The Girl of his Dreams

28

'"Tiger man"?' Vianello repeated after Brunetti told him about his meeting with the Fornaris and the child. 'He didn't give you any better idea of what he was talking about?'

'No. Nothing. Someone who looked like a tiger to him – came in while they were inside the place and picked the little girl up and threw her out the door.' Brunetti paused, ran a hand through his hair, and added, 'At least that's what it sounded like.'

'And for this the boy wants to kill him?'

'There was a door to the terrace in the parents' bedroom,' Brunetti reminded him. 'She could have fallen off and slid down the roof from there.'

'You might be right about that,' Vianello conceded, ‘But I don't remember seeing a tiger skin.'

'Don't be literal-minded, Lorenzo. He's a child. Who knows what he means by a tiger man? It could be someone in striped pyjamas; it could be someone who yelled at them in a deep voice’

Vianello considered this, then added, 'We don't even know if the kid's using the right word, do we?' When Brunetti said nothing, Vianello said, 'You told me he barely spoke Italian. You think he'd know the word?'

Brunetti thought the boy's understanding of Italian was more than adequate, though what Vianello said might be true. Then he remembered the way the boy had fluffed out his hair like the head of a beast and had made those motions to suggest a tiger's stripes. But the world of a child's imagination did not have to correspond to an adult's.

'Poor devil’ Vianello said.

'You mean the kid?' Brunetti asked.

'Of course I mean the kid’ Vianello said quickly. 'How old is he? Twelve? He ought to be in school, not coming to the city to go to work by breaking into houses.' Brunetti restrained himself from commenting on the inconsistency of Vianello's opinions and waited for him to continue.

'He's a kid’ the Inspector repeated indignantly. 'He's not doing these things because it's his idea to do them.' He threw up his hands in disgust and made an angry noise in his throat.

'It sounds as if you do have a certain sympathy for at least one of them’ Brunetti observed, but he smiled after he said it, and Vianello did not take offence.

'Well, you know how it is: it's always easy to have sympathy in a particular case. It's when we look at things in general that we lump them all together and say those things. Stupid things.' Presumably, Vianello meant the things he had said earlier, which would make this an apology or something close to one.

'It's just that I get crazy, not being able to do anything’

Vianello went on, and Brunetti remained silent. 1 was talking to Pucetti before I came up. They had a call from that grocery store over by the Miracoli. Seems they had a drug addict in there this morning, waving a metal rod and threatening to break the place up if they didn't give him money.'

This was a story Brunetti had heard many times, and he feared he already knew the outcome. 'They gave him twenty euros,' Vianello went on, 'and all he did was go to the bar next door and buy a bottle of wine and then sit on the bench in front of the store and start to drink it. That's when the owner called us.' Vianello stretched his legs out and stared at his feet. He too had heard this same story many times.

'So Pucetti went over. He tried to get Alvise to go with him.' Vianello, gave a deep sigh, and shook his head. 'But he was too busy. So he took Fede and Moretti, and when they got there the guy was still sitting on the bench, like he'd just been passing by and decided to rest a while. The owner identified him, Pucetti wrote out a formal denuncia, and they brought the guy back here. And after two hours we let him go.'

Vianello appeared to have finished, but then he said, 'It's just like the Mutti guy. He's disappeared. Your friend Zeccardi called earlier.'

'What did he say?'

'Mutti was living in Dorsoduro. So the guys from the Finanza paid him a visit, asked to see the financial records of his organization, and he told them to come and see him in the group's office the next day.'

'And?' Brunetti asked, though, given the context into which Vianello had placed the subject, he was fairly certain what the story would be.

'They did. And he was gone. The address he gave for the office was a bar, where they'd never heard of him, and when they went back to where he was living, he'd cleared out the place. No one knew where he'd gone.'

'Raptured?' Brunetti asked, using the English word.

'What?' Vianello asked.

'Nothing, nothing,' Brunetti said. 'Bad joke.'

The prisons were overflowing, Brunetti knew, and the government had had too much flak over the last amnesty to be willing to declare another one so soon, so bulletins from the Ministry discouraged the police from arresting anyone except the most violent criminals. The resulting feeling of impotence, both on the part of the police and on the part of the public, was a cause of simmering anger to both, but there was no way of changing anything.

'All right,' Brunetti said, pushing himself to his feet. 'This isn't going to help us or get us anywhere, sitting here and moaning.'

'What do you suggest?'

'That we go and get a coffee and see about finding a way to get someone to watch the Fornari place.' When he saw Vianello's expression, Brunetti explained, 'I'm curious to see if anyone goes to see them.'

'Anyone like who?' asked Vianello, intrigued.

'That's what I'd like to find out. Because that might tell me why they went.'

Over coffee, the two men discussed the problem of staffing and logistics but came up with no way to keep the Fornari house under surveillance. Anyone seen lurking in a dead end calle such as that one would soon call attention to himself. They discussed and dismissed every possibility until Vianello was finally forced to ask, 'Who do you think it is that will go calling?' 'The girl's father.'

The answer appeared to surprise the Inspector. 'You think he cares?'

'No, but I think he might see it as an opportunity to get some money out of them.'

'You're assuming he knows what happened to the girl, aren't you?' Vianello asked. 'And that the Fornaris do, too.'

Before he answered, Brunetti recalled his initial visit, when Fornari's wife had seemed curious to find the police in her house, but hardly worried; and his second, when both she and her husband had given signs of great distress. They must have learned something in the ensuing time: Brunetti wanted to know what it was and who had been the bearer of that information.

A silence fell between the men as each considered the possibilities of action open to them. After some time, Brunetti said, making it sound the sort of natural everyday thing a father would do, ‘I can ask my kids.'

'Ask them what?' Vianello said, unable to disguise his astonishment.

'If they know either of their children. And what they might have heard about them.' Vianello's look was so long and serious that it made Brunetti uncomfortable.

'They're of an age,' Brunetti said, then added, 'well, close to it.'

'Thank God mine are still too young,' Vianello said with suspicious blandness.

'For what?' Brunetti asked, though he knew what was coming.

'To work for us,' the Inspector said.

Brunetti resisted the impulse to defend himself. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost three. ‘I’m going home’ he said, getting to his feet.

Vianello too had apparently said as much as he chose to say.

If anyone wants me, tell them I had to go out, all right?' he asked Vianello. 'Of course.'

Even the Chief Augur would not have been able to find a hidden message in Vianello's voice, though Brunetti knew there was one. Brunetti walked around his desk, and patted Vianello on the shoulder. Then he left the Questura and went home.

He broached the subject at dinner, between the risotto with spinach and the pork with mushrooms. Chiara -who appeared to have abandoned vegetarianism – looked somehow different that evening, said that she didn't know Ludovica Fornari but knew of her.

'Of?' Brunetti asked, placing another piece of pork on his plate.

'Even I've heard about her’ Raffi offered, then returned his attention to the bowl of carrots with ginger.

'What have you heard?' Brunetti enquired mildly.

Paola shot him a glance as sharp as it was suspicious and interrupted to ask, 'Chiara, is that my Passion Flower you're wearing?' Brunetti had no idea to what the name referred. Because Chiara was wearing a white cotton sweater, it was not likely to be an article of clothing: that left lipstick or whatever else might be applied to a face. Or perfume, though he had not been aware of any, and Paola usually never wore scent.

'Yes’ Chiara said with a certain hesitation.

‘I thought so’ Paola said with a wide smile. 'It looks very good on you.' She tilted her head to one side and studied her daughter's face. 'Probably better on you than it does on me, so maybe you'd better keep it.'

'You don't mind, do you, Mamma?' Chiara asked.

'No, no, not at all.' Looking brightly around the table, Paola said, 'There's only fruit for dessert, but I think tonight might be a good time to open the gelato season. Anyone willing to go over to Giacomo dell'Orio to get it?'

Raffi speared the remaining wheels of carrot and put them into his mouth, set his fork down, and raised his hand. 'I'll go.'

'But what about flavours?' Paola, who had never in her life shown any interest at all in the flavours of icecream she ate – so long as she got a lot of it – asked with transparently false brightness. 'Chiara, why don't you go with your brother and help him decide?'

Chiara pushed her chair back and got to her feet. 'How much?'

'Get the biggest container they have: we should begin the year with a bang, I think.' Then, to Raffi, 'Take the money from my purse. It's near the door.'

Before Brunetti could finish his dinner and in open defiance of family tradition, the children were out the door and pounding down the stairs.

Brunetti set his fork down, conscious in the silence of the sound it made as it tapped the wood of the table. 'And what was that all about, if I might ask?' he said.

'It's about not turning my children into spies’ Paola said heatedly. Then, before he could begin to defend himself, she added, 'And don't say you were just asking idle questions, making conversation over dinner. I know you too well to believe that, Guido. And I won't have it’

Brunetti looked at his plate, suddenly wondering how he had managed to eat so much, for why else would he suddenly feel so uncomfortably full? He sipped the last of his wine and set the glass back on the table.

She was right. He knew that, but it angered him to have it pointed out to him so sharply. He looked at his plate again, picked up his fork and set it across the plate, then placed the knife in a neat parallel next to it.

'And, Guido, you wouldn't have it, either, not really’ she said in a far softer voice. 'I said I knew you too well.' There was a pause, and then she said, 'You wouldn't like it if you had done it.'

He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. He picked up his plate to carry it into the kitchen. Behind her chair he stopped and put his hand on her shoulder; hers covered his immediately.

‘I hope they bring some chocolate’ he said, his appetite suddenly restored.