Suffer the Little Children

The thought of having children brought Daniela Carlon back into his mind, though he would rather not have thought about what she had told him. Over the years, he had come to believe that he could have only a second-class opinion about abortion and that his gender deprived him of a vote on the subject. This in no way affected his thoughts or his visceral feelings, but the right to a decision belonged to women on this one, and it behove him to accept this and keep his mouth shut. On the other hand, this was only theory and had little relevance to the raw pain he had heard in her voice.

He felt something against his leg and he looked down to see a mid-sized brown dog sniffing at his shoe, rubbing its flanks contentedly against his calf. It looked up at him, seemed to smile, and returned to his shoe. At the other end of its lead was a young boy, only a little bit taller than the dog.

'Milli, stop that’ he heard a woman's voice call, and then she came up to the boy and took ^ the lead from his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Signore, but she's still a puppy.'

'And loves shoes?' Brunetti asked, his good spirits lifted by the appealing absurdity of the situation.

She laughed, and he saw that her teeth were perfect in her well-tanned face. It seems so,' she said. She extended her hand to her son and said, 'Come on, Stefano. Let's take Milli home and give her a treat.'

The boy extended his free hand and, with some reluctance, she gave him back the lead.

The dog must have sensed the tremors of the change of command, for she scampered off, tossing her back legs high in the air in the manner of small dogs, though she ran off slowly enough to allow the boy to be towed after her without danger of his falling.

His heart lifted and remained that way for a moment until his thoughts scampered on and found themselves faced with Dottor Franchi. What was it that Pedrolli had called him, 'exquisitely moral'? To form such a judgement, Pedrolli must have heard talk or, just as likely, listened to the pharmacist as he spoke about his clients or the wider world, or whatever subject would enable a listener to form that opinion of him. Thinking back, Brunetti remembered the startled look Signora Invernizzi had given Franchi when he had remarked on the drug addicts' inability to help themselves.

Was he a chameleon, then, Dottor Franchi, keeping his judgements to himself when he thought they might offend someone whose good opinion he sought, only to reveal them to those he considered his inferiors? In Brunetti's experience, it was not uncommon for people to behave in this fashion. Was this one of the reasons why people married, then, to free themselves to say what they thought and thus spare themselves the terrible exhaustion of leading a double life? Then what of Bianca Marcolini: what life could she lead if any day, any moment, her husband were to discover what her father had done at her urging? It had been so easy to lead Marcolini into boasting about his phone call; surely, she must have known that, sooner or later, her husband would learn what had actually happened. No, not what had happened, but why it had happened. The bolt struck Brunetti then: Pedrolli would never learn what had happened to the child, only why it had.

He became aware that the tension had returned to his shoulders and that he was still standing in front of the edicola, gazing open-mouthed at the naked bodies on the covers of the magazines. In a chill moment of lucidity, he saw what Paola meant they were there, on display, these young women, naked and undefended and inviting any attention a man might please to give them.

Trapped, his eyes moved to the left and fell on a column of bright-coloured covers, each of which displayed a bare-breasted woman in a posture of submission: some bound with straps, some with ropes, and some with chains. Some looked frightened; some looked happy; they all looked excited.

He pulled his eyes away and looked at the facade of Palazzo Dolfin. 'She's right,' he said under his breath.

‘You going to stand there all day talking to yourself?' he heard someone ask in a loud, angry voice. He drew his attention away from the building and turned. The news vendor was standing less than a metre from him, his face red. Again he asked, 'You going to stand there all day? What’s next, you put your hands in your pockets?'

Brunetti raised a hand to defend himself, to explain, but then he let it drop and walked away, out of the campo and towards his home.

He had heard that people who had pets often found them at the door of their homes when they returned from work, that animals had some sixth sense that alerted them to the approach of what they no doubt thought of as their pet humans. When he reached the top of the steps and began to hunt for his keys, the door opened to reveal Paola, just inside. He could not disguise his joy at seeing her.

'Bad day?' she asked.

'How did you know?'

'I heard you coming up the stairs and it sounded like the tread of a weary man, so I thought it might help if I opened the door and told you how it lifts my heart that you are here’

'You know, you're right about the tits and ass in magazines,' he blurted out.

She tilted her head to one side and studied his face. 'Come in, Guido. I think you might need a glass of wine.'

He smiled. ‘I capitulate to you about something we've argued about for decades, and all you can do is offer me a glass of wine?' he asked.

'Why, what did you want instead?'

'How about some tits and ass?' he asked, making a grab for her.

After dinner, he trailed her down to her study. He had drunk little wine with dinner and had no desire now save to sit and talk and listen to what she might have to say about something he still did not know how to refer to: the Pedrolli disaster was perhaps as good as he could manage.

'The pharmacist in Campo Sant'Angelo?' she asked when he had finished telling the story -in what he hoped was a chronological, but what he feared was a garbled, manner.

Brunetti sat beside her, his arms folded across his chest. 'You know him?'

'No. It's out of the way for me. Besides, it's one of those campi where you don't think of stopping, isn't it? You just walk across it on your way to Accademia or Rialto: I've never even bought one of those cotton shirts from the place by the bridge’

Brunetti's inner map focused on the campo, viewed first from the entrance from the bridge and then from Calle della Mandola. A restaurant where he had never eaten, an art gallery, the inevitable real estate agency, the edicola with the chocolate Labrador.

He was summoned from these cartographical considerations by Paola, who asked, 'You think he'd do that? Call and tell people about his clients?'

'I used to think there were limits to what people were capable of doing,' Brunetti said. 'But I don't think that any more. Given the right stimuli, we're all probably capable of anything.' He listened to that statement echo, realized die extent to which it was a response to the events of the day, and said quickly, 'No, that's not right, is it?'

‘I hope not,' Paola said. 'But doesn't he take some sort of oath, like a doctor, not to reveal certain things?'

I think so. But I'm sure he's too clever to do this sort of thing openly. All he'd have to do is make a phone call to ask after someone's health: Is Daniela back from the hospital yet?' 'Could you tell Egidio it’s time to renew his prescription?' And if anything embarrassing or shameful were revealed by these calls, well, it was just the faithful family pharmacist, trying to be helpful, showing his concern for his patients' well-being, wasn't it?'

Paola considered this, then turned and put her hand on his arm. 'And it would let him go on thinking of himself in the same way, wouldn't it? If anyone questioned him, he could maintain - not only to them but to himself - that it was merely an excess of zeal on his part.'

'Probably.'

'Nasty little bastard.'

'Most moralists are’ said Brunetti wearily.

'Is there anything you can do about it, or about him?' she asked.

'I don't think so,' Brunetti said. 'One of the strange things about all of this is that, no matter how sordid and disgusting any of it is, the only thing Franchi's done that's illegal is look at those files, and he'd be sure to argue - and believe - that he was simply acting in the best interests of his clients. And Marcolini was doing his duty as a citizen, wasn't he? So was his daughter, I suppose.' Brunetti gave more thought to all of the things that had happened and said, 'And with Pedrolli, the violence of the Carabinieri wouldn't even be judged criminal. They had a judge's order to make their arrests that night. They did ring the doorbell, but the Pedrollis didn't hear it. And Pedrolli admits that he attacked the Carabiniere first.'

'All this pain, all this suffering’ Paola said.

They sat quietly side by side for some time. Finally, Brunetti pushed himself to his feet, went back into the living room and retrieved his copy of the Lettere della Russia, and came back to her study. In the short time he was absent, like water seeking the lowest point, Paola had spread out on the sofa with a book, but once again she pulled her feet back to make room for him.

'Your Russians?' she asked when she saw the book.

He sat down beside her and began to read where he had left off the night before. Paola studied his profile for a moment, then stretched out her feet and slipped them on to his lap, under his book, and returned to her own.

The weather worsened the next day, first with a sudden drop in temperature, followed by a torrential rainstorm, both of which cleaned the streets, first of tourists, then of any dirt that remained. Some hours later the sirens announced the first acquo, alta of the autumn, worsened by a fierce bora that sprang up and blew in from the north-east.

Umbrellaed, hatted, booted, and raincoated, a disgruntled Brunetti arrived at the Questura and made what he thought was una brutta figura at the entrance, pausing to shake himself free of water in the manner of a dog. He looked around and saw that the floor was wet for at least a metre in every direction. Heavy-footed and unwilling to talk to anyone, he made his way up the stairs to his office.

He stuffed the umbrella upright behind the door. Let the water run down on to the wooden floor: no one would see it back there. He hung his raincoat in the armadio, tossed his sodden hat on the top shelf, and then sat on a chair to remove his boots. By the time he finally sat behind his desk, he was sweaty and ill-tempered.

The phone rang. 'Si,' he said with singular lack of grace.

'Should I hang up and call back after you've had time to go out for a coffee?' asked Bocchese.

It wouldn't make any difference, and I'd probably be carried away by the acqua alta if I tried to go down to the bar.'

'Is it that bad?' the technician asked. ‘I got here early, and it wasn't bad when I came in.'

'Supposed to peak in an hour, but yes, it's bad.'

'You think any tourists will be drowned?'

'Don't tempt me, Bocchese. You know our phones are tapped, and what we say might get back to the Tourist Board.' He felt suddenly cheered, perhaps because of Bocchese's unwonted chattiness or perhaps by the thought of drowned tourists. 'What have you got for me?'

'HIV,' the technician said and then, into the resulting silence, 'That is, I've got a blood sample that is HTV positive. Or, to be even more precise, I've got the results from the lab - finally - saying that the sample I sent them is positive. B negative blood type, which is relatively rare, and HIV, which is not as rare as it should be.'

'The blood from the pharmacy?'

'Yes.'

'Have you told anyone?'

'No. The email just came in. Why?'

'No reason. I'll talk to Vianello.'

If s not his blood, is it?' Bocchese asked in a neutral voice.

The question so stunned Brunetti that he could not stop himself from barking, 'What?'

A long silence ensued at the other end, after which a curiously sober Bocchese said, ‘I didn't mean it that way. With a sample, we don't know whose it is.'

'Then say it that way,' Brunetti said, still shouting. 'And don't make jokes like that. They're not funny,' he added, his voice still rough, taken aback by the surge of anger he felt towards the technician.

'Sorry,' Bocchese said. 'It's an occupational hazard, I think. We see only pieces of people or samples of people, so we make jokes about them, and maybe we forget about the actual people themselves.'

'It's all right’ Brunetti said, then in a calmer voice, added. ‘I’ll go and tell him.'

'You won't ...' the technician began, but Brunetti cut him off by saying, 'I'll tell him the sample's back.' In a softer voice, he added, 'Don't worry. That's all I'll tell him. We'll see if it matches the blood of anyone we have in the files.'

Bocchese thanked him and said goodbye, in a polite manner, and hung up.

Brunetti went down to find Vianello.

It took them almost no time to find the match among the medical files from Franchi's computer and only a few phone calls to find a possible motive. Piero Cogetto was a lawyer, recently separated from the woman, also a lawyer, with whom he had lived for seven years. He had no history of drug use and had never been arrested.

Once Vianello had that hint, it took him only two more phone calls before he found someone who told him the rest of the story: upon learning that he was HIV positive, Cogetto's fiancee had moved out. She claimed that it was the infidelity and not the disease that made her leave, but this had been treated with a certain amount of scepticism among the people who knew her. The second person Vianello spoke to said she had always maintained that she had learned about his disease when someone told her about it by mistake.

Having recounted all this to Brunetti and Pucetti, Vianello asked, 'What do we do now?'

'If he's positive, he can't go to jail,' Brunetti said, ‘But at least, if we can get him to admit the break-in, we can close the file on the vandalism and get it off the books.' He realized how very much like Patta he sounded and was grateful that the other men did not mention this.

'You think he'll admit it?' "Vianello asked.

Brunetti shrugged. 'Why not? The blood samples match, and a DN A test would probably confirm the match. But he's a lawyer, so he knows there's nothing we can do to him if he's positive.' He was suddenly weary and wanted all this to be over.

'I'd understand if he did do it’ said Pucetti.

'Who wouldn't?' agreed Vianello, giving tacit agreement to the idea that Dottor Franchi had been the person to make the "mistake".

‘I’ll talk to him if you like’ Vianello volunteered to Brunetti. 'As soon as the water goes down.' Turning to Pucetti, he said, 'Why don't you come along and see what if s like to talk to someone who knows he can't be arrested?'

'Lot of that around,' Pucetti said, absolutely straight-faced.

25

He liked it back here in the lab, working, preparing medicines that would help people and restore them to health. He liked the order, the jars and bottles lined up as he wanted them to be, obedient to his will and following the system he knew was best. He liked the feeling of unbuttoning his lab coat and reaching into the watch pocket of his waistcoat for the key to the cabinet. He wore a suit to work every day, put his jacket on a hanger in his office but left the waistcoat on under his lab coat. No sweaters at work: waistcoat and tie. How else would people know that he was a professional, un dottore, if he did not present himself in a serious way?

The others did not. He no longer felt he had the power to make them conform to his standards of propriety regarding dress, though he still would not allow the women to wear skirts shorter than their lab coats, just as he would not permit any of them to wear trainers to work. In the summer, sandals were acceptable, but only for the women. A professional had to dress like one, otherwise where were we?

He ran his fingers down the gold chain until he found the key to the poisons cabinet. He crouched down and unlocked the metal door, comforted by the sound of the key turning in the lock: was there another pharmacy in Venice where they took their responsibility to their clients as seriously as he did? He remembered that he had, some years ago, visited a colleague in his pharmacy and had been invited back to the preparation room. The room was empty as they entered, and he had seen that the door to the poison cabinet was standing open, the key in the lock. It was only by the exercise of great restraint that he had prevented himself from commenting on this, from pointing out the tremendous risks of such negligence. Why, anyone could get in there: a child slipping away from its mother, a person bent on theft, a drug addict. Anyone, and God forbid what might happen then. Wasn't there a movie, or was it in a book, where a woman goes into a pharmacy and eats arsenic that has been left unattended? Some poison; he couldn't remember which. But she was a bad woman, he remembered, so perhaps it was right.

He pulled out the bottle of sulphuric acid.

stood, and placed it carefully on the counter, then slid it slowly back until it touched the wall, safely away from harm. He did the same with other bottles, sliding each carefully back and lining them up so that their labels were to the front and clearly legible. There were small containers: arsenic, nitroglycerine, belladonna, and chloroform. He lined them up, two to the left and two to the right of the acid, turning each carefully so that the skull and crossbones on the labels were visible. The lab door was shut, the way he always left it: the others knew to knock and ask to come in.-He liked that.

The prescription lay on the counter. Signora Basso had been suffering from the same gastric problem for years, and he had filled out this prescription at least eight times, so there was really no need to consult the written prescription, but a true professional did not toy with such things, especially when it was something as serious as this. Yes, the dosage was the same: the hydrochloric acid was always mixed one to two with pepsin, then added to twenty grammes of sugar and the resulting mixture added to two hundred and forty grammes of water. What might differ from prescription to prescription was the number of drops Dottor Prina prescribed for use after each meal, and that depended on the results of the Signora's tests. He was responsible for the reliability and the consistency of the solution. How else could the missing gastric juices be replicated in Signora Basso's stomach?

She, poor thing, had suffered for years, and

Dottor Prina said the condition was common in her family. She was worthy of all of his help and sympathy, poor woman, and not only because she was a fellow parishioner at Santo Stefano and a member of his mother's rosary society. She did her duty and bore her cross in life in silence, not like that other one, Vittorio Priante, little more than a glutton. Fat-faced and flat-footed, all he could talk about, every time he came in, was food and food and food, and then about wine and grappa, and then again about food. Only by lying about his symptoms could he have deceived a doctor into prescribing the acid solution to help him with his digestion, and that made him a liar, as well as a glutton.

But the profession made demands like this on a person who was loyal to it. He could easily have altered the solution, made it stronger or weaker, but that would be to betray his sacred trust. No matter how much Signor Priante might deserve punishment for his excesses and dishonesties, that was in the hands of God, not in his. From him all of his patients would receive the care he had sworn to provide them; he would never allow his personal certainties to affect that, not in any way. To do so would be to be unprofessional, and that was unthinkable. Signor Priante, however, might well have emulated his own moderation at table. His mother had taught him that: indeed, she had taught him moderation in all things. Tonight was Tuesday, so they would have gnocchi that she had made with her own hands and then a grilled slice of chicken breast, and then a pear. No excess, and one glass of wine: white.

No matter how immoral, no matter how lascivious the behaviour of his clients, he would never think of allowing his own ethical standards, or his standards in anything, to affect his professional behaviour. Even someone like Signora Adami's daughter, only fifteen but already twice prescribed medicines against venereal diseases: he would never think of treating her in anything but a manner that remained true to his oath. To do so would be both unprofessional and sinful, and both of those things were anathema to him. But the girl's mother had a right to know the path her daughter was treading and the place where it was likely to lead her. A mother had the duty to protect the purity of her child: he had never doubted that truth. Thus it was his duty to see that Signora Adami knew of the dangers faced by her child: it was his moral duty, never at variance with his professional duty.

Think of someone like Gabetti, bringing disgrace on the entire profession by his greed. How could he do something like that, betray his trust, use the faith placed in him by the entire medical system to set up those false appointments? And how shocking that doctors, medical doctors, had been party to such corruption. The Gazzettino had carried a front page story that morning, even a photo of Gabetti's pharmacy. What would people think of pharmacists if one of them were capable of something as vile as this? Yet the law was to be made mock of once again. The man was too old to be sent to jail, and so it would all be settled quietly. Some paltry fine, perhaps he would be barred from the profession, but he would never be punished, and crimes such as this, indeed, most crimes, merited punishment.

He opened one of the upper cabinets and lifted down the ceramic mixing bowl, the middle-sized one, the one he used for prescriptions of 250 cc. From one of the lower cabinets he took an empty brown medicine bottle and placed it on the counter. He reached into the upper cabinet for plastic gloves, pulled them on, and then reached into the poison cabinet for the bottle of hydrochloric acid. He set it on the counter in front of him, twisted the glass stopper and placed it in a low glass dish kept there especially for this purpose.

Chemistry is not random, he reflected: it followed the laws established for it by God, as God has established laws for all creation. To follow those laws is to partake in a small way in the power God exercises over the world. To add substances in the proper sequence - first this one and then that one - is to follow God's plan, and to give those substances to his patients was to do his duty, fulfilling his part in that vast plan.

The syringe was in the top drawer, wrapped for its single use in a clear plastic package. He tore it open, checked the plunger, pushing and emptying the air from it to see that it moved freely. He inserted the needle into the bottle of acid, slipped his left hand down to steady it, and drew the plunger slowly up, bending down to read the numbers on the side. Carefully, he pulled the tip of the needle out, wiping it gentry against the side of the bottle, then held it over the ceramic dish. Fifteen drops, and no more.

He had reached eleven when he was distracted by a noise behind him. Was it the door? Who would open it without knocking first? He could not remove his eyes from the tip of the syringe, for if he lost count, he would have to clean out the dish and start again, and he didn't want to empty that acid, no matter how minimal the amount, into the city water supply. People might laugh at such caution, but even fifteen drops of hydrochloric acid might do some unknown harm.

The door closed, more quietly than it had opened, as the last drop fell into the dish. He turned and saw one of his patients, though he was really more of a colleague than a patient, wasn't he?

'Ah, Dottor Pedrolli,' he said, unable to disguise his reaction. 'I'm surprised to see you here.' He phrased it that way, carefully, so as not to offend a medical doctor, a man whose education and responsibilities placed him in a rank above his own. He addressed Pedrolli as 'Lei', a vocal sign of the respect he paid to all medical doctors, no matter how many years he might have worked with them. Outside of the pharmacy, perhaps, he would have liked to use 'tu' with doctors and thus demonstrate the closeness of their professional association, but they all continued to address him formally, and so formality had become natural to him over the years. He took it as a sign of their respect for him and his position and had come to take pride in that. He stripped off the plastic gloves and put them in the wastepaper basket before extending his hand to the doctor.

‘I wanted to talk to you, Dottor Franchi,' the other man said in a soft voice after they shook hands. He seemed agitated, Dottor Pedrolli, which was unusual, since he had always seemed such a calm man.

'Who let you in?' Franchi asked, but he was careful to ask the question mildly, in a tone indicative only of curiosity, not of irritation. Only some sort of medical emergency could induce one of his staff to override his instructions about the door.

'Your colleague, Dottor Banfi. I told him I had to see you about a patient.'

'Which one?' the pharmacist asked, genuinely alarmed that one of his patients might be sick or in peril. He began to run through the names of the children he knew were in Dottor Pedrolli's care: perhaps it was one with a longstanding condition, and by guessing who it was, he could save precious seconds in preparing the medicine, could be of greater service to a sick person.

'My son,' Pedrolli said. It made no sense. He had heard, with great astonishment, about the Carabinieri and what had happened at Dottor

Pedrolli's home. Surely, the child could no longer be considered a patient.

'But I thought ...' Franchi began, and then came the thought that the child might have been returned. 'Has he... ?' he began but didn't know how to finish the question.

'No,' said Pedrolli in his typically soft voice. It sounded strange here, in this small room which usually made sounds larger. 'No, he hasn't,' the doctor said and regret flowed across his face. 'And he won't.'

'Then I'm afraid I don't understand,' Franchi said. Suddenly conscious of the syringe in his hand, he placed it on the counter, careful to see that the tip did not touch the surface. He saw that Pedrolli watched as he placed it there, and he saw the doctor's professional glance range over the bottles on the counter. Pedrolli was a fellow professional and would surely appreciate his carefulness, the disciplined orderliness of his workshop, a sure reflection of the disciplined orderliness of his work; indeed, of his entire life.

'I'm preparing a pepsin mixture for a patient,' he explained in answer to no question from Pedrolli, hoping the doctor noticed the way he declined to use the patient's name. With a gesture towards the bottles ranked up against the wall, he said, 'I didn't want to risk taking a bottle out from the back of the cabinet while the others were still there, in front of it, so I took them all out. For safety.' A doctor would appreciate this kind of caution, he was sure.

Pedrolli nodded, seemingly uninterested. 'I'm also a patient here, aren't I?' he surprised the pharmacist by asking.

‘Yes. Of course,' he agreed. He took it as a compliment that a doctor, a fellow professional but nevertheless senior to him, had chosen him as his pharmacist, though it was really the doctor's wife who was his client. And the child, of course, though no longer.

"That's why I came,' Dottor Pedrolli said, again confusing the pharmacist.

‘I still don't understand,' Franchi said. Could the loss have upset the balance of this man's mind? Ah, poor man, but perhaps understandable after so much trouble.

'You have my records, then?' Pedrolli surprised him by asking.

'Of course, Dottore,' he answered. 'I have records for all of my clients’ He liked to think of them as his patients, but he knew he had to refer to them as clients, to show that he knew his proper place in the order of things.

'Could you tell me how it is you come to have them, Dottore?' Pedrolli asked.

'Have them?' Franchi repeated stupidly.

'My medical records’

But he had said only 'records', surely, not 'medical records’ The other man had not understood. ‘I don't mean to correct you, Dottore,' he began, though he did, ‘But I have your records for this pharmacy', he said, choosing his words very carefully. 'It would not be proper for me to have your medical records’ That was true enough, thus to say so was not to lie.

Pedrolli smiled, but it was not a reassuring thing to see. ‘I’m afraid that's not what I heard’

'From whom?' asked an indignant Franchi. Was he, a professional, a man who had lawyers, judges, engineers, and doctors among his patients, was he to be subject to such an accusation?

‘From someone who knows’

Franchi's face grew hot. 'You can't come in here and make that sort of accusation’ Then, remembering the status of the person to whom he spoke, he forced his voice to a more accommodating tone. 'That's completely inappropriate. And unjust.'

Pedrolli took a short step back; strangely, the distance seemed to increase the difference in height between them: the doctor now loomed above the pharmacist. 'If you'd like to talk about inappropriate and unjust accusations, Dottor Franchi,' the other man began in a reasonable voice, one that spoke of patience, 'perhaps we could talk about Romina Salvi.'

Franchi took some time to prepare his face and his voice. 'Romina Salvi? She's a client of mine, but I don't know what you're talking about’

'Who has been taking lithium for six years, I believe,' Pedrolli said with a small smile, the kind that encouraged confidence in a patient.

‘I'd have to check her records to be sure of that,' Franchi said.

'That she's taking lithium or that it's been six years?'

'Either. Both.' 'I see.'

'I don't understand what all this is about, Dottore,' Franchi said fussily. 'And if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to what I was doing. I don't like to keep my clients waiting.'

'She was going to marry Gino Pivetti, one of the lab technicians at the hospital. But somehow his mother learned about the lithium and about her depression, and she told her son. He didn't know: Romina had never told him. She was afraid he would leave her.'

'I don't see how any of this concerns me,' Franchi interrupted. He reached for another pair of plastic gloves, hoping that his desire to return to work would both impress the other man and suggest that there was no purpose in continuing this conversation, and that it was time for him to leave. But Dottor Franchi could hardly ask a medical doctor to leave, could he?

'And that's what did happen: he left. So there will be no children who might disrupt God's plan of perfection by developing manic depression like their mother.'

Politeness kept Franchi from answering that this was a very good thing: God's creatures should emulate His many perfections, not pass on an illness that distorted the divine plan. He uncapped the empty glass bottle and set the cap carefully upside down so as to eliminate any chance of contamination from the counter, unlikely as that was.

'I've been thinking about this for some time.

Dottor Franchi’ Pedrolli said, his voice more animated now. 'Ever since I learned that my medical file was here and began to think about the information that was in it’

Hoping to demonstrate how close he was to losing his patience, Franchi moved the mixing bowl a few centimetres closer to him, as if he were about to begin preparing the solution, and said, ‘I’m afraid none of this makes any sense to me, Dottore’ He reached up and opened one of the cabinets, took down the bottle of pepsin, the suspension solution that formed the next part of the preparation. He unscrewed the cap and placed it in a separate glass dish.

'And Romina Salvi? Does it make any sense to you that someone made a phone call that destroyed her life?' Pedrolli asked.

'Her life has not been destroyed’ Franchi said, now making no attempt to disguise his exasperation at what Pedrolli was saying. He reached for the syringe and moved it carefully out of the way. He said, 'Her engagement has perhaps been broken off: that has hardly destroyed her life’

'Why not?' Pedrolli asked with sudden anger, 'Because it's only emotions? Because no one's in hospital, and no one's dead?'

Franchi had suddenly had enough of this, enough of this talk of emotions and destroyed lives. A life lived in the shadow of the Lord could not be destroyed.

He turned to Pedrolli. 'I told you some time ago, Dottore, that I don't understand what you're talking about. What I do understand is that Signorina Salvi suffers from a disease that could be transmitted to any children she might have, so it is perhaps better that this engagement has been broken off’

'With your help, Dottore?' Pedrolli asked.

'Why do you say that?' Franchi asked with what sounded almost like indignation.

'According to Gino's mother, someone asked her if she weren't concerned for grandchildren. They live in Campo Manin, don't they? So this must be their pharmacy. And where else was she likely to hear such an expression of concern?'

I do not gossip about my clients,' Franchi said in the absolute tones of a man who would neither lie nor gossip.

Pedrolli looked at him for a long time, studying his face, looked for so long that Franchi, to escape his gaze, turned back to his work. He took out another syringe and ripped open the package, the noise an echo of his anger. He tested the syringe, then inserted the tip into the smaller bottle. Slowly, he began to draw up the liquid.

"You wouldn't, would you?' Pedrolli asked, astonished to have so lately realized this. "You wouldn't lie and you wouldn't gossip about a client. You really wouldn't, would you?'

This was barely worthy of comment, but Franchi looked aside long enough to say, not without disgust at the other man's opacity, 'Of course not.'

'But you would make a phone call if you thought a client of yours was doing something you judged immoral, wouldn't you?' Pedrolli spoke slowly, working it out word by word as he spoke. ‘You really would, just as you'd warn Gino's mother. You wouldn't actually say anything, would you? But after they heard of your concern and the reasons for it, they'd know just what was going on, wouldn't they?' He stopped, and contemplated the man in front of him, as if seeing him for the first time in all these years.

Franchi shifted his grip on the syringe and wrapped his fingers round it, as though it were the handle of a knife. He pointed it in the general direction of the other man, all patience exhausted. What was all this about, and why was Dottor Pedrolli so concerned about this woman? Surely she wasn't one of his patients. 'Of course I would’ he finally said, forced to speech by anger. 'Don't you think I have a moral obligation to do that? Don't we all, when we see evil and sin and deceit and we can do something that will prevent it?'

If he had slashed at Pedrolli with the syringe, the other man could have been no more stunned. He raised one hand, the palm towards Franchi, and in a tight voice, asked, 'Only prevent it? And if it's too late to prevent it, do you think if s right to punish it?'

'Of course,' Franchi said, as if explaining a matter of exquisite simplicity. 'Sinners should be punished. Sin must be punished.'

'So long as no one's in the hospital and no one's dead?'

'Exactly,' Franchi said with his usual fussi-ness. 'If it's only emotions, it doesn't matter.'

He turned back to his work. He was calm, competent, a man busy with his professional duties.

Who knows what Pedrolli saw then? A little boy in duck-patterned pyjamas touching his Own nose? And who knows what he heard? A small voice saying Papa? What matters is what he did. He stepped forward and with an angry swing of his arm pushed the pharmacist aside. Franchi, concentrating on the syringe and avoiding injuring himself with it, tangled his left foot with his right and fell to one knee, breathing a sigh of relief at having managed'to keep the syringe away from his body.

He looked up at Pedrolli, but what he saw was the large glass bottle in the doctor's hands moving towards him, and then he saw the liquid splash from it, his own outstretched hand, and then darkness and pain.

26

‘Dottore, I'm afraid our conversation this time has to be different from the others’

‘I understand that’

'The first time I spoke to you, I was in the hospital to speak to you as the victim of a crime, and the second time it was to question you about someone I suspected of committing one. But this time I must tell you that you are being questioned in relation to a crime you are accused of committing and that our conversation is being recorded and videotaped. My colleague. Inspector Vianello, is here with me as an observer, and at the end of our conversation, a written record will be presented to you for signature ... Do you understand this, Dottore?... I'm afraid you have to speak, Dottore. For the tape’

‘Oh, I'm sorry. I'm afraid I wasn't paying attention.'

'Would you like me to repeat what I've just said?'

'No, that's not necessary. I understand what you said.'

'Before we begin, Dottore, would you like anything to drink? A glass of water? A coffee?' 'No, thank you.'

If you'd like to smoke, there's an ashtray there.'

Thank you, Cornmissario, but I don't smoke. But of course if either of you would like ...'

'Thank you, Dottbre. May we begin?'

'Of course.' -

'On me morning of the sixteenth, did you visit the pharmacy of Dottor Mauro Franchi in Campo Sant'Angelo?'

‘Yes, I did.'

'Could you tell me why you went there?'

‘I wanted to speak to Dottor Franchi.'

'Was this for medical reasons, about a patient of yours, perhaps?'

'No. It was a personal matter.'

'Would you ... Excuse me, Dottore?'

‘I suppose in a way, yes, it was about a patient, but one of his, not mine. And while I was there, we also discussed a woman who was a customer of his, but not my patient.'

'Would you tell me who this woman was, Dottore?'

'I'd rather not. She really doesn't have anything to do with any of this.'

I'd prefer to be the judge of that, if I might, Dottore’

‘Yes, I'm sure you would, Comrnissario. But I'm afraid that, in this case, I believe I'm a better judge. So I'd prefer not to tell you her name’

'Would you tell me, then, why you wanted to speak to Dottor Franchi about her?'

'Hmm, I suppose there's no harm in that. I know her fidanzato, well, the man who was once her fidanzato. He's a friend of mine’

'What else can you tell me about her?'

'I was thinking how to put it. They were engaged, these two young people. But the mother of my friend somehow learned that the girl, the woman, had an illness that might be transmitted to their children. They wanted to have children, you see.'

'Excuse me, Dottore, but I'm not sure I understand why you would want to talk to Dottor Franchi about this.'

'Oh, didn't I tell you? Sorry, sorry. You see, they live, the young man and his mother, quite near to Campo Sant'Angelo.'

'And?'

'Don't you see, Commissario? Don't you see what happened?'

‘I’m afraid I can only ask questions, Dottore, not supply answers. I need the information from you, you see.'

'Of course. Then this isn't really a conversation, is it?'

'No, not really, Dottore’

‘It's easy to forget.'

‘Yes, I suppose it is’

'Where were we, Commissario?'

'You were telling me about where your friend and his mother live’

'Yes, of course. Just behind Campo Sant' Angelo. So Dottor Franchi would be their pharmacist. It was Dottor Franchi who told my friend's mother about the disease.'

'Do you have any certain knowledge of that, Dottore?'

'No, I suppose I don't, not certain knowledge. But during my conversation with Dottor Franchi, he said he thought he had a moral right to prevent evil, and help punish it. And that led me to believe that he did tell her, that he let my friend's mother know, and he knew how she would respond’

'Did he tell you that he did it, Dottore?'

'No, not directly. He did not. But any thinking person would understand what he was saying. Or, rather, the significance of what he said’

Is it correct to say that what Dottor Franchi said led you to believe that he revealed this information to the mother of the man this woman was going to marry?'

'Yes’

'What was your reaction to this, Dottore?'

'It angered me. The young woman has been ... has been very unwell as a result of the breakup with her fidanzato.'

'And the young man?'

'Ah, that's a different story.'

'What does that mean?' .

Tie's already engaged to another woman, and his new fidanzata is pregnant’

'Does the other woman, his former fidanzata, know this?'

‘I don't mean to be impolite, Commissario, but do you think it would be possible, in this city, for her not to know?'

'Of course. I understand what you mean. And what was her reaction to this news, do you know, Dottore?'

'She has grown more ... more unwell’ 'Anything else?'

'I think that's enough. I'd prefer not to say anything more’

'Of course, Dottore. You said that you were there to discuss a patient of Dottor Franchi's. Would you tell me who this patient is?'

'Was.'

‘I beg your pardon’

'Was, not is. He is no longer a patient of Dottor Franchi’

Has he moved?' Tn a sense, yes’

‘I’m afraid I don't follow you, Dottore.'

'My son, Commissario. My son Alfredo. He was a patient at Dottor Franchi's pharmacy. But he is no longer a patient there because he no longer lives with me.'

‘I see. Thank you, Dottore. Would you tell me why you went to speak to Dottor Franchi. about your son?'

'I'm afraid the answer is complicated, Commissario.'

Then take your time, if you need to’

‘Yes. Yes. Thank you. I'll try to do that. I could begin by saying I've worked at the Ospedale Civile for nine years. Paediatrics. But why am I telling you that? Of course you know that already. Twice in the past, that is, before this incident with the mother of my friend, I'd heard people say things about Dottor Franchi. That he gave certain information to people that they should not have ... well, that they had no right to have. It was medical information, things Dottor Franchi was said to have learned in the course of his work: about people's illnesses or weaknesses or diseases. At any rate, in some way that was never made clear or explained - and I must admit for the sake of honesty, was never confirmed - this information was said to come to the knowledge of certain other people’

'Are you talking about blackmail, Dottore?'

'Heavens, no. Nothing like that. He could no more commit blackmail, Dottor Franchi, than he could overcharge a client. He's an honest man, you see. And that's what's wrong with him. He's decided what good is, and what sin is, and when someone does something he believes to be sinful, he thinks that they should be punished for it. No, Commissario, I'm not speaking about specific things I know for a fact that he's done: I told you all I know is rumours and suggestions, the way people always say things. It's more that I know the sort of man he is, the way he thinks, and what he believes his obligations are - to maintain public morality. As I told you,

I'd heard this about him twice, but it was always that sort of vague rumour - something someone heard from someone else - that cannot be proven. Or disproven. And so, when I learned that the mother of my friend, who must be a client at the pharmacy, had become aware of medical information, it seemed obvious that the source must have been Dottor Franchi’

'Did you realize this at the time?'

'What time?'

'The time your friend's mother received the information.'

'No, not then. Only later.' 'And when was that?'

'Later. When I started to think about things.'

'But you had no proof? Did your friend's mother say something to you?'

'No, nothing like that I had no proof. Besides, if I might add, without offence, Commissario: proof is more your line of work than mine. I was sure, and I suppose that's the same thing.'

'Ah’

'You don't agree, Commissario?' 'It's not my place here to agree or disagree, Dottore: only to ask you to explain.' ‘I see.'

'You were telling me why you went to speak to Dottor Franchi about your son, Dottore’

'Yes, I was, wasn't I? It's hard to remember what I've been talking about, I suppose. There are so many things to say and to think about'

‘I’m here to listen.'

'My son, then. There's no sense now in trying to pretend he was my son - my natural son, that is. His mother was an Albanian woman I met in Cosenza’ 'Me, Dottore?'

'Was introduced to, if you will. Someone I know - I'd rather not say who he was - knew that she was pregnant and didn't want to keep the baby, so he introduced me to her and I agreed to her conditions.'

'Financial conditions, Dottore?'

'Of course. That was the only thing she cared about. I don't like having to admit this, Commissario, but all she wanted was the money. I don't think she cared about the baby.'

That's unfortunate’

'Well, she got the money. Ten thousand Euros, and may it do her some good’

That’s a generous attitude, Dottore.'

'What wrong did she do, really? Got born in the wrong country. Came to a richer one. Found herself pregnant and didn't want the baby and found someone who did? In a way, perhaps she deserves credit for having taken the money and not come back later to ask me for more’

'I'm still not sure yet that I see why you went to talk to Dottor Franchi about this.'

‘Please, Commissario. There's no need for you to pretend to be stupid. Ever since I came into this room, eveiything's been about why I went to see Dottor Franchi. In fact, the biggest event in my life, and no doubt in my future, is going to be why I went to see Dottor Franchi.'

‘You say, Dottore, that it's all about why you went to see him. Would you tell me, then, why you did?'

'Because of something you told me.'

'I'm afraid I don't understand.'

'You told me that he had my medical records.'

'No, Dottore, I asked you if the information about any prescription you had made up in the pharmacy would be in your medical records.'

'But you mentioned the inappropriate use of information.'

'Yes, I did. But that was because, at the time, as" I said before, we had reason to believe that Dottor Franchi might be involved in blackmail.'

'That's not worm considering.'

‘I didn't realize you knew him so well.'

'Well enough to say that'

'And so you went to the pharmacy to talk to him about your son?'

'Yes, I did. Have you seen my medical file, Commissario?'

'Yes, I have.'

'May I ask where you saw it?'

‘It was on Dottor Franchi's computer.'

‘I thought so. Then why did you tell me he didn't have it?'

‘I didn't tell you that, Dottore. I told you that when we spoke the first time - that is, the first time you were able to talk to me - I asked if certain information would be in it. I did not tell you that he had it.'

'But he did have it?'

‘Yes, he did. But if you exclude the possibility of blackmail, then he made no use of it'

'Made no use of the file? Surely, you can't be that stupid, Commissario. Of course he made use of it. It was written there, clear enough for any idiot to read: "total sterility." This is a small town, Commissario; furthermore, Dottor Franchi and I are, in a sense, in the same business’

‘I don't follow you here, Dottore.'

‘I mean that he would know the gossip from the hospital. Surely you can follow that, Commissario. He would have heard about my supposed affair when I was at the medical conference, and he'd have been told about the illicit fruit - he'd probably think of it in those terms - of that affair. Other people probably sniggered when I brought Alfredo home, but he wouldn't do that: oh, no, Dottor Franchi would content himself with feeling compassion for the poor weak sinner. But think of his shock when he saw my medical records and realized that I'd been guilty, not of adultery, but of deceiving the state. And surely a man as righteous in the ways of the Lord as Dottor Franchi would think that this was as great a sin.'

‘I think you're mistaken, Dottore’ 'What do you mean, I'm mistaken? Alfredo was not my son: I broke the law by lying on an official government form and saying he was mine; I lied when I said I broke my marriage vows: God alone knows which of these would most offend his twisted sense of morality’ 'I think you're mistaken, Dottore.'

'I'm not mistaken. He's that sort of man. He loves to impose his ideas on other people, loves to see them punished for their sins. Look what he did to Romina: she's a zombie, going in and out of Palazzo Boldu every day, drugged out of her mind. And all because she wanted to marry and have children, and Dottor Franchi decided that manic depressives should not marry and have children. And I suppose-he decided that liars should not have children, either. Vicious, life-hating bastard.'

‘Dottore, please. Nothing's to be gained from this’

'No, nothing is, I suppose. But still, he's a bastard and he got.. ‘

Have you seen him, Dottore?'

'No, of course not. I've been in here, haven't I, since it happened?'

'Of course. Well, I've seen him.'

'Where?'

'In the hospital.'

'And?'

'And he's there. They don't know what they can do: they have to wait until it heals. There's talk of skin grafts. But...'

'But what?'

'But that's not the major problem.' 'What is?' . 'His eyes’ 'Both?'

'One's gone. The other, well, maybe they'll be able to save it or maybe there's the possibility of a transplant. And then there's his hand.'

*Yes, he tried to cover his face’

'I suppose that's instinctive. It could have been much worse’

'You mean if I hadn't put his face in the sink and turned on the water?'

'Yes.'

It was the only thing I could think of: it was

as instinctive as his trying to protect his face, I suppose. Maybe it’s because I'm a doctor. You just do things: you see an injured person and

you don't think about it: you just react. You remember what, they drilled into you in medical school, and you do it. And I remembered it then,

when I saw him, that the only thing to do is run water over it as soon as you can, and keep the water running.'

'The doctors think it made a difference. The grafts might be easier’

‘I see’

'Dottore, I think I have to explain something to you. You aren't going to believe me. But what I have to tell you is true, no matter how much you don't want to believe it’

'About Franchi?'

'Yes. In a way’

'What way?'

'He didn't call the Carabinieri.' 'How can you say that? How can you know that?'

They got an anonymous call. That's true. But it didn't come from Dottor Franchi.'

‘I don't believe you. The mother didn't want the baby; anyway, she knew where to find me if she wanted more money. She never called me, so there's no reason for her to have called the Carabinieri. Besides, if she had called them, it would only get her into trouble. She knew that. She'd never call them.'

It wasn't the woman.'

'See? I told you.'

"Yes, you did.'

'Well, who was it, then? Who told you?'

'I'm sorry to tell you this, Dottore, but it was your father-in-law. Yes, I know it's a shock, but I know it's true because he told me himself that he did it. I spoke to him some days ago, and he told me. I believe if s true.'

'Giuliano? Oddio, why would he do that? Why would he take our baby away?'

‘Perhaps he didn't think of it as your baby.'

'What do you mean?'

‘Perhaps he found it difficult to think of the baby as yours and your wife's.'

'Commissario, you're not telling me the truth, are you? Or you're not telling me everything you know. If you spoke to him and he told you, then he'd tell you why he did it. He boasts about everything he does, so he'd boast about this, too. Besides, Bianca would never forgive ...'

'I think you've had enough, Dottore.'

'Enough what?'

'Pain.'

'I'm not the only one. Why don't you tell me the last thing, Commissario, so we can end this conversation?'

'Your father-in-law told me that it wasn't his idea.'

'Oh, no. No. You can't expect me to believe that. She loved him. He was her son in everything, everything but his birth. She loved him. She was his mother. He was her baby. She watched him grow ... Well, what do you say, Commissario? Or do you still want me to believe your lie?'

‘I didn't say anything, Dottore: neither lie nor accusation. I didn't suggest it was your wife: you did.'

'Then Franchi didn't.. ‘

'No, Dottore. He may have told your friend's mother, and we know of other cases where he told people about what was in the medical records of people they knew.'

'But did you ask Franchi?'

‘I did, but he didn't answer.'

'Like me, eh?'

'Perhaps a bit. But in his case, I think it's because he can't.' 'Why?'

'The bandages. And they said his mouth was badly burned, as well.'

'My God, my God. What will happen?' 'To whom?' 'To him.'

'They have to wait.' 'And to me?'

'That will depend on your lawyer.' ‘Do I have to have one?' 'It would be best.'

'But do I have to have one?' 'No. You have the right to defend yourself, if you please. But it’s not a wise choice.' 'I haven't made any wise choices, have I?' 'No, you haven't.'

'I think the best thing is to return where I was, then.'

'I don't understand.'

'I couldn't speak when you saw me in the hospital that first time, but then my voice came back. I wasn't pretending, you know, Commissario. It came back, within a few days. But this time I think I don't want to talk because I have nothing more to say.'

I don't understand ... Dottore, I really don't understand. Dottor Pedrolli, are you listening? Dottore, can you hear me? Dottore? All right Vianello, would you open the door, and we'll take the Dottore back to his cell.'