'He's a minor Bembo said.
'I'm not sure I follow you, sir' Brunetti said, careful to smile to
show his confusion. He could have understood if Bembo had said
something about military rank or the need to respond only to orders
from a direct superior, but to cite the boy's youth as a reason why he
should not talk to the police displayed what seemed to Brunetti an
inordinate attention to legal detail. 'I'm not sure I see how Cadet
Ruffo's age is important.'
'It means his parents should be with him when you talk to him.'
'Why is that, sir?' Brunetti asked, curious to hear Bembo's reason.
It took a moment for Bembo to find it. Finally he said, To see that he
understands the questions you ask.'
His doubts as to the boy's ability to understand simple questions
hardly spoke well of the quality of instruction on offer at the school.
Brunetti turned back to the cadet, who stood rigid, arms rod-like at
his side, his chin a stranger to his collar. 'You understood what I
asked you, didn't you, Cadet?'
'I don't know, sir the boy answered, keeping his eyes on the wall.
'We were talking about his classes, sir Brunetti said, 'and Cadet Ruffo
was telling me how much he enjoyed Physics.'
'Is this true, Ruffo?' the Comandante demanded, not the least
concerned that he was openly doubting Brunetti's veracity.
'Yes, sir the boy answered. 'I was telling the gentleman that I had
two elective subjects and how much I liked them.'
'Don't you like the required subjects?' Bembo demanded. Then, to
Brunetti: 'Was he complaining about them?'
'No/ Brunetti answered calmly. 'We didn't discuss them.' He wondered,
as he spoke, why Bembo should be so concerned at the mere possibility
that a student had said
something negative about his classes. What else would a student be
expected to say about his classes?
Abruptly Bembo said, 'You can go, Ruffo.' The boy saluted and,
ignoring Brunetti's presence, walked out of the room, leaving the door
open after him.
Till thank you to let me know before you question any of my cadets
again Bembo said in an unfriendly voice.
Brunetti hardly thought it worth contesting the point, so agreed that
he would. The Comandante turned towards the door, hesitated for a
moment as though he wanted to turn back and say something to Brunetti,
but then thought better of it and left.
Brunetti found himself alone in Ruffo's room, feeling in some way
invited there as a guest and thus bound by the rules of hospitality,
one of which was never to betray the host's trust by invading the
privacy of his home. The first thing Brunetti did was to open the
front drawer of the desk and remove the papers he found there. Most of
them were notes, what appeared to be rough drafts for essays the boy
was writing; some were letters.
'Dear Giuliano,' Brunetti read, entirely without shame or scruple.
'Your aunt came to see me last week and told me you were doing well in
school.' The calligraphy had the neat roundness of the generation
previous to his own, though the lines wandered up and down, following
an invisible path known only to the writer. It was signed 'Nonna'.
Brunetti glanced through the other papers, found nothing of interest,
and put them all back into the drawer.
He opened the doors of the closet next to Ruffo's desk and checked the
pockets of the jackets hanging there; he found nothing but small change
and cancelled vaporetto tickets. There was a laptop computer on the
desk, but he didn't even waste his time turning it on, knowing he would
have no idea what to do with it. Under the bed, pushed back against
the wall, he saw what looked like a violin case. The books were
what he would have expected: textbooks, a driver's manual, a history of
AC Milan and other books about soccer. The bottom shelf held musical
scores: Mozart's violin sonatas and the first violin part of one of the
Beethoven string quartets. Brunetti shook his head in bemusement at
the contrast between the music in the Discman and the music on the
shelf. He opened the door to the closet that must belong to Ruffo's
roommate and cast his eye across the surface of the second desk, but he
saw nothing of interest.
Struck again by the neatness of the room, the almost surgical precision
with which the bed was made, Brunetti toyed for a moment with the idea
of drugging his son Raffi and having him brought down here to be
enrolled. But then he remembered what it was that had brought him to
this room, and levity slipped away on silent feet.
The other rooms were empty or, at least, no one responded to his
knocking, so he went back towards the bathroom where the boy had been
found. The scene of crime team was at work, and the body still lay
there, now entirely covered with the dark woollen cloak.
