The Girl of his Dreams

24

A day passed, during which Brunetti was kept busy compiling a report on patterns of crime in the Veneto: Patta would use this information for a speech he was to deliver at a conference to be held in Rome in two months. Rather than foist the research on to Signorina Elettra or the men in his department, Brunetti decided to do it himself and thus spent hours each day reading police files from all over the Veneto as well as checking figures available from other provinces and countries.

As he searched the current statistics, he was assailed by those four words: Zingari, Rom, Sinti, Nomadi, for the majority of the people arrested for certain crimes belonged to them. Robbery, theft, breaking and entering: time and time again, those arrested were nomads of one sort or another. Even without records of the arrest of children for these crimes, a reader did not have to be particularly skilled in the arcana of police files to be able to interpret the repeated explanation given for the use of police vehicles for trips on the mainland: 'return child to guardian', 'return unaccompanied minors to parents'.

Brunetti read of one case of a young man who had been arrested numerous times but who had repeatedly claimed to be only thirteen and thus too young to be arrested. In the absence of written proof of his identity, the presiding magistrate ordered a complete body X-ray to be taken of him so as to determine his age by the condition of his bones.

The nomads had, all these centuries, managed to keep themselves almost completely separated from the societies in whose midst they lived. Horse-traders and trainers, tinkers, gem-setters by trade, most of their jobs had been rendered obsolete in the modern age. But they continued to live off what they called the gadje – considering theft not much different from trade. During the last war, this alienation had cost them dear, for they had gone to their death in frightening numbers.

As he continued to compile statistics from other regions, the pattern became more common: break-ins, pickpocketing, burglary: all over the country, members of the nomad groups were arrested in disproportionate numbers and with disproportionate frequency. But there were some cases – especially a particularly vile one in Rome – of organized prostitution, the children rented out, it would appear, by members of the clans to the men interested in their services. Brunetti thought of the autopsy report.

Though he forced himself back to the examination of general crime statistics, that particular case continued to nag at him, and the girl's face, both in death and in the photos he had placed on the steps of the caravan, would return to him at odd times and more than once in his dreams. Pushing those memories aside, he forced himself back to the business of tabulating comparisons among the numbers of crimes, but when he found himself at a loss for the Venetian equivalent of automobile theft, he stopped and gave up for the moment.

'See if there's anything that can be done for the mother,' Patta had enjoined him. Brunetti had no idea what could be done for the mother of an eleven-year-old girl who had drowned, and he suspected that the Vice-Questore would also be at a loss. But Patta had given the command, and Brunetti would obey it.

This time the car that took him there belonged to the Squadra Mobile, and the driver, when Brunetti told him where he wanted to go, recognized the name of the camp. 'Be easier if we just ran a normal service like a bus, Commissario,' he said. He was a man in his forties and had slipped into the dialect he heard Brunetti speak. He was tall and fair-skinned, with an open, relaxed manner. 'Why's that?' Brunetti asked.

'Because we go out there so often. Or maybe it's more like a taxi service for their kids.'

'Like that, eh?' Brunetti asked, noticing that the trees were in stronger bloom today: the green was darker, more sure of itself. 'Sounds bad.'

'Not my place to say whether it's bad or good, sir,' the driver said. 'But after you do it for a while, it's got to look pretty strange.'

'Why?'

'It's like there's a different law for them than there is for the rest of us.' He risked a side glance at Brunetti, and sensing that the Commissario was both listening and interested, the driver went on. ‘I’ve got two kids at home: six and nine. Can you imagine what would happen if I refused to send them to school and if they got brought home for stealing? Six times? Ten times?'

'What would be different?' Brunetti asked although he had a pretty fair idea.

'Well, for one thing, I'd pound both of them into next week,' the driver said with a smile, making it clear that 'pound' would translate into strong words and no television for a month. 'And I'd lose my job. That's for sure. Or it would be so hard for me to keep it that I'd quit.' That, Brunetti suspected, was a bit of an exaggeration, but he was reminded of similar cases, when the children of policemen had been arrested, and their fathers' careers had been damaged seriously.

'How else?'

'Well, if they kept away for a long time, I suppose the social services could step in and take the kids away, maybe send them to foster homes. I don't know.'

'You think that would be right?' Brunetti asked.

The driver changed lanes smoothly and didn't speak for some time, eyes careful on the road. 'Well, speaking for myself, sir, for my own family, I think it would be too much. Really I do. I'd find a way to stop them.' He thought about this, then said, 'Well, maybe these people wouldn't like to have their kids taken away, either, now that I think about it.' Another long silence, and then the driver said, ‘I guess we don't all have to love our kids in the same way, eh?'

'No, I suppose not,' Brunetti agreed.

'And the kids, what do they know about anything?'

'I'm not sure I follow you,' Brunetti said.

'What they get is normal, isn't it? I mean, to them it is. All kids know about a family is what they see around them. That's what's normal. For them, I mean.' He let Brunetti consider this and then added, 'When I take them back, it's obvious the kids love their families.' 'And the parents?'

'Oh, they love the kids; at least the mothers do. That's obvious, too.'

'Even though it's the police who's bringing them back?' Brunetti asked.

The driver let out a surprised laugh. 'Oh, that doesn't matter to them, sir. They're happy, and the kids are, too.' He stole a glance at Brunetti in the mirror and said, ‘I guess family's always family, eh, sir?'

'I suppose so,' Brunetti agreed. 'Still, if the police brought your kids home…'

'That wouldn't happen to begin with, sir. My kids are in school, and if they weren't there, we'd know about it.' Then, suddenly changing the subject, the driver said, ‘I never got much of an education, sir. So here I am, driving a police car for a living.'

'Don't you like it?' Brunetti asked, not certain how one subject had led to the other.

'No, sir, it's not that I don't like it. Times like this, when I get to talk to someone, well, someone who talks to me like I was a person or something, I like it. But what sort of life is this for a man? Driving other people around, and knowing those other people are always going to be more important than I am? I'm a police officer, yes, and I get the uniform and a gun, but all I'm ever going to do is drive this car. Until I retire.'

'Is that why you think it's important your children go to school?' Brunetti asked.

'Exactly. They get an education, they can do something with their lives’ He put on the indicator and started up the exit ramp of the autostrada. He glanced briefly at Brunetti and said, ‘I mean, that's all that matters, isn't it, that our kids have a better life than we did?'

'Let's hope, eh?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes, sir,' the officer answered.

He drove through the exit from the autostrada, stopped at a red light and looked both ways, then turned to the left. Because of the oncoming traffic or perhaps because he had said all he had to say, the driver grew silent, and Brunetti shifted his attention to the passing scenery. It was difficult for him to understand how drivers found their way back to a place. So much could change: trees and flowers blossomed or died, fields were ploughed or harvested, parked cars changed their places. And if a driver lost his way, it was difficult to pull over and stop, even worse to try to go back in the direction from which he had come. And there was the perpetual irritation of traffic, cars buzzing at them like insects from every side.

They made another turn. Brunetti looked around and recognized nothing. The houses disappeared and the world turned green.

After some time the car pulled up at the gates to the camp. The driver got out and opened them, came back and drove inside, then got out again and closed them. If they were so easy to open, what purpose did the gates serve?

Two men sat on the steps of one of the caravans; three others stood around the open bonnet of a car, bent over and peering inside. None of them acknowledged the arrival of the police car, though Brunetti saw from the sudden stillness that passed over their bodies like a wave that they were aware of it.

Brunetti got out of the car, motioning to the uniformed driver to remain inside. He walked towards the three men at the car. 'Buon giorno, signori’ he said.

One after the other, they glanced at him, then back into the viscera of the car. One of them said something Brunetti could not understand, pointing to a plastic bottle with a hose running through a red cap on the top. He reached forward and prodded it so hard that the liquid inside it could be seen to ripple, then the other two remarked on what he had done.

The three men stood upright and, as if they had practised the manoeuvre, pushed themselves away from the car at the same instant and headed back towards the caravans. After a time, Brunetti approached the two men sitting oh the steps. They glanced at him as he approached.

'Buon giorno, signori,' he said.

'No italiano,' one of them said, smiling at his friend.

Brunetti walked back to the police car. The driver rolled down the window and looked at Brunetti, who asked, 'You know a lot about cars?'

'Yes, sir, I do.'

'Anything wrong with any of the cars you see here? I mean legally wrong.' Brunetti added, pointing with his chin to the circle of cars in front of them.

The driver opened the door and got out. He took two steps nearer the cars and ran his eyes carefully over them. 'Two of them have broken tail lights,' he turned to tell Brunetti. 'And three of them are driving on tyres that are almost bald.' He looked at Brunetti, then asked, 'You want more?'

'Yes.'

The driver walked over to the line of cars and, one by one, made a careful circuit of them, glancing into the back seats to check for seat belts, looking for broken headlights and the absence of green insurance cards.

He walked back to Brunetti and said, 'Three of them can't be driven legally. One has tyres that might as well not be there, and two of them have insurance cards that expired more than three years ago.'

'That enough to get them towed away?' Brunetti asked.

'I'm not sure, sir. I've never worked in traffic.' He glanced back at the cars, then added, 'But it might be.'

'We'll see,' Brunetti said. 'Who's got jurisdiction here?'

'The province of Treviso’

'Good,' Brunetti answered.

Brunetti had often reflected on the meaning of the phrase 'net worth', especially as it was used in an attempt to calculate the wealth of a person. It usually included their investments, homes, bank accounts, possessions: only those things which could be seen, touched, counted. Never considered, as far as he could tell, were such intangibles as the good or ill will which followed a person through life, the love he gave or the love which was felt for him, nor, important in this instance, the favours he was owed.

Brunetti, whose net financial worth could easily be quantified, had vast other resources upon which he could draw, in this case a university classmate who was now Vice-Questore of Treviso and upon whose order, thirty minutes later, three police tow trucks, one after the other, pulled up to the gates to the nomad camp.

Brunetti's driver opened the gates, and the trucks drove in. From the first one, a uniformed police officer climbed down and, ignoring Brunetti and the driver, walked over to the first of the three cars Brunetti had reported. Using a hand-held computer, he typed in the licence plate, waited for the response to come up on the screen, then typed in some more information. After a moment, the computer spat out a small sheet of white paper, which the officer tucked under the windscreen wiper of the car. He followed the same process with two other cars, and when he was finished, waved his hand to the drivers of the three trucks.

With a precision Brunetti could but admire, they drove their trucks closer to the rear of the cars, turned, backed up to them, and got out. In a motion as practised as that of the three nomads pushing themselves away from the hood of the car, they attached their tow hooks to the backs of the cars and returned to the cabs. The fourth officer saluted Brunetti, climbed back into the cab of the first truck, and slammed his door. The engines of the three trucks whined to a new pitch. Slowly, the rear ends of the cars rose into the air. Then the trucks lined up in a row and drove through the gate, each towing a car. Outside, they stopped, and the same officer got out and came back to close the gates. The trucks drove off. The entire operation had lasted less than five minutes.

Brunetti's driver returned to their car, but Brunetti remained standing in front of it. After a few minutes, the man who had acted as leader the last time Brunetti visited the camp opened the door to his caravan and came down the steps. Brunetti took a few steps forward. Tanovic walked over and stopped about a metre from him.

'Why you do that?' he asked angrily, jerking his head aside to indicate the places where the cars had stood.

‘I don't want you people to run any risks,' Brunetti said. Then, before the man could speak, he added, 'It's dangerous to break some laws.'

'What laws we break?' the man asked, pumping indignation into his voice.

'Having insurance when you drive a car,' Brunetti explained. 'And headlights, and seat belts. You didn't do the things the police want you to do.'

'No need take cars,' the man said, making the jerking motion again.

'You're here, aren't you?' Brunetti asked. 'Talking to me.'

The man's eyes widened at this, as if he preferred to play the game of power without ever talking about the moves that were being made. ‘I come other time,' he said. ‘I busy now.'

‘I don't have time to waste,' Brunetti said in a very unpleasant voice. 'You waste my time. I waste your time.'

The man did not want to enter into a discussion of this. 'What you want?'

'I'd like to speak to Signor and Signora Rocich.'

The man stared at Brunetti as though he still expected him to answer his question.

Brunetti waited for him to speak. He had seen the blue Mercedes with the damaged fender when they drove in. He waited a bit longer then sighed and turned away. He walked over to the police car, bent to the window and said, loud enough for the other man to hear, 'You think you could call them in Treviso again?'

'Wait, wait,' he heard Tanovic say from behind him. 'He just come.'

Brunetti straightened up. The other man walked over to the caravan from which Rocich had emerged the last time and stamped his foot on the bottom step: once, twice, three times. Then he backed off two steps. Brunetti joined him. The man pulled a telefonino from the pocket of his leather jacket and punched in a number. Brunetti heard a phone ring twice, then it was answered with a single, shouted word. The man answered with two and broke the connection. He turned to Brunetti and gave a wolfish smile, as if to offer this as his next move in whatever game they were playing.

The door to the Rocich caravan opened and the same short man emerged. He came down the steps and paused at the bottom. Brunetti felt, as if it were heat radiating from a furnace, rage emanating from the man. Nothing, however, showed on his face, as impassive as the last time.

He walked the two steps to them and asked something of the other man, who answered him quickly. Rocich began to object, or so it sounded to Brunetti, but he was cut off. As their dialogue continued, Brunetti, who gave every appearance of paying no attention at all, and who could in fact follow only the way the men moved and the rising and falling tones of their voices, felt the rage in Rocich grow.

Brunetti folded his arms and spread a look of infinite boredom across his face. He turned away from the men and let his eye roam up the hill, then, chin still raised, he took a quick glance at the caravan, where again he detected signs of motion, this time behind both of the windows, now only a few metres away. He turned his head to the other side and looked out at the road that passed the camp, pursed his lips impatiently, then looked quickly back at the caravan, where he could now distinguish what looked like two heads at the windows.

Tanovic broke away and walked back to his caravan. He walked up the stairs and went inside, closing the door softly. That left Brunetti and Rocich.

'Signor Rocich, I'm sorry about the death of your daughter’

The man spat on the ground, but he turned his head away before he did it.

'Signor Rocich, I'm the one who found her body. I took her out of the canal,' Brunetti said, almost as if he hoped this would establish some sort of a bond with the man, though well he knew the impossibility of that.

'What you want, money?' Rocich asked.

'No. I'd like to know what your daughter was doing in Venice that night.'

The man shrugged.

'Did you know she was there?'

He repeated the shrug.

'Signor Rocich, was your daughter alone?'

The difference in their heights was such that the man had to bend his head back to meet Brunetti's eyes. When he did, it was only by force of will that Brunetti prevented himself from taking a step backward and out of the radiant circle of this man's almost incandescent anger. Brunetti had encountered rage as a response to a loved one's death many times before, but this was different, for the rage was directed at Brunetti himself and not at the fate that had cost the child her life.

He had told the man in charge that he wanted to speak to Signor and Signora Rocich both, but he realized now that any attempt on his part to speak to. the woman, anything in fact that called attention to her or suggested any interest in her, would probably be paid for in ways Brunetti did not want to think about.

The man spat on the ground again, then looked down as if he wanted to see how close he had managed to come to Brunetti's shoe. While Rocich's gaze was lowered, Brunetti looked boldly across at the caravan, where half of a woman's face was now visible behind the door.

Brunetti raised his voice and asked, 'Do you have a doctor here?'

Obviously the question confused Rocich, who said, 'What?'

'A doctor? Do you have a doctor?' 'Why you ask?'

Brunetti put on an air of irritated patience. 'Because I want to know. I want to know if you have a doctor, if you have a family doctor.' Again, the word 'family' slipped into his conversation and into his mind. Before Rocich could refuse, Brunetti said. 'There are records, Signor Rocich. I don't want to have to waste more time looking for them.'

'Calfi, he doctor for all,' Rocich answered, waving a hand backwards over the entire camp.

Brunetti went to the unnecessary trouble of pulling out his notebook and writing down the doctor's name.

Rocich couldn't let it go. 'Why you want?'

'Your daughter was sick when she died,' he said. True enough. 'And the police doctor wants to see the blood records of the people here.'

He wondered how much of this Rocich understood. Apparently enough for him to ask, 'Why?'

'Because when the doctor checks all the blood types he will see who she got the disease from,' Brunetti lied.

Rocich's response was involuntary. His eyes widened, and his head whipped around towards the door of the caravan, but by the time he looked, no one was standing at the door or at the window and the caravan gave every evidence of being empty. When Rocich looked back at

Brunetti, the nomad's expression was blank. ‘I no understand,' he said.

'It doesn't matter,' Brunetti said, 'whether you do or you don't. But we want to check.'

Rocich turned away from him then and went back up the stairs of the caravan. He went inside and closed the door. Brunetti had the driver take him back to Piazzale Roma.