Wilful behaviour

tragedy of his father's life.

'Most men don't, do they?' she asked, but there was only sadness in her tone.

'What do you mean? Of course we have friends.' In the face of her visible sympathy, Brunetti could not keep the indignation from his voice.

‘I think most men don't, Guido, but you know that’ s what I think because I've said it so many times. You have what the Americans call 'pals', men you can talk to about sports or politics or cars.' She considered what she had said. 'Well, since you live in Venice and work for the police, I guess you can substitute guns and boats for cars. Things, always things. But in the end it's the same: you never talk about what you feel or fear, not the way women do’

'Are we talking about lack of friends or the fact that we don't talk about the same things women do? I'm not sure they're the same’

This was an old battle, and Paola apparently was in no mood to fight it again that evening, not with Brunetti in so fragile a mood and not with a long class to prepare for the following morning. 'There aren't going to be too many evenings like this one left, do you think?' she asked, holding the remark out as a flag of truce. 'Shall we get a glass of wine and go out and sit on the terrace?'

The sun's already set’ he said, not willing to give in so easily and still stung by the implication that he had no friends.

'We can watch the glow, then. And I'd like to sit beside you and hold your hand.' 'Goose’ he said, moved.

Claudia did not appear in class the following day, a fact which Paola noted but to which she paid little attention. Students were by definition unreliable, though she had to admit that Claudia had seemed not to be. The reason for her absence was made clear to her in a phone call from Brunetti, which reached her at her office at the university later that same afternoon.

‘I have bad news for you’ he began, filling her with instant terror for the safety of her family. Sensing that, Brunetti said, voice as calm as he could make it, 'No, it's not the children’ He gave her a moment to register that and then went on, 'It's Claudia Leonardo. She's dead’

Paola had a flash of memory of Claudia's turning back from the door of the classroom and saying that Lily Bart's death had broken her heart. Please let someone's heart be broken by Claudia's death, she had time to think, before Brunetti went on: There was a burglary in her apartment, and she was killed.'

'When?'

'Last night.'

'How?'

'She was stabbed.' 'What happened?'

'What I was told was that her flatmate came back this morning and found her. Claudia was on the floor: it looks as if she came in and found whoever it was and he panicked.'

'With a knife in his hand?' Paola asked.

‘I don't know. I'm just telling you what it sounds like for now.'

'Where are you?'

There. I just got here. I've got Vianello's telefonino.' 'Why did you call?'

'Because you knew her and I didn't want you to hear about it some other way.'

Paola let a long silence stretch out between them. 'Was it quick?'

1 hope so,' was the only answer he could give. 'Her family?'

'I don't know. I told you I just got here. We haven't even looked at the place yet.' There was a noise in the background, a voice, two voices, and then Brunetti said, 'I've got to go. Don't expect me before tonight.' And then he was gone.

Gone perhaps from the sound of his wife's voice but not from the presence of death, an apartment in Dorsoduro, not far from the Pensione Seguso but back two streets from the Canale della Giudecca.

He handed the telefonino back to Vianello, who put it in the pocket of his jacket. Not for the first time, Brunetti found himself surprised by the sight of Vianello in civilian clothes, the result of his too-long-delayed promotion to Ispettore. Though the wrapping had changed, the contents were the same: reliable, honest, clever Vianello had responded to Brunetti's call, which had caught him at home, just about to spend his day off on a shopping expedition to the mainland with his wife. Brunetti was grateful for Vianello's instinctive willingness to join him: the solid, confident bulk of the man would help him with what was to come.

Vianello had overheard Brunetti's conversation and made no attempt to pretend that he had not. 'Your wife knew her, sir?'

'She was one of her students,' Brunetti explained.

If Vianello thought it strange that Brunetti knew this, he kept it to himself and suggested, 'Shall we go up, sir?'

A uniformed officer stood at the door to the street, another at the top of the second flight of steps, directly before the open door of the apartment. The rest of the building, in which there were three other apartments, might as well have been empty, so profound was the silence that radiated from all the closed doors. Yet Claudia's flatmate was in one of those apartments, he knew, for their landlady had said so when she phoned.

Brunetti did not hesitate at the door but went directly into the apartment. The first thing he saw was her hand, fingers clutched in a death grip among the pieces of fringe at the end of a dark red carpet. A Turkoman, its centre field was filled with hexagonal white ghuls on a deep red field. The design was neat and geometrical, the stylized flowers arranged in rows, white bars creating a border at top and bottom. The pattern was interrupted at one end, where her blood had flowed into the carpet, staining the white with a red just a bit lighter than the red of the carpet. Brunetti saw that one of the flowers had been blotted out; blotted out with her life.

He moved his eyes to the left and saw the back of her head and her neck, white and defenceless. She was turned away, so he walked around to the other side of the room, careful where he set his feet, until he could look down and see her face. It too was white and seemed strangely relaxed. No expression could be read on it, just as no expression could be read on the face of a person who was sleeping. Brunetti wished there were some way he could make this make a difference.

Standing still, he looked around the apartment for signs of violence, but he saw none. A plate holding a few slices of apple, darkened and dry now, stood in the centre of a low table to one side of a print-covered easy chair. On one arm, a book lay face down. Brunetti moved over to the chair and glanced down at the title: The Faustian Bargain. It meant nothing to him, as meaningless as the apparent calm with which she had met her death.

This was no robbery’ Vianello said.

'No, it wasn't, was it?' Brunetti agreed. Then what?'

'Lovers' quarrel?' Vianello offered, though it was obvious he didn't believe this. There had been no quarrel here.

Brunetti went over to the door and asked the young officer there, 'Did the flatmate say anything about the door? Was it open or closed?' He noticed that the young man had nicked his chin shaving, though he seemed barely old enough to need to shave.

‘I don't know, sir. When I got here, one of the neighbours had already taken her downstairs.'

Brunetti nodded in acknowledgement, then asked. The knife? Or whatever it was?'

‘I didn't see anything, sir,' he said apologetically, then added, 'Maybe it's under her.'

‘Yes, that could be’ Brunetti said and turned back toward Vianello. 'Let’s take a look at the other rooms.'

Vianello stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers; Brunetti did the same. Both had forgotten to bring along disposable gloves but knew they could get them when the medical examiner showed up.

The bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom gave up no information other than that one of the girls was much neater than the other and that the neat one was a reader: Brunetti was in little doubt as to which would turn out to be which.

Back in the living room, Vianello asked, The flatmate?'

Again Brunetti went to the door. Pausing only long enough to tell the officer to come down and get him as soon as the medical examiner arrived, Brunetti led the way downstairs.