answering the calls, or twenty, or a hundred; and assume that these lines were open twenty-four hours a day. A ten-minute call? Was he mad? This was an opportunity to speak to a compassionate listener, to reveal the painful details of the injured, unappreciated self. Besides, the ads said that the people who took the calls were ‘trained professionals’. Surely they had been trained to listen, though Brunetti was of a mind that the goal of their listening might be something other than the provision of aid and assistance to the low of spirit and weak of heart. Who could resist the lure to speak of the endlessly fascinating self? Who was immune to the question asked with sympathy and expressive of the desire to know the caller more deeply?
Brunetti had a reputation at the Questura as a skilled interrogator, for he often managed to enter into conversation with even the most hardened old lag. He kept to himself the truth that his goal was not conversation, but monologue. Sit, look interested, ask the occasional question but say as little as possible, be sympathetic to what is said and to the person saying it; and few detainees or suspects can resist the instinct to fill the silence with their own words. A few of his colleagues had the same skill, Vianello chief among them.
The more sympathetic the interrogator seemed, the more important it became for the person being questioned to win their goodwill, and that could be achieved most easily, many suspects believed, by making the interrogator understand their motives, and that, naturally, required a good deal of explanation. During most interrogations, Brunetti’s prime interest was in discovering what the other person had done and having them admit to it, while that other person too often became fixed on earning Brunetti’s comprehension and sympathy.
Just as the people who spoke to him seldom considered the legal consequences of their talk, those who spoke to the trained professionals in their various call centres would hardly consider the economic consequences of their own garrulity.
‘Here are the
Not trusting himself to speak, Brunetti took the paper bag holding the sandwiches and two half-litre bottles of mineral water and set it beside the computer. ‘Oh, I’m not sure I use them,’ he then said casually, quite as though he did, ‘but I like to check them every so often to see if there’s anything new.’ Deciding that instant to dine in the squad room, Brunetti opened the bag and took out one of the sandwiches. Tomato and prosciutto. He peeled back the napkin wrapping it and took a bite.
Chewing, he pointed with the
Riverre removed his jacket and stepped aside to drape it over the chair at his desk, then came back to Brunetti. ‘Well, I can’t say it’s my favourite, sir, but there’s one woman — I think she’s in Torino — who talks about children and the sort of problems they can have. Or that parents can have with them.’
‘The way kids are today,’ Brunetti agreed soberly, ‘that’s got to be a good thing.’
‘That’s what I think, sir. My wife has called her a few times to ask what we should do about Gianpaolo.’
‘He must be twelve by now, isn’t he?’ Brunetti asked, taking a stab at the age.
‘Fourteen, sir. But just turned. And he’s not a little boy any more, so we can’t treat him like he is.’
‘Is this what she’s said, the woman from Torino?’ Brunetti asked, finishing the first
‘And the woman in Torino? What does she say?’
‘She’s got a course we can take. Ten lessons that we can do, my wife and me together.’
‘In Torino?’ asked Brunetti, unable to hide his surprise.
‘Oh, no, sir,’ Riverre said with a gentle laugh. ‘We’re in the modern age now, me and my wife. We’re on line, so all we have to do is sign up, and the class comes to our computer, and then we watch the lessons and take the tests. They send you everything — quizzes and tests and study aids — at your email, and you send them back, and then they send you grades and comments.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said, and took a sip of water. ‘It’s ingenious, isn’t it?’
Riverre couldn’t stop himself from smiling at Brunetti’s comment. ‘Only thing is, sir, I don’t think we can do it right now, what with the vacation to pay for: we’re going to Elba next week. Camping, but it’s still expensive, for the three of us.’
‘Oh,’ Brunetti said with mild interest, ‘how much does the class cost?’
‘Three hundred Euros,’ Riverre answered and looked at Brunetti to see how he responded to the price. When his superior raised his eyebrows by way of answer, Riverre explained, ‘That’s with the tests and all the grading, you see.’
‘Humm,’ Brunetti said and nodded; he reached into the bag for the other sandwich. ‘It’s not cheap, is it?’
‘No,’ Riverre said with a resigned shake of his head. ‘But he’s our only child, and we want the best for him. I guess that’s sort of natural, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes, I think it is,’ Brunetti said and took a bite. ‘He’s a good boy, isn’t he?’
Riverre smiled, frowned in thoughtful consideration, then smiled again. ‘I think he is, sir. And he does well in school. No trouble.’
‘Then maybe you could wait a while on that class.’ He finished the second sandwich, regretted that he had asked Riverre to bring him only two, and drank the rest of the water.
Looking around, Brunetti said, ‘Where does the bottle go?’
‘Over there by the door, sir. The blue bin.’
Brunetti walked over to the plastic bins, put the bottle in the blue one and the paper bag and napkins in the yellow. ‘I see the hand of Signorina Elettra at work here,’ he said.
Riverre laughed. ‘I thought she’d have to use force when she first told us about them, but we’re used to it by now.’ Then, as though revealing a truth he had been considering for some time, he said, ‘It’s really a shame she isn’t in charge here, isn’t it, sir?’
‘You mean the Questura?’ Brunetti asked. ‘The whole thing?’
‘Yes, sir. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it?’
Brunetti opened the second bottle of water and took a long drink. ‘My daughter has an Iranian classmate: sweet young girl,’ he said, confusing Riverre, who had perhaps expected a response to his question.
‘Whenever she wants to express happiness, the expression she uses is, “Much, much, too, very.” ’ He took another drink of water.
‘I’m not sure I follow you, sir,’ Riverre said, his words mirrored in his face.
‘It’s the only thing I can think of to say in response to the idea of Signorina Elettra taking over here: “Much, much, too, very.” ’ He twisted closed the bottle, thanked Riverre for his lunch, and went downstairs to ask Signorina Elettra to make the changes to Scarpa’s staffing plans.
7
For the next few days, it appeared that some cosmic governing force had heard Brunetti’s wish that a deal be made with the forces of disorder, for crime went on holiday in Venice. The Romanians who played three card monte on the bridges appeared to have gone home on vacation, or else they had moved their work site to the beaches. The number of burglaries declined. Beggars, in response to a city ordinance banning them and subjecting them to severe penalties, disappeared for at least a day or two before going back to work. Pickpockets, of course, remained at their posts: they could go on vacation only in the empty months of November and February. Though the heat often drove people to violence, that was not the case this year. Perhaps there was some point where heat and humidity made the effort to throttle or maim too exhausting to be considered.
Whatever the cause, Brunetti was glad of the lull. He used some of his free time to consult more sites that offered spiritual or other-worldly help to those in need of it. He had read so widely in the Greek and Roman historians that he found nothing strange at all in the desire to consult the oracles or to find some way to decipher the messages of the gods. Whether it was the liver of a freshly killed chicken or the patterns made in the air by a flock of birds, the signs were there for those who could interpret them: all that was necessary was someone willing to believe the interpretation, and the deal was done. Cumae or Lourdes; Diana of Ephesus or the Virgin of Fatima:
