appearance of a burn and which gradually spread up her leg to her knee. The child had a high fever. All treatment proved futile until a public health official went to the car park and took a sample of the liquid, which proved to be heavy in PCBs, which had leaked there from barrels of toxic waste dumped there. Though the burns eventually healed, the child’s doctors were fearful for her future because of the neurological and genetic damage that had often been noted in animal experimentation with substances containing PCBs.
He set the magazine aside and went back to the medical record, reading it through a second time. The symptoms were identical, though no mention was made of where or how the child had made the original contact with the substance that must have produced the rash. ‘While on a picnic with his family,’ was the only thing the record said. Nor did the record carry any report of the treatment given to the child in Germany.
He picked up the envelope and examined it. The stamps were cancelled by a circular imprint that bore, within it, the words ‘Army Postal System’ and Saturday’s date. So, sometime on Friday or Saturday, she had put this in the mail for him, then tried to call him. It hadn’t been
He remembered something Butterworth had said about Foster; it was his job to see that used X-rays were taken away from the hospital. He had said something about other objects and substances, but he had said nothing about what they were or where they were dumped. Surely, the Americans would have to know.
This had to be the connecting link between the two deaths or else she would not have sent the envelope to him, then tried to call. The child had been her patient, but then he had been taken away and sent up to Germany, and there the medical record ended. He had the child’s last name, and Ambrogiani would certainly have access to a list of all the Americans stationed at the base, so it would be easy enough to learn if the boy’s family was still there. And if they weren’t?
He picked up the phone and asked the operator to get him Maggiore Ambrogiani at the American base in Vicenza. While he waited for the call to go through, he tried to think of a way all of this could be made to connect, hoping that it would lead him to whoever it was had pushed the needle into the doctor’s arm.
Ambrogiani answered by giving his name. He showed no surprise when Brunetti told him who it was, merely held the line and allowed the silence to lengthen.
‘Has there been any progress there?’ Brunetti asked.
‘They seem to have instituted a whole new series of drug tests. Everyone is subject to it, even the commander of the hospital. The rumour is he had to go into the men’s room and give a urine sample while one of the doctors waited outside. Apparently, they’ve done more than a hundred this week.’
‘With what results?’
‘Oh, none yet. All of the samples have to be sent up to Germany, to the hospitals there, to be tested. Then the results come down after a month or so.’
‘And they’re accurate?’ Brunetti asked, amazed that any organization could or would trust results that passed through so many hands, over so long a period of time.
‘They seem to believe so. If the test is positive, they simply throw you out.’
‘Who’s being tested?’
‘There’s no pattern. The only ones they’re leaving alone are the ones who keep coming back from the Middle East.’
‘Because they’re heroes?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No, because they’re afraid too many of them will test positive. Drugs are as easy to get in that part of the world as they were in Vietnam, and apparently they’re afraid it will create too much bad publicity if all of their heroes come back with souvenirs in their bloodstreams.’
‘Is it still given out that it was an overdose?’
‘Absolutely. One of my men told me her family wouldn’t even come to accompany the body back to America.’
‘So what happened?’
‘They sent it back. But it went back alone.’
Brunetti told himself it didn’t matter. The dead didn’t care about such things; it made no difference to them how they were treated or what the living thought of them. But he didn’t believe this.
‘I’d like you to try to get some information for me, Maggiore.’
‘If I can. Gladly.’
‘I’d like to know if there’s a soldier stationed there named Kayman.’ He spelled the name for Ambrogiani. ‘He has a son, nine years old, who was a patient of Doctor Peters. The boy was sent up to a hospital in Germany, at Landstuhl. I’d like to know if the parents are still there, and if they are, I’d like to be able to speak to them.’
‘Unofficial, all of this?’
‘Very.’
‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’
‘I’m not sure. She sent me a copy of the boy’s medical file, and an article about PCBs.’
‘About what?’
‘Toxic chemicals. I’m not sure what they’re made of or what they do, but I know disposing of them is difficult. And they’re corrosive. The child had a rash on his arm, probably caused by exposure to them.’
‘What’s that got to do with the Americans?’
‘I don’t know. That’s why I want to speak to the boy’s parents.’
‘All right. I’ll get busy with this now and call you this afternoon.’
