gesture more suited to warding off evil spirits than the threat of physical violence. I had nothing to do with what happened last night, Signora. I'm here to investigate the attack on your husband’

'liar’ she spat, but she came no nearer.

'Signora’ Brunetti said, intentionally keeping his voice low, I was called at home at two o'clock this morning and came down here because the Questura had received a report that a man had been attacked and taken to the hospital’ It was an elaboration - one might even have called it a lie - but the essence was true. 'If you wish, you can ask the doctors or the nurses if this is so’

He paused and watched her consider. 'What's your name?' she demanded.

'Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police. The operation in which your husband was injured .. ‘ He watched her begin to object, but he continued '... was a Carabinieri operation, not ours. To the best of my knowledge, we were not informed of it in advance’ Perhaps he should not have told her this, but he did so in an attempt to deflect her wrath and induce her to speak to him.

The attempt failed, for she immediately returned to the attack, though no matter how forceful her words, her voice never grew louder than a whisper. 'You mean these gorillas are free to come into the city whenever they want and break into our homes and kidnap our children and leave a man lying there like that?' She turned and pointed to her husband, and the gesture, as well as the words, struck Brunetti as intentionally dramatic. However sympathetic he might be towards Pedrolli and his wife, Brunetti did not allow himself to forget, as she seemed capable of doing, that they were accused of illegally adopting a child and that her husband was under arrest

'Signora, I don't want to disturb your husband.' She seemed to soften, so he continued. 'If I can find a nurse who will stay in the room with him, will you come into the corridor and talk to me?'

'If you can find a nurse in this place, you're better than I. I haven't seen anyone since they brought me in here’ she said, still angry, but less so now. "They're quite happy just to leave him lying there.'

Good sense told Brunetti not to respond. He held up his hand in a calming gesture. The uniformed Carabiniere still sat in the corridor though he didn't so much as glance up when Brunetti left the room. At the end of the corridor, the day shift was just coming on duty, two women of middle years dressed in today's nursing uniform: jeans and sweaters worn under long white jackets. The taller of the two wore red shoes; the other had white hair.

He took his warrant card from his wallet and showed it to them. ‘I’m here for Dottor Pedrolli’ he said.

'What for?' the tall one demanded. 'Don't you think you've done enough?'

The older one put a restraining hand on her colleague's arm, as if she feared she and Brunetti were about to get into a fist-fight. She tugged at her colleague's arm, not gently, and said, 'Be careful, Gina,' then, to Brunetti, 'What is it you want?' Her tone, though milder, still seemed to accuse Brunetti of complicity in the blow that had put Dottor Pedrolli in the room halfway down the corridor.

Unwilling to relent, the one called Gina snorted, but at least she was listening to him, so Brunetti continued. I was here at three this morning to visit someone I thought was the victim of an attack. My men were not involved in it.'

The older one at least seemed willing to believe him, and that appeared to lessen the tension. 'Do you know him?' he asked, directing the question only at her.

She nodded. ‘I used to work in paediatrics, until about two years ago, and there was no one better. Believe me, he's the best. Sometimes I'd think he was the only one who really cared about the kids: he was certainly the only one who ever acted like it was important to listen to them and talk to them. He spent most of his time here; he'd come in for almost anything. We all knew he was the one to call if anything happened during the night. He never made you feel you shouldn't have called him.'

Brunetti smiled at this description and turned to her colleague. 'Do you know him, too, nurse?'

She shook her head. The older woman gave her arm a squeeze and said, 'Come on, Gina. You know you do,' and released her hold.

Gina spoke to her friend. 'I never worked with him, Sandra. But, yes,' she said, and now she turned her attention to Brunetti. 'I've seen him around sometimes, in the bar or in the corridors, but I don't think we've ever spoken - well, not more than to say good morning or something like that.' At Brunetti's nod, she continued. 'But I've heard about him: I suppose everyone does, sooner or later. He's a good man.'

'And a good doctor,' Sandra added. Neither Brunetti nor Gina seemed willing to speak, and so she changed the subject. 'I read the chart. They don't know what it is. Damasco wants to take more X-rays and do a CAT scan later this morning: that's what he wrote before he went home.'

Brunetti knew he would be able to get the medical information later, so he turned to Gina. 'Do you know his wife?'

The question surprised her, and she grew suddenly formal. 'No. That is, I never met her. But I've spoken to her on the phone a few times.' She glanced at the door to Pedrolli's room. 'She's in there with him, isn't she?'

'Yes,' Brunetti answered. 'And I'd like one of you to stay with him while I talk to her out here, if that's possible.'

The two women exchanged a glance and Sandra said, ‘I’ll do it.'

'All right,' said Gina, leaving Brunetti with her colleague.

He led the way to the door, knocked, and entered. Pedrolli's wife was where he had left her, by the bed, looking at her husband.

She glanced in their direction and, seeing the nurse's white jacket, asked her, 'Do you know when a doctor will come to see him?' Though the words were neutral enough, her tone suggested that she feared there might be days to wait, or longer.

'Rounds begin at ten, Signora,' the nurse answered dispassionately.

Pedrolli's wife looked at her watch, drew her lips together, and addressed Brunetti. 'There's plenty of time for us to talk, then.' She touched the back of her husband's right hand and turned away from the bed.

Brunetti stepped back to allow her to precede him, then pulled the door shut. She glanced at the Carabiniere and back at Brunetti with a look that suggested he was responsible for the other man's presence, but said nothing. The corridor ended at a large window that looked down on a courtyard and a scrawny pine tree leaning so sharply to one side that it appeared to grow horizontally, some branches touching the ground.

Reaching the window, he said, 'My name is Guido Brunetti, Signora.' He did not offer his hand.

'Bianca Marcolini,' she said, half turned away from him and gazing through the window at the tree.

As if he had not recognized the surname.

Brunetti said, I'd like to speak to you about last night, Signora, if I may’

‘I’m not sure there's much to say, Commissario. Two masked men broke into our home along with another man. They were armed. They beat my husband insensible and left him like that,' she said, pointing angrily back towards his room. Then she added, her voice rough, 'And they took our child’

Brunetti had no idea whether she was trying to provoke him by continuing to act as though he had been responsible, but he simply asked, 'Would you tell me what you remember of what happened, Signora?'

'I just told you what happened,' she said. 'Weren't you listening, Commissario?'

'Yes,' he agreed. 'You did tell me. But I need a clearer picture, Signora. I need to know what was said, and whether the men who came into your house announced themselves as Carabinieri and whether they attacked your husband without provocation.' Brunetti wondered why the Carabinieri had worn masks: usually they did that only when there was some danger that they would be photographed and thus identified. In the case of the arrest of a paediatrician, that hardly seemed the case.

'Of course they didn't tell us who they were,' she said, raising her voice. 'Do you think my husband would have tried to fight them if they had?' He watched as she cast her thoughts back to the scene in her bedroom. 'He told me to call the police, for God's sake’

Making no attempt to correct her for confusing the Carabinieri with the police, Brunetti asked, 'Did he, or you, have any reason to expect them to come, Signora?'

‘I don't know what you mean,' she said angrily, perhaps trying to deflect the question with her tone.

'Let me try to make my question clearer, then, if I might. Is there any reason why you, or your husband, thought the police or the Carabinieri might be interested in you or might approach you?' Even as he said it, Brunetti knew he had chosen the wrong word, one that was sure to inflame her.

He was not wrong. '"Approach" us,' she gasped, driven beyond her powers of restraint. She took a step away from the window and raised her hand. She shot a finger out at him and said, her voice tight with rage she could no longer contain, 'Might approach us. That was no approach, Signore: it was an attack, an assault, a raid.' She stopped, and Brunetti saw that the flesh around her mouth stood out white in the sudden redness of her face. She took a step towards him but then faltered. She braced a hand against the windowsill, locking her elbow to keep herself from falling.

Brunetti, was immediately beside her, supporting her until she half leaned, half sat on the windowsill. He kept his hold on her arm. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, hands propped on her knees, head hanging limply.

Halfway down the corridor, Sandra put her head out of the door to Pedrolli's room, but Brunetti raised a calming hand and she moved back inside. The woman beside him took a number of deep, rasping breaths, her head still lowered.

A man in a white lab coat came into view at the end of the corridor, but his attention was on a sheet of paper in his hand: he ignored, or didn't see, Brunetti and the woman. He disappeared into one of the rooms without knocking.

Time passed, until finally Signora Marcolini pushed herself up and stood, but did not open her eyes. Brunetti released her arm.

'Thank you,' she said, still breathing heavily. Eyes still closed, she said, 'It was terrible. The noise woke me up. Men shouting, and when I looked, I saw a man hit Gustavo with something, and then he was on the ground, and then Alfredo started to scream, and I thought they were there to hurt us.'

She opened her eyes and looked at Brunetti. 'I think we must have been a little crazy. From the fear.'

‘Fear of what, Signora?' Brunetti asked softly, hoping his question would not propel her into rage again.

That they'd arrest us,' she said.

'Because of the baby?'

She lowered her head, but he heard her answer, 'Yes.'

8

'Would you like to tell me about it, Signora?' Brunetti asked. He glanced along the corridor and saw the man in the white lab coat leave the room on the left and head back towards the double glass doors at the end of the corridor. The man went through the doors, turned, and disappeared.

Experience told Brunetti to remain as still as he could until his presence became an almost imperceptible part of the woman's surroundings. A minute passed, and then another. Intensely aware of the woman beside him, he continued to gaze off down the corridor.

Finally she said, in a softer voice, 'We couldn't have children. And we couldn't adopt.' Another pause, and then she added, 'Or, if we

could have, by the time our papers were processed and we were approved, the only children we could have would be ... well, would be older. But we wanted’ she said, and Brunetti prepared himself to hear what she would say,

.. a baby’ She spoke calmly, as though entirely unconscious of the pathos of what she had said, and Brunetti found an even greater pathos in that.

He still did not look at her; he permitted himself to nod in acknowledgement, but still he said nothing.

'My sister isn't married, but Gustavo's sister has three children,' she said. 'And his brother has two.' She glanced at him as if to register his response to this evidence of their failure, and went on. 'Then someone here at the hospital -I think it was one of his colleagues, or one of his patients - well, someone told Gustavo about a private clinic’ He waited for her to continue, and she added. 'We went and we had tests, and there were ... there were problems.' The fact that Brunetti knew about the nature of the visit embarrassed him as much as if he had been caught reading someone else's mail.

Idly, she rubbed the toe of her shoe against a long scratch in the floor tiles that had been left by a cart or some heavy object. Still looking down, she added, 'We both had problems. If it had been just one of us, it might have been possible. But with both of us.. ‘ Brunetti let the pause stretch out until she added, 'He saw the results. He didn't want to tell me, but I made him.'

Brunetti's profession had made him a master of pauses: he could distinguish them the way a concert-master could distinguish the tones of the various strings. There was the absolute, almost belligerent pause, after which nothing would come unless in response to questions or threats. There was the attentive pause, after which the speaker measured the effect on the listener of what had just been said. And there was the exhausted pause, after which the speaker needed to be left undisturbed until emotional control returned.

Judging that he was listening to the third, Brunetti remained silent, certain that she would eventually continue. A sound came down the corridor: a moan or the cry of a sleeping person. When it stopped, the silence seemed to expand to fill its place.

Brunetti glanced at her then and nodded, a gesture that could be read as agreement or as encouragement to continue. She apparently took it as both and went on, 'After we had the results, we had no choice but to resign ourselves. To not having a baby. But then Gustavo - it must have been a few months after we went to the clinic - he said that he was examining the possibility of private adoption.'

It sounded to Brunetti as if she were repeating a statement she had prepared in advance. ‘I see, he said neutrally. 'What sort of possibility?'

She shook her head and said, her voice barely above a whisper, 'He didn't say.'

Though Brunetti doubted this, he gave no indication and merely asked, 'Did he mention the clinic?'

She gave him a puzzled glance, and Brunetti explained. The clinic where you had the tests.'

She shook her head. 'No, he never mentioned the clinic, only that there was a possibility that we could have a baby.'

'Signora,' Brunetti said, 'I can't force you to tell me these things.' In a certain sense this was true, but sooner or later someone would have the authority to force her to do so.

She must have realized this, for she continued, 'He didn't say from where, said he didn't want me to get my hopes up, but that it was something he thought he could arrange. I assumed it was because of his work or because of people he knew.' She looked through the window, then at Brunetti. 'If I have to tell the truth, I suppose I didn't want to know. He said that everything would be in regola and that it would be legal. He said he had to claim that the child was his, but it wouldn't be: he told me that.'

Had he been questioning a suspect, Brunetti would have asked, voice pumped full of scepticism, 'And you believed him?' Instead, in the voice of concerned friendship, he asked, 'But he didn't tell you how this would happen, Signora?' He allowed three beats to pass and added, 'Or did you think to ask him?'

She shook the question away. 'No. I think I didn't want to know. I just wanted it to happen. I wanted a baby.'

Brunetti gave her a moment to recover from what she had said, then asked, 'Did he tell you anything about the woman?'

'Woman?' she asked, genuinely confused.

'Whose baby it was.'

She hesitated but then tightened her lips. 'No. Nothing.' Brunetti had the strange sensation that she had aged during this conversation, that the lines formerly confined to her neck had migrated up to the sides of her mouth and eyes.

'I see,' Brunetti said. 'And you never learned any more?' Surely, thought Brunetti, the man must have told her something; she must have wanted to know.

He saw that her eyes in fact were light grey and not green. 'No,' she said, lowering her head. 'I never discussed it with Gustavo: I didn't want to. He thought - Gustavo, that is - well, I suppose he thought it would upset me to know. He told me he wanted me to think from the very beginning that the baby was ours, and...' She stopped herself, and Brunetti had the feeling that she had forced herself not to add some vital final phrase.

'Of course,' Brunetti muttered when he realized she was not going to end the sentence. He had no idea how much more he could induce her to tell him, and he did not want to continue to question her if, by displaying curiosity rather than concern, he weakened the confidence she appeared to have developed in him.

Sandra opened the door to the room down the corridor and gestured to Signora Marcolini.

'Your husband's very agitated, Signora. Perhaps you could come and speak to him.' Her concern was evident, and Pedrolli's wife responded to it instantly by joining her at the door, then closing it after them.

Assuming that she would be some time in the room with her husband, Brunetti decided to try to find Dottor Damasco and ask if there had been any change in Pedrolli's condition. He knew the way to neurologia, and when he got there he started down the corridor toward where he knew the doctors had their offices.

He found the door, but when he knocked, a male nurse who was passing told him that the doctor was just finishing his rounds and usually came back to his office after that. When he added that this should be within the next ten minutes or so, Brunetti said he would wait. When the nurse was gone, he sat in one of the now-familiar, and familiarly uncomfortable, orange chairs. Without anything to read, Brunetti leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, the better to consider what he might ask Dottor Damasco.

'Signore? Signore?' was the next thing he heard. He opened his eyes and saw the male nurse. 'Are you all right, Signore?' the young man asked.

'Yes, yes,' Brunetti said, pushing himself to his feet. It all came back, and he asked, 'Is the doctor free now?'

The nurse gave a nervous smile. 'I'm sorry, Signore, but he's gone. He went home as soon as he finished his rounds. I didn't know he'd gone, and when someone mentioned it, I came down here to tell you. I'm sorry,' he repeated, sounding as if he were responsible for Dottor Damasco's disappearance.

Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that more than half an hour had passed. 'It's all right,' he said, suddenly aware of just how tired he was. He wished that, like Dottor Damasco, he could just finish his rounds and go home.

Instead, making a pretence of being fully awake, he thanked the young man and started back towards the reception desk. Passing the nurses' station, he approached the glass doors that led to the ward. He was stunned to see, halfway down the corridor, a few paces from the closed door of Pedrolli's room, the unmistakable back of his superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta. Brunetti recognized the broad shoulders in the cashmere overcoat and the thick head of silver hair. What he did not recognize was the attentive, posture of the Vice-Questore, who was leaning towards a man, all of whom save an outline was blocked from view by Patta's body. Patta raised his right hand and patted at the air between them in a conciliatory manner, then lowered if to his side and moved back a step as if to allow more room for the man's response.

Beta dog deferring to alpha dog, was Brunetti's instant thought, and he retreated until he was partly hidden behind the chest-high counter of the nurses' station. Should Patta start to turn towards him, he would have time to back away and out of sight while he decided if he wanted his superior to discover him; he could take a few steps down the corridor, turn, then give vent to the very real surprise he felt at seeing his superior here at this hour.

The other man, most of his considerable bulk still obscured by Patta's body, raised both hands in what could be exasperation or surprise, then jabbed an angry finger repeatedly towards the closed door of Pedrolli's room. In response, Patta's head shook from side to side, then nodded up and down, much in the manner of a toy dog in the back of a car that had just hit a rough patch.

Suddenly the other man wheeled away from Patta and started down the corridor away from him. All Brunetti saw before he ducked behind the counter was the man's back: neck almost as thick as his head, short buzz-cut white hair, a body almost as wide as it was tall. When Brunetti looked again, he saw that Patta had made no motion to follow the man. As Brunetti watched, the man reached the doors at the end of the corridor and shoved them open, slamming the right one back against the wall with a crack that reverberated down the corridor.

Brunetti's impulse was to approach Patta and feign surprise, but good sense propelled him backwards, down a corridor, then through another set of doors. He waited there a full five minutes, and when he returned to neurologia, there was no sign of Patta.

9

Brunetti went back to the corridor outside Pedrolli's room, waiting for Signora Marcolini to emerge so that he could slip back into his role of sympathetic listener. He reached into his jacket pocket for his telefbnino but discovered that he had left it at home. He did not want to miss Signora Marcolini when she emerged, but he did want to call Paola and tell her he would not be home for lunch and had no idea when he would be.

He sat in the plastic chair and stared into space, careful to keep his head forward and away from the temptation of the wall behind him. After less than a minute, he went to the end of the corridor and read the list of instructions for evacuation in case of fire, then the list of doctors working on the ward. Gina came through the door on the other side of the desk.

'Signora Gina, excuse me, but could I use the phone?'

She gave him a very small smile and said, 'Dial nine first.' He picked up the phone behind the nurses' desk and dialled his home number.

'Si?' he heard Paola answer.

'Still too tired to talk?' he couldn't resist asking.

'Of course not,' she answered. Then, 'Where are you?'

'At the hospital.' Trouble?'

'The Carabinieri over-reacted making an arrest, it seems, and the man is here. He's a doctor, so at least he's assured of good care.'

'The Carabinieri attacked a doctor?' she said, incapable of keeping the shock from her voice.

‘I didn't say they attacked him, Paola,' he said, though what she said was true enough. ‘I said they over-reacted.'

'And what does that mean, that they drove their boats too fast taking him to the hospital? Or made too much noise and disturbed the neighbours when they were kicking in his door?'

Though Brunetti tended to share Paola's scepticism about the overall competence of the Carabinieri, he did not, in his caffeine-and-sugar-induced state, want to have to listen to her voice it. 'It means he resisted arrest and broke the nose of one of the men who were sent to get him.'

She was on to him like a hawk. 'One of the men? How many were there?'

'Two’ Brunetti chose to lie, marvelling at how quickly he had been manoeuvred into defending the men who had assaulted Pedrolli.

'Armed men?' she asked.

Suddenly tired of this, Brunetti said, 'Paola, I'll tell you everything when I see you, all right?'

'Of course,' she answered. 'Do you know him?'

'No’ Having heard enough about the doctor to have formed a favourable opinion of him did not count as knowing him, Brunetti told himself.

'Why did they arrest him?' she asked.

'He adopted a baby a year and a half ago, and it seems now that he did it illegally’

'What happened to the baby?' Paola asked.

'They took him away,' Brunetti said in a neutral voice.

'Took him away?' Paola asked with all of her former belligerence. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'He was taken into care.'

'Into care as in given back to his real mother, or into care as in put in an orphanage?'

'The latter, I'm afraid,' Brunetti admitted.

There was a long pause, after which Paola said, as if to herself, 'A year and a half,' and then she added, 'God, what heartless bastards they are, eh?'

Betray the state by agreeing with her or betray humanity by demurring: Brunetti considered the options open to him and gave the only response he could. 'Yes’

'We'll talk about it when you get home, all right?' said a suddenly accommodating Paola.

'Yes,' Brunetti said and replaced the phone.

Brunetti was relieved he had not told Paola about the other people, the ones who had been kept under surveillance for almost two years. Alvise - even Brunetti himself - had focused on that number, that year and a half that a knowing authority had allowed the new parents to keep the child. That's when a man becomes a father, Brunetti knew, or at least he remembered that it was during that first year and a half that his own children had been soldered into his heart. Had either of them been taken from him, for any reason, after that time, he would have gone through life with some essential part of himself irreparably damaged. Before that conviction could fully take shape in his mind, Brunetti realized that, had either child been taken from him at any time after he first saw them, his suffering would have been no different than if he had had them for eighteen months, or eighteen years..

Back in his chair, he resumed his consideration of the wall and of the strange fact of Patta's presence, and after another twenty minutes, Signora Marcolini let herself out into the hallway and walked over to him. She looked far more tired than when she had gone back into the room.

'You're still here?' she said. ‘I’m sorry, but I've forgotten your name’

'Brunetti, Signora. Guido,' he said as he got to his feet. He smiled again but did not extend his hand. ‘I’ve spoken to the nurses here, and it seems your husband is very well regarded. I'm sure he'll be well taken care of’

He expected a sharp response, and she did not disappoint. 'That could begin by keeping the Carabinieri away from him’

'Of course. I'll see what I can do about arranging that,' Brunetti said, though he wondered if this would be possible. Changing the subject, he asked, 'Can your husband understand what you say, Signora?'

'Yes’

'Good’ Brunetti's grasp of the workings of the brain was rudimentary, but it seemed to him that, if the man could understand language, then there might be some likelihood of his being able to regain speech. Was there some way that Pedrolli's powers could be tested? Without language, what were we?

'... away from the media,' he heard her say.

‘I beg your pardon, Signora. I didn't hear that: I was thinking about your husband.'

'Is there any way that all of this can be kept out of the media?' she repeated.

Presumably, she meant the accusations of false adoption that would be brought against them, but Brunetti's mind flashed to the Carabinieri's brutal tactics: surely it was in the best interests of the state that those be kept from the press. But in the event that the arrests became public knowledge -and the memory of that morning's television news interrupted to tell him that they already had - then it was in the best interests of the Pedrollis that their treatment at the hands of the Carabinieri became so, too.

'If I were in your place, Signora, I'd wait to see how they choose to present this.'

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'You and your husband have erred out of love, it seems to me’ Brunetti began, aware that he was coaching a witness, even aiding a suspect. But so long as he confined himself to discussing the behaviour of the media, he saw nothing improper in anything he might say or any warning he might offer. 'So they might decide to treat you sympathetically.'

'Not if the Carabinieri talk to them first’ she said, displaying a remarkable clear-sightedness about the ways of the world. 'All they’ve got to do is mention the wounded officer, and they'll be all over us’

'Perhaps not, Signora, once they learn about your husband's treatment - and yours, of course.'

At times, Brunetti worried about the growing ferocity of his contempt for the media. All a criminal had to do, it seemed to him at times, was present himself as a victim, and the howl would be heard in Rome. Plant a bomb, rob a bank, cut a throat: it hardly, mattered. Once the media decided that the accused had been subjected to ill-treatment or injustice, of any sort and however long ago, then he or she was destined to become the subject of long articles, editorials, even interviews. And here he was, all but coaching a suspect to present herself in just this way.

Brunetti hauled himself from these ideas and returned his attention to Signora Marcolini.

.. back to my husband,' he heard her say.

'Of course. Would it be possible for me to speak to you again, Signora?' he asked, knowing that he had the authority to take her down to the Questura and keep her there for hours, should he choose to.

'I want to see a lawyer first,' she said, raising herself in Brunetti's estimation. Knowing the name of the family that was likely to surround and protect her, Brunetti had no doubt that her legal representation would be the best available.

Brunetti considered asking her about the man who had so clearly dominated Patta in the brief scene outside her husband's room, but thought it might be better to keep his knowledge of that to himself. 'Of course, Signora,' he said, taking one of his cards from his wallet and giving it to her. 'If there's any way in which I can help you, please call me.'

She took the card, slipped it into the pocket of her skirt without looking at it, and nodded before re-entering her husband's room.

Brunetti walked away from the ward and then from the hospital, heading back toward the Questura, musing on his last exchange with Signora Marcolini. Her concern for her husband seemed genuine, he told himself. His thoughts turned to Solomon and the story of the two women who claimed to be the mother of the same baby. The real mother, for love of her son, renounced all claim to him when faced with Solomon's decision to cut the baby in half so that each claimant could have a part, while the false claimant made no objection. The story had of course been told endlessly and had thus become one of the set pieces that had entered into the common memory.

Why, then, had Signora Marcolini displayed no curiosity about the fate of the baby?

10

As soon as Brunetti got back to the Questura, he decided to stop and see if Patta had returned, but when he went upstairs, he was surprised to find Signorina Elettra at work behind her desk. She looked, at first glance, like a rainforest scene: her silk shirt was wildly patterned with leaves and violently coloured birds; a pair of tiny monkey legs peeked out from under her collar. Her scarf was the red of a baboon's buttocks, contributing to the tropical effect.

'But it’s Tuesday,' Brunetti said when he saw her.

She smiled and raised her hands in a gesture acknowledging human weakness. I know, I know, but the Vice-Questore called me at home

and said he was in the hospital. I offered to come in because he didn't know how long he'd be.'

Then, in a voice in which Brunetti detected real concern, she asked, 'There's nothing wrong with him, is" there?'

Brunetti smiled. 'Ah, Signorina, you ask me a question that my sense of good taste and fair play prevent me from answering.'

'Of course,' she said, smiling herself. ‘I fear I must use that lovely expression that American politicians use when they're caught lying: "I misspoke.'" Though her pronunciation was excellent, the word sounded dreadful to Brunetti. ‘I meant to ask why he was in the hospital when he phoned me.'

‘I saw him there about an hour ago,' Brunetti supplied. 'He was outside the room of a man -a paediatrician named Pedrolli - who was hurt during a Carabinieri raid on his home.'

'Why would the Carabinieri want to arrest a paediatrician?' she asked, and he watched as various possibilities played across her face.

It would seem that he and his wife adopted a baby boy illegally. About a year and a half ago,' Brunetti explained and went on, 'The Carabinieri raided homes in a number of cities last night: one of them was his. They must have been informed about the baby.' As he said this, Brunetti realized that it was an inference drawn from what Marvilli

who had been singularly evasive on the subject

had said rather than a piece of information the Captain had given him.

'What happened to the baby?' she demanded.

I'm afraid they took him’

'What? Who took him?'

'The Carabinieri’ Brunetti answered. 'At least that's what the one I spoke to told me’

'Why would they do that?' Her voice had risen, demanding a response from Brunetti, as if he were responsible for the fate of the child. When Brunetti failed to answer, she insisted, 'Took him where?'

'To an orphanage,' was the only answer Brunetti could give. 'I suppose it's where they place a child until the real parents are found or the court decides what will happen to him’

'No, I'm not talking about that. How could they take away a child after more than a year?'

Brunetti again found himself attempting to justify what he thought unjustifiable. 'The doctor and his wife came by the child illegally, it seems. She as much as admitted that to me when I spoke to her. The Carabinieri are interested in finding the person who organized it - the sale, whatever it was. The captain I spoke to said they're looking for a middle man who's involved in some of the cases.' He did not tell her that Marvilli had not in fact mentioned this middle man in connection with the Pedrollis.

Signorina Elettra put her elbows on her desk and lowered her head into her outspread palms, effectively hiding her face. 'I've heard people tell Carabinieri jokes all my life, but it would never occur to me that they could be this stupid,' she said.

They're not stupid’ Brunetti asserted quickly but with little conviction.

She opened her hands and looked at him. Then they're heartless, and that's worse.' She took a deep breath and Brunetti thought that she was summoning up a more professional manner. After a moment, she asked, 'So what do we do?'

'Pedrolli and his wife apparently went to a clinic -I assume it's a private clinic - in Verona. A fertility clinic, or at least one that works with problems of fertility. I'd like you to see if you can find one in Verona that specializes in fertility problems. Two of the other couples who adopted illegally were patients there.'

She said, calmer now that she had a task to focus on, 'I suppose it shouldn't be difficult to find. After all, how many fertility clinics can there be in Verona?' He left her to it and went upstairs.

It was more than an hour later when she came to his office. He saw that she wore a green skirt that fell to mid-calf. Below it were a pair of boots that put Marvilli's to shame.

'Yes, Signorina?' he asked when he had finished examining the boots.

'Who would have believed it, sir?' she asked, apparently having forgiven him for his attempt to defend the Carabinieri.

'Believed what?'

That there are three fertility clinics, or private clinics with specialist departments for fertility problems, in or near Verona?'

'And the public hospital?'

‘I checked. They handle them through the obstetrical unit’

'So that makes four’ Brunetti observed. 'In Verona.'

'Extraordinary, isn't it?'

He nodded. A broad reader, Brunetti had been aware for years of the sharp decline in sperm counts among European men, and he had also followed with distress the publicity campaign that had helped defeat a referendum that would have aided fertility research. The positions many politicians had taken - former Fascists in favour of artificial msemination; former Communists following the lead of the Church - had left Brunetti battered both in spirit and in mind.

If you're sure they went to a clinic there, then all I'll have to do is find their medical service numbers: they'd have to give them, even for a private clinic’

When Signorina Elettra had first arrived at the Questura, such a statement would have impelled Brunetti into an impromptu lecture on a citizen's right to privacy, in this case the sacred privacy that must exist between a doctor and his patient, followed by a few words about the inviolability of access to a person's medical history. 'Yes,' he answered simply.

He saw that she wanted to add something and raised his chin questioningly.

'It would probably be easier to check their phone records and see what numbers they called in Verona,' she suggested. Brunetti no longer enquired as to how she would go about obtaining those.

He watched as she wrote down Pedrolli's name, then she looked at him and asked, 'Does his wife use his name or her own?'

'Her own. It’s Marcolini: first name Bianca.'

She glanced at him and made a small noise of either affirmation or surprise. 'Marcolini’ she repeated softly and then, 'I'll see what I can find out’ and left.

After she was gone, Brunetti thought about who might be able to provide him with the names of the other people the Carabinieri had arrested. Quicker, perhaps, to try the existing bureaucratic channels and simply ask the Carabinieri themselves.

He started by calling the central command at Riva degli Schiavoni and asking for Marvilli, only to learn that the Captain was out on duty and not available by telephone. Forty minutes later, Brunetti had spoken to Marvilli's commander as well as to those in Verona and Brescia, but each of them said he was not at liberty to divulge the names of the people who had been arrested. Even when Brunetti claimed that he was calling at the order of his superior, the Questore of Venice, no information was forthcoming. When he requested that the guard be removed from in front of Dottor Pedrolli's room, Brunetti was told that his request had been recorded.

Changing tactics, Brunetti dialled the office number of Elio Pelusso, a friend who worked as a journalist for Il Gazzettino. Within a few minutes, he had the names, professions, ages, and addresses of the people who had been arrested, as well as the name of the clinic in Verona where many of those arrested had sought treatment.

He took this information down to Signorina Elettra and repeated what Signora Marcolini had told him about their attempts to have a child. She nodded as she wrote this down, then said, 'There's a book about this, you know.'

'Excuse me?'

'A novel, by an English writer, I forget who. About when there are no more babies and what people will do to get them.'

'A rather anti-Malthusian idea, isn't it?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes. It's almost as if we're living in two worlds,' she said. 'There's the world where people have too many children, and they get sick and starve and die, and our world, where people want to have them and can't'

'And will do anything to get them?' he asked.

She tapped a finger on the papers in front of her and said, 'So it seems.'

Back in his office, Brunetti called his home number. When Paola answered with the laconic si that suggested he had taken her away from a particularly riveting passage of whatever it was she was reading, Brunetti said, 'Can I hire you as an Internet researcher?'

'That depends on the subject'

Treatments for infertility.'

There was a long pause, after which she said, 'Because of this case?' ‘Yes’

'Why me?'

'Because you know how to do research’

After an overly loud sigh, Paola said, ‘I could easily teach you how, you know’

'You've been telling me that for years,' Brunetti replied.

'As have Signorina Elettra and Vianello, and your own children.'

'Yes’

'Does it make any difference?' 'No, not really’

There unfolded yet another long silence, after which Paola said, 'AH right. I'll give you two hours of my time and print out whatever seems interesting’

'Thank you, Paola’

'What do I get in return?'

‘Undying devotion’

‘I thought I had that already.'

'Undying devotion and ‘I’LL bring you coffee in bed for a week’

'You were called out of bed at two this morning,' she reminded him.

‘I’ll think of something,' he said, conscious of how lame that sounded.

'You better,' she said. 'All right, two hours, but I can't begin until tomorrow’

'Why?'

‘I have to finish this book.' 'What book?'

'The Ambassadors’ she answered. Haven't you read it already?' ‘Yes. Four times.'

A man less familiar with the ways of scholars, the ways of marriage, and the ways of wisdom might have raised some objection here. Brunetti caved in, said, 'All right,' and hung up.

As he put the phone down, Brunetti realized he could have asked Vianello, or Pucetti, or, for all he knew, any one of the other officers downstairs. He had grown up reading printed pages, at school had learned from printed pages, and he still had the habit of belief in the printed page. The few times he had allowed someone to try to teach him how to use the Internet to search for information, he had found himself flooded with ads for all manner of rubbish and had even stumbled onto a pornographic website. Since then, on the few occasions when he had placed his trembling feelers on the web, he had quickly drawn them back in confusion and defeat. He felt incapable of understanding the links by which things were connected.

That thought reverberated in his mind. Links. Specifically, what was the link between the Questura of Venice and the Carabinieri command in Verona, and how had permission been obtained to raid Dottor PedrolH's home?

Had any of the other commissari given permission for such a thing, surely he would have heard, but there had been no mention of such an order, either before or after the raid. Brunetti considered for a moment the possibility that the Carabinieri had mounted the raid without informing the Venice police and that the magistrate who had authorized the raid had told them it was acceptable not to do so. But he considered this only to dismiss it instantly: there had been too many well-publicized shoot-outs between different police powers operating in ignorance of each other's plans, and few judges would now risk another such incident.

He was left, then, with an obvious possibility: incompetence. How easily it could have happened: an email sent to the wrong address; a fax read and then lost or misfiled; a phone message not written down and passed on. The explanation which most easily accounts for all the facts is usually the correct one. Though he would be among the last to deny that deceit and double-dealing played their part in the normal business of the Questura, he knew that simple incompetence was far more common. He marvelled at himself for finding this explanation so comforting.

11

Brunetti waited until almost two for Signorina Elettra to bring him whatever she had discovered about the people arrested the previous . night: when she did not appear, he went to her. From behind the door to Patta's office, he heard the VIce-Questore's voice: the long pauses meant he was talking on the phone. There was no sign of Signorina Elettra, so Brunetti assumed she had decided to make up for her lost morning's freedom and would return to the office when she chose to.

It was by then too late to go home for lunch, and most of the restaurants in the area would no longer be serving, so Brunetti went down to the officers' squad room, looking for Vianello, to see if he wanted to goto the bar at the bridge and have a panino. Neither the Inspector nor Pucetti was there, only Alvise, who gave Brunetti his usual affable smile.

'You seen Vianello, Alvise?' Brunetti asked.

Brunetti observed the officer process the question: with Alvise, the process of thinking always had a visible component. First he considered the question, then he considered the person who had asked it and the consequences of the answer he might give. His eyes shot around the room, perhaps to check if it were still as empty as when Brunetti had come in, perhaps to see if he had somehow overlooked Vianello lying under one of the desks. Seeing that no one was there to help him answer, Alvise finally said, 'No, sir.' His nervousness provided Brunetti with the key: Vianello was out of the Questura for his own purposes but had told Alvise where he was going.

The bait was too strong for Brunetti to resist. 'I'm going down to the corner for a panino. Would you like to join me?'

Alvise grabbed a stack of papers from his desk and showed them to Brunetti. 'No, sir, I've got to read through these. But thank you. If s as if I had accepted.' He turned his attention to the first page and Brunetti left the room, amused but at tike same time feeling obscurely cheapened by his teasing.

Vianello was in the bar, reading the paper at the counter, when Brunetti arrived. A half-full glass of white wine stood in front of him.

Food first, then talk. Brunetti pointed to a few of the tramezzini and asked Sergio for a glass of Pinot Grigio, then went over to stand beside Vianello. 'Anything?' he asked, gesturing towards the paper.

His eyes on the headlines, which blared news of the latest infighting among the various political parties as they attempted to butt one another aside in their frenzy to keep their trotters in the trough, Vianello said, 'You know, I always used to think it was all right to buy this, so long as I didn't read it. As though buying it was a venial sin and reading it a mortal.' He looked at Brunetti, then again at the headlines. 'But now I think I might have got it the wrong way round and it's a mortal sin to buy because it encourages them to keep on printing it. And reading it's only a venial sin because it really doesn't make any impression on you.' Vianello raised his glass and drank the rest of his wine.

'You'll have to talk to Sergio about that,' Brunetti said, nodding his thanks to the approaching barman for his plate of tramezzini and glass of wine, more interested in quelling his hunger than in listening to Vianello's vilification of the press.

'Talk to me about what?' Sergio asked.

'About how good the wine is’ Vianello said. 'So good I better have another.'

Vianello set the paper aside. Brunetti took one of the tramezzini and bit into it. 'Too much mayonnaise’ he said, then finished the sandwich and drank half a glass of wine.

'The wife tell you anything?' Vianello asked after Sergio brought his wine.

Usual stuff. She left everything about the adoption to her husband and didn't want to know that it was illegal.' Brunetti's words were neutral, his tone sceptical. "The other people who were arrested were couples. So I guess they didn't get this middle man.'

'Any chance the Carabinieri will tell us what comes out of their questioning?' Vianello asked.

'They wouldn't even tell me the names of the people they arrested,' Brunetti answered. I had to go to Pelusso for that.'

'They're usually more cooperative.'

Brunetti was not convinced of this. He had often encountered individual Carabinieri who were, but the overall organization had never struck him as willing to share its information, or its successes, with other police agencies.

'What did you make of Zorro?' Vianello asked.

'Zorro?' asked Brunetti absently, his attention focused on his second tramezzino.

'The guy with the cowboy boots.'

'Ah,' Brunetti said and finished his wine. He signalled to Sergio for another, and as he waited he weighed his opinion of the young officer. 'He's young to have reached captain, so it's unlikely he has much experience in leading this sort of raid. His men got out of control, so there's going to be trouble: that means he's worried about his career. The victim was a doctor, after all.'

'Yes, And his wife's a Marcolini,' added Vianello.

'Yes. His wife's a Marcolini.' In the Veneto that could count for considerably more than her husband's profession.

'But what about the Captain?' Vianello asked.

'He's young, as I said, so he could go either way’

'Meaning?'

'Meaning he could turn out to be a good officer: he was a bit high-handed with his own man, but he was there with him in the hospital and he made sure he got a few days off,' Brunetti said. 'Eventually he might stop wearing the boots’

'Or?'

'Or he could turn into a complete bastard and cause everyone a lot of trouble’ Sergio set down the second glass of wine; Brunetti thanked him and began his third tramezzino: tuna with egg. 'What about you?' Brunetti asked.

Without a moment's hesitation, Vianello answered, 'I think he might be all right’

'Why?'

'Because he helped Sergio lift up the grating and because he said please to the black guy’

Brunetti sipped at his wine and considered this. 'Yes, he did, didn't he?' To Brunetti, it seemed as good an indication of character as any he could come up with. 'Let's hope you're right-^‘

It was well past three when they returned to the Questura; the rest of the day brought nothing new. Signorina Elettra neither returned nor called to explain her absence, at least not to Brunetti; none of the Carabinieri commands he had contacted called to volunteer information. He tried the station at Riva degli Schiavoni and asked for Marvilli, but he was still not there: Brunetti did not leave his name, nor did he bother to renew his request that the guard in the hospital be removed.

He dialled the number of the neurology ward a little before five and asked to speak to Signora Sandra. She recognized his name and said that Dottor Pedrolli, so far as she knew, had still not spoken, though he seemed aware of what was going on around him. Yes, his wife was still in the room with him. Sandra said she had followed her instincts and kept the Carabinieri from talking to Dottor Pedrolli, though one was now sitting in the corridor, apparently to prevent anyone except doctors and nurses from entering the room.

Brunetti thanked her and replaced the phone. So much for cooperation between the forces of order. Pissing contest, turf war, escalation: call it whatever he wanted, Brunetti knew what was coming. But he preferred not to think about it until the following day.

Brunetti usually disliked eating the same thing for lunch and dinner, but the tuna steaks Paola had simmered in a sauce of capers, olives, and tomatoes could hardly be said to have originated on the same planet as the tuna tramezzini he had eaten for lunch. Tact and good sense prevented his making any reference to the latter, since comparison even with such paltry opposition might offend. He and his son Raffi snared the last piece of fish, and Brunetti spooned the remainder of the sauce on to his own second helping of rice.

'Dessert?' Chiara asked her mother, and Brunetti realized that he had managed to save space for something sweet.

'There's fig ice-cream,' Paola said, filling Brunetti with a flush of anticipation.

'Fig?' Raffi asked.

'From that place over by San Giacomo dell'Orio,' Paola explained.

'He's the one who does all the weird flavours, isn't he?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes. But the fig's sensational. He said these are the last of the season.'

Sensational it was, and after the four of them had managed to knock off an entire kilo, Brunetti and Paola repaired to the living room, each with a small glass of grappa, just what Brunetti's Uncle Ludovico had always prescribed to counteract the effects of a heavy meal.

When they were sitting side by side, watching the dim remnants of light they thought could still be seen in the west, Paola said, 'When the clocks go back, it'll be dark even before we eat. It's what I hate most about the winter, how dark it gets, how soon and for how long.'

'Good thing we don't live in Helsinki, then,' he said and took a sip of grappa.

Paola squirmed around until she found a more comfortable position and said, ‘I think you could name any city in the world, and I'd agree that it’s a good thing we don't live there.'

'Rome?' he offered, and she nodded. 'Paris?' and she nodded more forcefully. 'Los Angeles?' he ventured.

'Are you out of your mind?'

'Why this sudden devotion to patria?’ he asked.

'No, not to patria, not to the whole country, just to this part of it.'

'But why, all of a sudden?'

She finished her grappa and turned aside to set the glass on the table. 'Because I took a walk over towards San Basilio this morning. For no reason, not because I had to go anywhere or do anything, like a tourist, I suppose. It was still early, before nine, and there weren't a lot of people around. I stopped in a pasticceria, a place I've never been in before, and I had a brioche that was made of air and a cappuccino that tasted like heaven, and the barman talked about the weather with everyone who came in, and everyone spoke Veneziano, and it was like I was a kid again and this was just a sleepy little provincial town.'

'It still is’ Brunetti observed.

'I know, I know, but like it was before millions of people started coming here.'

'All in search of that brioche that's made of air and the cappuccino thaf s like heaven?'

'Exactly. And the inexpensive little trattoria where only the locals eat.'

Brunetti finished his grappa and rested his head against the back of the sofa, his glass cradled in his hands. 'Do you know Bianca Marcolini? She's married to the paediatrician, Gustavo Pedrolli.'

She glanced at him and said, 'I've heard the name. Works in a bank. Does social things, I think: you know, Lions Club and Save Venice and things like that.' She paused and Brunetti could almost hear the pages of her mind flipping over. 'If she's the one I think she is - that is, if it's the Marcolini family I think it is - then my father knows hers.'

'Personally or professionally?'

She smiled at this. 'Only professionally. Marcolini is not the sort of man my father would acknowledge socially.' She saw the expression with which Brunetti greeted this and added, 'I know what you think of my father's politics, Guido, but I can assure you that even he finds Marcolini's politics repellent.'

'For what specific reason?' Brunetti asked, though he was not surprised. Count Orazio Falier was a man as likely to despise politicians of the Right as those of the Left. Had a Centre existed in Italy, he would no doubt have found cause to despise them, as well.

'My father has been heard to call his ideas Fascistic'

'In public?' enquired Brunetti.

This caused Paola. to smile again. 'Have you ever known my father to make a political remark in public?'

‘I stand corrected,' Brunetti admitted, though he found it difficult to imagine a political position which someone like the Count would consider Fascistic.

'Have you finished The Ambassadors?' Brunetti asked, thinking this more polite than asking if she had had time to begin her research on infertility.

'No.'

'Good, then don't bother with the research I asked you to do.' 'On infertility?' ‘Yes.'

She was evidently relieved. 'But I would like you to keep your shell-like ears open for anything you might hear about Bianca Marcolini or her family.'

'Including the dreadful father and his even more dreadful politics?'

'Yes. Please.'

'Are the police going to pay me for this or is it supposed to be one of my duties as a citizen of the state?'

Brunetti pushed himself to his feet. The police will get you another grappa.'

12

Brunetti slept until almost nine, after which he dawdled in the kitchen to read the papers Paola had gone out and got before leaving for the university. All of the articles named the people arrested in the Carabinieri round-up: only Il Corriere's account mentioned that the Carabinieri were still searching for the man believed to have organized the trafficking. None of the articles discussed the fate of the children, though La Repubblica did say that they varied in age from one to three years.

Brunetti paused after reading this: if simply hearing that a baby had been taken from his parents at eighteen months could incite someone as unimaginative as Alvise to rage, imagine what the reality would be for the parents of a three-year-old. Brunetti could not bring himself to think of the people who had adopted the children as anything other than their parents: not as illegal parents, not as adoptive parents: only as parents.

He went directly to his office and found some papers on his desk - routine things - staffing, promotions, new regulations concerning the registering of firearms. There was also, and more interestingly, a note from Vianello. The Inspector wrote that he had gone to meet someone to talk about lus doctors'. Not with, but about, which was enough to tell Brunetti that the Inspector was continuing with what had become his all-but-private investigation of the connection he suspected existed between three specialists at the Ospedale Civile and at least one local pharmacist, possibly more.

Vianello's interest had first been piqued some weeks before, when one of his informants - a man whose identity Vianello was unwilling to reveal - had suggested that the Inspector might be interested in the frequency with which certain pharmacists who were authorized to schedule specialist appointments referred their clients to these three doctors. Vianello had mentioned the suggestion to Signorina Elettra, who found it as intriguing as he did. Together they had turned it into a kind of school science project, competing with one another to discover just how these three doctors might have earned the attention of Vianello's source.

Illumination had been provided by Signorina

Elettra's sister Barbara, herself a doctor, who had explained to them a recent bureaucratic innovation which permitted pharmacists access to the central computer of the city health service so as to enable them to schedule specialist appointments for their patients when these visits were recommended by their regular doctors. The patient would thus be saved the time spent in hospital queues waiting to schedule an appointment, and the pharmacist would be paid a fee for performing the service.

Signorina Elettra had seen one possibility immediately, as had Vianello: all an enterprising pharmacist needed was a specialist, or more than one, willing to accept appointments for what were effectively phantom patients. And how much easier to create need for those appointments than for that same pharmacist to add a single line, recommending a specialist visit, to the bottom of an ordinary prescription? The health service, ULSS, was not known for the efficiency of its bookkeeping, so it was unlikely that the handwriting on these prescriptions would be examined closely: all that had to be in order were the patient's name and health service registration number. Patients almost never saw their own computer records, so there was little chance that they would learn that these phantom appointments had been made in their names: the health system would thus have no reason to question the doctor's charge for having seen the patient, nor the pharmacist's fee for having scheduled the appointment.

And whatever arrangement the pharmacist and doctor might come to between themselves would certainly remain private, though 25-75 would seem an equitable division. If a specialist visit cost between 150 and 200 Euros, happy the pharmacist who managed to schedule four or five a week, and happy the doctors who could increase their income without having to increase their workload.

Presumably, then, Vianello was that morning again somewhere in the city talking to the man who had first mentioned the arrangement to him or to one of the other people who kept him supplied with information the police might find useful. What Vianello gave in exchange for this information Brunetti had no idea and did not choose to ask, just as he hoped no one would ask how he managed to repay his own sources for the information they provided him.

Knowing he would learn more when Vianello returned, Brunetti dialled the number of neurologia and asked to speak to Signora Sandra.

'If s Commissarib Brunetti, Signora,' he said when she came to the phone.

'He's fine,' she offered, avoiding pleasantries to save them both time.

'Is he talking?' Brunetti asked.

'Not to me and not to anyone on the staff, at least not that I know about,' she said.

'To his wife?'

‘I don't know, Commissario. She went home, about half an hour ago, but she said she'd be back by lunchtime. Dottor Damasco came on to the ward about an hour ago and is in with him now’

If I were to come over there, could I speak to him?'

To whom? Dottor Damasco or Dottor Pedrolli?' 'Either. Both.'

Her voice softened to a whisper. 'The Cara-biniere is still outside his room. They don't let anyone in except his wife and the medical staff.'

'Then I suppose I'd like to speak to Dottor Damasco,' Brunetti said.

After a long pause, the nurse said, 'Come over now, and perhaps you could talk to them both.'

‘I beg your pardon.'

'Come to the desk. If I'm not there, wait for me. There'll be a stethoscope in the right-hand drawer’ She hung up.

Brunetti left without telling anyone where he was going, walked to the hospital, and went directly to the neurology ward. No one was behind the desk. Brunetti felt a moment's nervousness, looked down the corridor to be sure it was empty, then stepped behind the desk and opened the top drawer on the right. He slipped the stethoscope around his neck and returned to the other side of the desk. He took two sheets of paper from the wastepaper basket and attached them to a clipboard, then bent over the papers and began to read.

A moment later, Signora Sandra, today in black jeans and black tennis shoes, joined him. Another nurse Brunetti did not recognize came up behind them and Sandra said, addressing Brunetti, 'Ah, Dottore, I'm glad you could come. Dottor Damasco is waiting for you’ Then, to the other nurse, 'Maria Grazia, would you take Dottor Costantini down to 307, please? Dottor Damasco is waiting for him.'

He wondered if Sandra wanted to keep herself entirely out of her subterfuge, should there be trouble later, but then it occurred.to him that her protective manner towards Dottor Pedrolli might well already have made the guards suspicious of her.

Keeping one eye on the papers, copies of lab reports that made no sense to him at all, Brunetti followed the nurse towards the room. A uniformed Carabiniere sat outside. He looked at the nurse, then at Brunetti, as they approached.

'Dottor Costantini’ the nurse explained to the officer, indicating Brunetti. 'He's here for a consultation with Dottor Damasco.'

The guard nodded and went back to the magazine spread on his lap. The nurse opened the door, announced the arrival of Dottor Costantini, and allowed Brunetti to enter the room without joining him. She closed the door.

Damasco looked in his direction and nodded. 'Ah, yes, Sandra told me you wanted to see us.' He then looked at Pedrolli, whose eyes were on Brunetti, and said, 'Gustavo, this is the man I told you was here before.'

Pedrolli kept his attention on Brunetti.

'He's a policeman, Gustavo. I told you that’

Pedrolli raised his right hand and moved it back and forth above his chest, in the place where the stethoscope lay against Brunetti's. The Carabinieri have a guard outside. The only way he could get in here to talk to you was by pretending to be a doctor,' Damasco explained.

Pedrolli's face softened: his beard disguised the hollows in his cheeks, which Brunetti thought had deepened overnight. He lay flat on the bed, a blanket pulled to his waist; above it Brunetti saw a blue and white pyjama jacket. Pedrolli's hair had once been light brown but was now, like his beard, mixed with equal portions of grey. He had the light skin and eyes that often accompany fair hair. A black bruise ran down from behind his left ear and disappeared into his beard.

Brunetti remained silent, waiting to see if Pedrolli would, or could, say anything. As he set the chart on the table next to the doctor's bed, his arm brushed across the stethoscope, making him feel foolish in his impersonation.

A minute passed, and none of the men spoke. Finally Damasco said, making no attempt to disguise his displeasure, 'All right, Gustavo. If you insist, we'll continue to play guessing games.' To Brunetti he said, If he raises one finger, the answer is yes. Two means no.'

When Brunetti said nothing, Damasco prodded him, 'Go ahead, Commissario. It's time-consuming and probably unnecessary, but if this is the way Gustavo's decided to protect himself, then that's the way we'll play it.' Damasco reached out and grabbed one of Pedrolli's blanketed feet; he gave it an affectionate shake, as if to contradict the exasperation in his words.

When Brunetti still did not speak, Damasco said, 'I haven't asked him anything about what happened. Well, except if he remembers being hit, which he says he doesn't. As his doctor, that’s my only concern.'

'And as his friend?' Brunetti asked.

'As his friend,' he began and considered for a moment. 'As his friend I went along with Sandra's harebrained idea to have you come and talk to him.'

Pedrolli appeared to have followed their conversation; at least his eyes had shifted back and forth as the two men spoke. As Damasco finished, Pedrolli's gaze moved to Brunetti, waiting for him to respond.

'As your friend told you’ Brunetti said, speaking to the man in the bed, 'I'm a police officer. One of my staff called me early yesterday morning and said an assaulted man was in the hospital, and I came down here to see what had happened. My concern then was the same as it is now: an armed assault on a citizen of this city, not the reason for it and not your response to it. As far as I've learned, you acted as would any citizen who was attacked in his home: you attempted to defend your family and yourself.'

He paused and looked at Pedrolli. The doctor raised one finger.

I have no idea how the Carabinieri are going to proceed with this case nor how they will present the information, and I don't know what accusations may be brought against you, Dottore’ Brunetti said, deciding it was best to stay as close as possible to the truth. 'I do know that there is a long list of charges they believe they can bring against you’

Here, Pedrolli held up his right hand and fluttered it back and form in the air.

'The officer I spoke to mentioned corruption of a public official, falsification of state documents, resisting arrest, and the assault of a public official in the performance of his duties. That last is the officer you hit’

Again, the interrogatively raised hand.

'No, he wasn't hurt. His nose wasn't even broken. A lot of blood, but no real damage.'

Pedrolli closed his eyes in what could have been relief. Then he looked again at Brunetti and, with the fingers of his right hand, took his left hand and slid his wedding ring up and down his finger.

'Your wife is fine, Dottore’ Brunetti answered, wondering at Pedrolli's concern, for the woman had only recently left the room.

Pedrolli shook his head and repeated the gesture with the ring, then to make things clearer, pressed his wrists together as though they were tied. Or handcuffed.

Brunetti raised both hands as if to ward off the idea. 'No charges have been brought against her, Dottore. And the captain I spoke to said that there probably would not be’

At this, Pedrolli pointed the index finger of his right hand at his heart, and Brunetti said, 'Yes, only against you, Dottore.'

Pedrolli tipped his head to one side and shrugged the other shoulder, as if consigning himself to his fate.

For what it was worth, Brunetti added, economical with the truth, 'I'm in no way involved in that investigation, Dottore. It will be conducted by the Carabinieri, not by us.' He paused, then continued, 'It's a jurisdictional thing. Because they made the original arrest, the case belongs to them.' He waited for some sign that Pedrolli understood or believed this, then added, 'My concern is with you as an injured person, the victim of an assault, if not a crime.' Brunetti smiled and turned to Dottor Damasco. 'I don't want to tire your friend, Dottore.' Careful of his phrasing, he added, 'If things change, would you let me know?'

Before Damasco could answer, Pedrolli reached out and seized Brunetti's wrist. He tugged at it with some force, pulling him closer to the bed. His mouth moved, but no sound emerged. Seeing Brunetti's evident confusion, Pedrolli made a cradling gesture with both arms and rocked them back and forth over his chest.

'Alfredo?' Brunetti asked.

Pedrolli nodded.

Brunetti patted the back of Pedrolli's right hand, saying, 'He's fine, Dottore. Don't worry about him, please. He's fine.'

Pedrolli's eyes widened, and Brunetti saw the tears gather. He looked away, pretending

Damasco had said something, and when he looked back, Pedrolli's eyes were closed.

Damasco stepped forward, saying. ‘I’ll call you if anything happens, Commissario.'

Brunetti nodded his thanks, retrieved the clipboard, and left the room. The Carabiniere guard was still seated outside the door, but he barely glanced at Brunetti. At the nurses' desk, Brunetti saw no one, nor was there anyone in the corridor. He undipped the papers and tossed them back into the waste basket, then set the clipboard on the desk. He removed the stethoscope, put it back in the drawer, and left the ward.

13

Brunetti took his time returning to the Questura, his mind occupied by the things he had failed to ask and the lingering unknowns of the Pedrolli... he didn't even know what to call it: Case? Situation? Dilemma? Mess?

Without information about the other adoptions, and in the face of Pedrolli's continuing silence, Brunetti knew as little about the details of the acquisition of the doctor's baby as he did of the others. He had no idea if the mothers were Italian or where they had given birth to their babies, how or where they took physical possession of the babies, what the going rate was. This last phrase appalled him. There was also the bureaucratic issue: just how much paperwork was needed to give evidence of paternity? In an orange metal box that had once contained Christmas biscuits, he and Paola kept the children's birth certificates, inoculation and health records, certificates of baptism and first communion, and some school records. The box stood, if memory served, on the top shelf of the wardrobe in their room, while their passports were in a drawer in Paola's study. He had no memory of how they had managed to get passports for the children: surely they must have been asked to provide birth certificates, and those certificates must also have been necessary to enrol the kids in school.

All official information about Venetian births and deaths, as well as changes in official place of residence, is kept at the Ufficio Anagrafe. As Brunetti left the hospital he decided to pass by the office: no time better than the present to speak to someone there about the bureaucratic process that led to the creation of legal identity.

He followed a slow-moving snake of tourists across Ponte del Lovo, down past the theatre and around the corner, but when Brunetti arrived at the Ufficio Anagrafe, tucked into the warren of city offices on Calle Loredan, his plan was to be frustrated by the most banal of reasons: city employees were on strike that day to protest about delays in the signing of their contract, which had expired seventeen months before. Brunetti wondered if the police - city employees, after all - were allowed to strike, and deciding that they were, he went into Rosa Salva for a coffee and then over to Tarantola to see what new books had come in. Nothing caught his fancy: biographies of Mao, Stalin, and Lenin would surely lead him to despair. He had read an unpleasant review of a new translation of Pausanias and so left it unbought. Because he made it a rule never to leave a bookstore without buying something, he setded for a long out-of-print translation of the Marquis de Custine's 1839 travels in Russia, printed in Torino in 1977: Lettere dalla Russia. The period was closer to the present than ordinarily would have interested him, but it was the only book that appealed, and he was in a hurry, strike or not.

Brunetti was conscious of how very virtuous he felt in proceeding to the Questura to go back to work, now that he knew about the strike and the possibility it offered him of going home to start on the book. Instead, buoyed by pride in his self-restraint, he set the book on his desk and picked up the papers that had accumulated there. Try as he might to concentrate on lists and recommendations, Brunetti felt his attention drawn towards the unanswered questions surrounding Pedrolli. Why had Marvilli refused to divulge more information? Who had authorized the Carabinieri raid on the home of a Venetian citizen? What power had summoned the Vice-Questore to Pedrolli's hospital room not half a day after he arrived there? And how was it, anyway, that the Carabinieri had learned about Pedrolli's baby?

His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of his phone.

'Brunetti’

'Come down here now’ And then Patta's voice was gone.

As he stood, Brunetti's eye was caught by the copy on the back cover of the book he had just bought, '... the arbitrary imposition of power which characterized .. ‘

'Ah, M. le Marquis’ he said out loud, 'if you knew the half of it’

Downstairs, he found no sign of Signorina Elettra. He knocked and entered Patta's office without waiting to be told to do so. Patta was at his desk, the papers of the overworked public official spread before him; even his summer tan had begun to fade, contributing to the total effect of tireless dedication to the many obligations of office.

Before Brunetti moved towards Patta's desk, the Vice-Questore asked, 'What are you working on, Brunetti?'

'The baggage handlers at the airport, sir, and the Casino’ he answered, much as he might inform a dermatologist about the foot fungus he kept picking up at work.

'All that can wait’ Patta said, a sentiment in which Brunetti most heartily joined. Then, when Brunetti stood in front of him, Patta asked, 'You've heard about this mix-up with the Carabinieri, I assume?'

Mix-up, was it? 'Yes, sir’

'Good, then. Sit down, Brunetti. You make me nervous standing there.'

Brunetti did as he was told.

The Carabinieri over-reacted, and they'll be lucky if the man in the hospital doesn't bring charges against them.' Patta's remark raised Brunetti's estimation of the man who had stood with the Vice-Questore outside Pedrolli's door. After a moment's reflection, Patta tempered his opinion and said, 'But I doubt that he will. No one wants that sort of legal trouble’ Indeed. Brunetti was tempted to ask if the white-haired man at the hospital would be involved in whatever legal mess were to ensue, but good sense suggested that he keep his knowledge of Patta's meeting to himself and so he asked, 'What would you like me to do, sir?'

There seems to be some uncertainty about the nature of the communications that took place between the Carabinieri and us,' Patta began. He peered across at Brunetti, as if to enquire whether he were receiving the coded message and knew what to do with it.

'I see, sir’ Brunetti said. So the Carabinieri ^N could produce evidence that they had informed the police of the projected raid, but the police could find no evidence that they had received it. Brunetti's mind cast back to the rules of logic he had studied with such interest, decades ago now, at university. There had been something about the difficulty - or was it the impossibility? - of proving a negative. This meant that Patta was thrashing about, trying to decide which would be less risky: to blame the Carabinieri for their excessive use of force or to find someone at the Questura to take the rap for the failure to transmit the Carabinieri's message?

'In fight of what's happened to this doctor, I'd like you to keep an eye on things and see that he's treated decently. So that nothing more happens.'

Brunetti prevented himself from completing the Vice-Questore's sentence by adding,'... that would lead to trouble for me'.

'Of course, Vice-Questore. Would it be all right if I spoke to him, perhaps to his wife?'

'Yes,' Patta said. 'Do whatever you want. Just see that this doesn't get out of control and cause trouble’

'Of course, Vice-Questore,' Brunetti said.

Patta, with responsibility effectively transferred to someone else, directed his attention to the papers on his desk.

'I'll keep you informed, sir,' Brunetti said and got to his feet.

Clearly too busy with the cares of office to respond, Patta waved a hand at him, and Brunetti left.

Because Paola had agreed to help him by asking around about Bianca Marcolini, Brunetti steeled himself and went down to the computer in the officers' room, where he managed to surprise his colleagues by the ease with which he connected to the Internet and then typed in the letters for 'infertilita', having to go back to correct only two typing errors.

For the next hour, Brunetti was the centre of what became a team effort on the part of the uniformed branch to help the research along. Though none of the younger men actually pushed him aside, the occasional hand did slip in below his to type in a word or two; Brunetti, however, never quite relinquished possession of the keyboard or mouse. The fact that he insisted on printing out everything that was of interest to him gave him the sense, however spurious, that he was engaged in the same sort of research he used to conduct in the university library.

When he was finished and went to the printer to pick up the stack of papers that had accumulated, he was struck by two thoughts: it was all so fast, virtually instant, but he had no idea how true any of it was. What made one website more reliable than another, and what, in heaven's name, was 'II Centro per le Ricerche sull’Uomo'? Or 'Istituto della Demografia'? For all Brunetti knew, either the Catholic Church or the Hemlock Society could be behind all of the sources he had consulted.

He had long accepted that most of what he read in books and newspapers and magazines was only an approximation of the truth, always slanted to Left or Right. But at least he was aware of the prejudices of most journalists and had thus, over the decades, learned to read aggressively, and so he could almost always find some kernel of fact - he entertained no illusions of finding the truth - in what he read. But with the Internet, he was so ignorant of context that all of the sources carried equal weight with him. Brunetti was adrift in what could well be a sea of Internet lies and distortions and utterly without the compass he had learned to use in the more familiar sea of journalistic lies.

When he finally returned to his office and began to read what he had printed out, he was surprised at the consistency across the various websites. Though the numbers and percentages differed noinimally, there was no doubt as to the steep decline in birth rates in most Western countries, at least among the native populations. Immigrants had more children. He knew there was some politically correct manner in which this essential statistical truth was meant to be phrased: 'cultural variation', 'differing cultural expectations'. Phrase it as you chose: poor people had more children than rich people, just as poor people had always had more children than rich people. In the past, more of them had died, carried off by disease and poverty. But now, at home in the West, far more of them survived.

At the same time that the number of children born to immigrants was increasing all over Europe, their hosts were having difficulty even in reproducing themselves. European women were older now when they had their first child than they had been a generation ago. Fewer people bothered to get married. The cost of housing had risen dramatically, limiting the chance that young working people could easily set up a household of their own. And who today could afford to have a baby on only one salary?

All of those things, Brunetti knew, merely created options which people could choose to exercise, not physical impediments which could not be overcome. The steady decline in the number of viable sperm, however, was not a matter of choice. Pollution? Some genetic change? An undetected disease? Repeatedly, the websites made mention of a group of substances called phthalates, present in all manner of common products, including deodorants and food packaging: it would seem that there existed an inverse proportion between their presence in a man's blood and a lowered sperm count. Though the clear implication that these substances were responsible for a half-century of decreasing sperm counts was common, none of the articles dared to name them as a direct cause. Brunetti had always been of a mind that rising economic expectations must have exerted as strong an influence on the birth rate as falling sperm counts. After all, if there had been millions of sperm in the past, there were still half that number, and that should surely suffice.

One report stated that the sperm counts of immigrant men began to decline after they had lived in Europe for a few years, which would certainly lend credence to the theory that pollution or environmental contamination was the cause. Wasn't it the lead water pipes that were said to have contributed to the decline in health and fertility among the population of Imperial Rome? Not that it made any difference now, but at least the Romans had had no idea of that possible connection: it fell to later ages to discover the probable cause, and then do nothing to moderate their behaviour.

Historical reflection was cut short by the arrival of Vianello. As he came in, smiling broadly and holding up a few sheets of paper, the Inspector said, I used to hate white collar crime. But the more I learn, the more I like it’ He placed the papers on Brunetti's desk and took a seat.

Brunetti wondered if Vianello were planning a career move; not for a moment did he doubt the involvement of Signorina Elettra in whatever change had taken place in Vianello's assessment.

'"Like it"?' Brunetti asked, indicating the papers, as though they were the instruments of Vianello's conversion.

'Well,' Vianello tempered, aware of Brunetti's amusement, 'in the sense that you don't have to go chasing after them or lurk in the rain outside their doors for hours, waiting for them to come out, so that you can follow them’

At Brunetti's continued silence, the Inspector went on. 'I used to think it was boring, sitting around, reading through tax and financial declarations, checking credit card statements and bank records’

Brunetti stopped himself from observing that, since most of these activities were illegal unless performed with an order from a judge, it was perhaps better that a policeman, at the very least, find them boring.

'And now?' Brunetti enquired mildly.

Vianello shrugged and smiled at the same time. 'And now I seem to be developing a taste for it’ He needed no prompting from Brunetti to explain: 'I suppose it's the thrill of the chase. You get a scent of what they might be up to: figures that don't add up or that are too big or too small, and then you begin to hunt through other records or you find their names in some other place where you didn't expect to find them or where they shouldn't be. And then the numbers keep coming in and they get stranger and stranger, and then you see what it is they're up to arid how to keep an eye on them or trace them into other places’

Without his realizing it, Vianello's voice had grown louder, more impassioned. 'And you just sit there, at your desk, and soon you know everything they're doing because you've learned how to trace them, and so everything they do comes back to you.' Vianello paused and smiled. 'I suppose this is how a spider must feel. The flies don't know the web is there, can't see it or sense it, so they just buzz around and do whatever it is flies dp, and you just sit there, waiting for them to land.'

'And then you snap them up?' Brunetti asked.

‘You could put it that way, I suppose,' Vianello answered, looking equally pleased both with himself and with his extended metaphor.

'More specifically?' Brunetti asked, looking in the general direction of the papers. 'Your doctors and their accommodating pharmacists?'

Vianello nodded. 'I've had a look at the bank records of the doctors my, er, my contact mentioned. Going back six years’ Even in the face of the patent illegality of Vianello's offhand, 'had a look', Brunetti remained a Sphinx.

'They live very well, of course: they're specialists’ They would, then, earn a great deal of their income in cash: did there exist the specialist who would provide a receipt for a private visit? 'One of them opened a bank account in Liechtenstein four years ago.'

'Is that when the appointments started?' Brunetti asked. .

'I'm not sure, but my contact told me it's been going on a number of years’.

'And the pharmacists?'

'That's the strange thing,' Vianello said. 'There are Only five pharmacies in the city that are authorized to make the appointments: I think it has to do with their computer capacity. I've started to look into their records’ Again, Brunetti left that alone.

'None of the ones I've checked has increased his average bank savings or credit card spending during this time,' said a disappointed Vianello. Then, as if to encourage himself, he added, 'But that doesn't necessarily exclude them’

'How many of them have you checked?' Brunetti asked.

'Two’

'Hmm,' Brunetti said. 'How long will it take you to check the others?' 'A couple of days’

'There's no doubt about the existence of these fake appointments?'

'None. I just don't know yet which pharmacists are involved.'

Brunetti ran quickly over the possibilities. 'Sex, drugs, and gambling. Those are usually the reasons people are willing to take illegal risks to make money.'

'Well, if those were the only reasons, then the ones I've already checked would be excluded’ Vianello said, sounding unconvinced.

'Why?'

'Because one of them is seventy-six, and the other lives at home with his mother’

Brunetti, who was of the opinion that neither of these things necessarily excluded a man from interest in sex, drugs, or gambling, asked, 'Who are they?'

'The old one's Gabetti. Heart condition, goes into the pharmacy only twice a week, no children, only a nephew in Torino he's going to leave it all to.'

'So you exclude him?' Brunetti asked.

'Some people might, but I certainly don't,' Vianello said with sudden heat. 'He's one of those classic misers. Took over the pharmacy from his father about forty years ago. Hasn't done a thing to it since then: I'm told that if you look in the back rooms, you'd think you were in Albania or some place like that. And I'm told you don't want to see the toilet he has there. Never married, never lived with anyone: all he does is make money and invest it and watch it grow. It's his only joy in life: money’

'And you think he'd do something like this?' Brunetti asked, not attempting to disguise his scepticism.

'Most of the appointments made for the three doctors by a pharmacy come from Gabetti's’

'I see,' Brunetti said, letting the information filter into his mind. 'What about the other one?'

Vianello's face changed and he gave an involuntary nod, as if expressing agreement with Brunetti's theory. 'This one's very religious; still lives with his mother, to whom he seems to be devoted. There's not much gossip about him, certainly nothing that says he's particularly interested in money. I can't find anything in his bank records’

'There's usually something, especially if they're religious,' said Brunetti: if Vianello could be suspicious of a greedy man, then he could reserve for himself the right to have doubts about a religious one. 'If he's not interested in sex and drugs, what is he interested in?'

'The Church: I told you,' Vianello said, amused by Brunetti's surprise. 'He's a member of one of those Catechumeni groups: prayer meetings twice a week, no alcohol, not even wine with meals, no ... no anything, it would seem’

'How'd you learn all this?' Brunetti asked.

'I've asked a number of people about him,' Vianello said obliquely. 'But believe me, there's nothing to find out about this guy. He lives for his mother and for the Church’ Vianello paused for some time, 'And for priding himself, from what I've heard, on leading a virtuous life and lamenting the fact that other people do not. Though he'd probably be the one who gets to define virtue.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because he refuses to sell condoms in his pharmacy’

'What?'

'He can't refuse to sell prescription drugs, like contraceptive pills or the morning-after pill, but he has the right to refuse to sell rubbers, and that's his choice’

'In the third millennium?' Brunetti asked and buried his face in his hands for a moment.

'As I said, he's the one who gets to define virtue.'

Brunetti removed his hands from his face. 'And the others, the ones you haven't looked into yet?'

'i know one of them, Andrea at San Bortolo, and he'd never do something like this’

'Are you still going to check them all?' asked Brunetti.

'Of course,' Vianello said, sounding wounded at the question.

To change the subject, Brunetti asked, 'But how did you manage to find out the appointments came from these pharmacies?'

Vianello made no attempt to disguise the pride he took in being able to explain. The hospital files can be arranged to list appointments by date or patient or doctor or by who made them. We simply arranged all of the specialist appointments for the last year’ he said - not bothering to explain who 'we' were nor how they came by those records - 'by who made them and then drew up a list of the ones that were made by those pharmacies. Then we made a list of appointments made in the last two weeks and called all of those patients and said we were running a survey of client satisfaction with ULSS’ He waited to see what degree of astonishment Brunetti would demonstrate at the unlikelihood of this, and when his superior said nothing, he went on. 'Most of them had in fact been seen by the doctor they had an appointment with, but nine of them said they didn't know anything about an appointment We said immediately that it must have been a computer error - we even pretended to check and then sounded embarrassed when we had to admit it was an error - and apologized for having disturbed them.' He smiled, and said, 'All of the appointments were made by Gabetti.'

'Weren't you afraid one of them wouTd mention your call at the pharmacy?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello waved away the suggestion. 'That's the genius of it’ he said, not without admiration. 'None of these people would have any idea what sort of mix-up could have taken place, and I think they all believed us when we said it was an error in the computer system.'

Brunetti let the possibilities run through his imagination for a moment and then asked, 'But what if one of them really got sick and they had to schedule the same examination, and the computer showed they'd already had it performed?' he asked.

'Then I imagine they'd do what any one of us would do: insist they'd never had the exam and blame it on the computer. And since the person they'd be dealing with would be some paper-pusher at ULSS, they'd probably believe it-'

'And then the appointment would be scheduled?'

'Probably,' Vianello said easily. 'Besides, the possibility that anyone would get suspicious about this is virtually non-existent.'

'And if they did, it's state money that's being wasted, anyway, isn't it?'

'I'm afraid so,' Vianello said. 'It would just be another case of civil servants who make a mistake.'

Neither man spoke for some time, and then Brunetti asked, 'But you still haven't found a pharmacist with the money.'

'It's got to be somewhere,' Vianello insisted. 'We can start taking a closer look tomorrow.'

Tt sounds as if nothing will persuade you away from believing this’ Brunetti said with a certain measure of asperity.

'Perhaps,' Vianello answered quickly, almost defensively. 'But the idea is too good for someone not to make use of it. ULSS is a sitting duck.'

'And if you're wrong?' Brunetti asked with some force.

Then I'm wrong. But ‘I’LL still have learned a lot about new ways to find things with the computer’ Vianello said, and good will slipped back into the room.