A Question of Belief

the mouth of the statue moved, and the truth came forth.

The women of Brunetti’s family had told the rosary, and as a boy he had often returned home from school on a Friday afternoon to find them kneeling on the floor in the living room, reciting their incantations. The practice, and the faith that animated it, had seemed to him then, and still seemed to him now, two generations later, an ordinary and understandable part of human life. Thus, to transfer belief in the beneficent powers of the Madonna to belief in the power of a person to make contact with departed spirits seemed — at least to Brunetti — a very small step along the highway of faith.

Never having dealt with a case that involved the misrepresentation of faith — if this, indeed, was what was at work in the strange behaviour of Vianello’s aunt — Brunetti was uncertain about the laws that operated. Italy was a country with a state religion; thus, the law tended to take a tolerant attitude towards the Church and the behaviour of its functionaries. Charges of usury, involvement with the Mafia, the abuse of minors, fraud, and extortion: these all managed to disappear, as if waved off by the legal equivalent of aspergillum and incense.

These sites, however, represented the competition to the religion of the state, and so the law might well take a dimmer view of their activities. And if the promises made in the churches were just as valid as those made on the websites, where did truth lie? Brunetti’s speculations were halted by the telephone.

Happy at the interruption, he answered with his name.

‘It’s me, Guido,’ Vianello said. ‘Loredano just called me. The bank director called him: he’s got my aunt there. She just withdrew three thousand Euros. He asked her to come up to his office for a moment to sign some papers.’

‘Who’s on patrol?’

‘Pucetti and a new recruit are on the way to Via Garibaldi.’

Brunetti sent his memory down one side of Via Garibaldi, up the other. ‘Banco di Padova?’

‘Yes. Next to the pharmacy.’

‘Did he say how long he can keep her there?’

‘Ten minutes. He said he’ll ask how the family is doing: that ought to keep her talking for a while.’

‘Where are you?’ Brunetti asked.

‘On Murano. Someone tried to grab a woman’s bag, and a mob formed and threw him in a canal. We had to come over to get him out.’

‘I’ll go and have a look,’ Brunetti said and replaced the phone, but not before he heard Vianello say, ‘She’s wearing a green shirt.’

He was so preoccupied with Vianello’s call that he was not prepared for the heat that hit him as he emerged from the Questura. It flowed over him in a single wave, and for a moment Brunetti didn’t know if the attack of sodden air would permit him to breathe. He stopped, stepped back into the miserable shadow cast by the lintel of the door, and took out his sunglasses. They cut the light, but they did nothing to help against the heat. His jacket, lightweight blue cotton, clung to him like an Icelandic sweater.

So sudden had been the assault of heat and light that it took Brunetti a moment to remember why he had come outside and then another to remember the way to Via Garibaldi.

‘Lunacy,’ he muttered to himself and crossed the bridge. He had no choice but to keep his eyes lowered against the glare and leave it to his feet to find the way. He wove left and right, giving no conscious thought to where he was going. His feet took him over another bridge, then to the right, and then he emerged into Via Garibaldi and wished he had not. The paving stones had had hours to bake, and the heat they sent up seemed a form of protest at their own helplessness. Caught between the unrelenting sun and the radiant heat from below, Brunetti could think of no way to protect himself. A woman brushed past him, saying ‘Con permesso’ more forcefully than she might have, but he was, after all, standing motionless on the pavement and blocking her exit from the calle. Her remark unblocked him and he stepped back into the entrance to the calle, which offered the minimal protection of shade.

After a moment, Brunetti mustered the courage to take a step out into Via Garibaldi and the heat. The bank stood down on the right; farther along, some tables hid under the umbrellas in front of a bar. At one of them sat Pucetti and a young woman, who was laughing at something the young officer said. She had light hair, cut boyishly short, which impression was contradicted by the tight white T-shirt she wore. Both of them wore sunglasses and Pucetti a black T-shirt that was every bit as tight as the girl’s without provoking the same effect.

Brunetti retreated into the calle, waited what he calculated to be a minute but knew must be less, and stepped forward again. Pucetti and the girl were getting to their feet. Brunetti noticed that she wore a very short skirt that showed tanned and attractive legs; both of them wore sandals. Between him and the two young police officers, an elderly woman stood in front of the bank, caught in that characteristically Venetian moment of calculating the shortest way to get somewhere. She looked up at the sky, as if she believed the exact temperature would be written there. She wore loose cotton trousers and a light green shirt with long sleeves. Her shoes were sensible brown pumps with a low heel, and she had the sturdy body common to women who have had many children and have been active all their lives. She carried a brown leather bag on her shoulder, both hands held in a firm grip on the straps. She set off to her left, down towards the embarcadero and Riva degli Schiavoni. As she walked, she stooped forward a bit and seemed to favour her left leg.

Just as she turned, the attractive young couple, who were farther along toward the boat stop, turned in the same direction and started walking ahead of her. Pucetti draped his arm over his companion’s shoulders, but it proved too hot, so they settled for holding hands as they walked. They paused to look into the window of a sporting goods shop, and the old woman passed them, paying no attention. They followed slowly, and Brunetti followed the three of them.

At the end of Via Garibaldi, the old woman walked on to the embarcadero and took a seat facing the water. The young couple stopped at the edicola, and the young man bought a copy of Men’s Health. A Number Two came from the left, and the old woman got to her feet. With no sign of haste, the young people swiped their iMOB cards and walked up into the waiting deck and on to the boat. As the boat was unmoored and starting to back away from the dock, Brunetti stepped on board just ahead of the gate the crewman was sliding closed.

The old woman sat in the cabin, in an aisle seat in the front row, closest to whatever air managed to sneak in from the open door. Pucetti had spread his magazine on the wooden counter behind the pilot’s cabin and was pointing to a grey linen jacket, asking his companion what she thought of it. His back was to the passenger cabin, but she was facing him, so she could see when the old woman got to her feet.

Brunetti came and stood alongside Pucetti. The young woman looked up at him and stood a bit straighter, but Pucetti, eyes still on the jacket, said, ‘I figured Vianello would call you, too, sir.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Do you want to continue the same way: we follow her and you follow us?’

‘Seems best,’ Brunetti said.

The boat pulled into the San Zaccharia stop, and Pucetti turned a few pages of the magazine, reaching out to draw his companion closer so that she could see something on the page. A few pages later, they passed under the Accademia Bridge, then San Samuele, and then Brunetti heard her say, ‘She’s getting up.’

Pucetti closed the magazine and leaned sideways to give the young woman a kiss on the side of her forehead. She bent her head close to his and said something, then they moved apart and got off at San Toma, a few passengers behind the old woman with the brown leather bag and a few in front of the man in the blue cotton jacket.

At the end of the calle, the old woman turned right and then left into the campo. She crossed at a diagonal, heading to the right and into a narrow calle that led back towards the Frari. By unspoken agreement, they divided up, Brunetti taking the calle to the farther right to see that they did not lose track of her in this warren of narrow and suddenly turning calli.

As Brunetti was about to turn into Calle Passion, he saw the old woman ahead of him, stopped in front of a building on the right, hand raised to ring the bell. He kept on directly past the entrance to the calle, stopped and turned around, and when he came back, he saw what could have been a foot disappearing into a doorway. He turned into the calle and past the door, making a note of the number as he did.

As he emerged into Campo dei Frari, the young couple were just turning into the