The truth of this made Brunetti blush. When his face had grown cool
again, Moro had still not bothered to look at him. After what seemed
to Brunetti a long time, the doctor raised his head. No tears stood in
his eyes, and his voice was as calm as it had been when he spoke to his
cousin. 'I'd be very grateful if you'd leave now, Commissario.'
Brunetti began to protest, but the doctor cut him off by raising his
voice, but only in volume: his tone remained calm and impersonal.
'Please don't argue with me. There is nothing at all that I have to
say to you. Not now, and not in the future.' He took his arms from
their protective position around his middle and let them fall to his
sides. The have nothing further to say.'
Brunetti was certain that it was futile to pursue the matter now,
equally certain that he would return and ask the same question again
after the doctor had had time to overcome his immediate agony. Since
he had learned of the boy's death, Brunetti had been assailed by the
desire to know if the man had other children, but couldn't bring
himself to ask. He had some sort of theoretical belief that their
existence would serve as consolation, however limited. He tried to put
himself in Moro's place and understand what solace he would find in the
survival of one of his own children, but his imagination shied away
from that horror. At the very thought, some force stronger than taboo
seized him, numbing his mind. Not daring to offer his hand or to say
anything further, Brunetti left the apartment.
From the Salute stop, he took the Number One to San Zaccaria and
started back toward the Questura. As he approached it, a group of
teenagers, three boys and two girls, cascaded down the Ponte dei Greci
and came towards him, arms linked, laughter radiating out from them.
Brunetti stopped walking and stood in the middle of the pavement,
waiting for this exuberant wave of youth to wash over him. Like the
Red Sea, they parted and swept around him: Brunetti was sure they
hadn't even noticed him in any real sense; he was merely a stationary
obstacle to be got round.
Both of the girls had cigarettes in their hands, something that usually
filled Brunetti with the desire to tell them, if they valued their
health and well-being, to stop. Instead, he turned and looked after
them, filled with a sense of almost religious awe at the sight of their
youth and joy.
By the time he reached his office, the feeling had passed. On his desk
he found the first of the many forms that were generated by any case of
suicide; he didn't bother to fill it out. It was only after he heard
from Venturi that he would know how to proceed.
He called down to the officers' room, but neither Vianello nor Pucetti
was there. He dialled Signorina Elettra's extension and asked her to
begin a complete search through all the sources available to her,
official and unofficial, for information on Fernando Moro's careers as
both a doctor and a Member of Parliament. Saying that she had already
begun, she promised to have something for him later in the day.
The thought of lunch displeased him: food seemed an irrelevant
extravagance. He felt a gnawing desire to see his family, though he
knew his current mood would render him so solicitous as to make them
uncomfortable. He called Paola and told her he couldn't make it home
for lunch, saying that something had come up at the Questura that would
keep him there and, yes, yes, he'd eat something and be home at the
regular time.
'I hope it's not too bad,' Paola said, letting him know that she had
registered his tone, however neutral he had tried to make his words.
I'll see you later,' he said, still unwilling to tell her what had
happened. 'Hug the kids for me,' he said before he hung up.
He sat at his desk for a few minutes, then drew some papers towards him
and looked at them, reading through the words, understanding each one
but not certain he understood what they intended to say. He set them
aside, then pulled them back and read them again; this time the
sentences made sense to him, though he could see no reason why anyone
should find their messages important.
He went to the window and studied the crane that stood constant guard
over the church and the restoration that had yet to begin. He had read
or been told once how much the equally motionless cranes that loomed
over the empty shell of the opera house cost the city to maintain each
day. Where did all the money go? he wondered. Who was it that reaped
such enormous profits from so much inactivity? Idly, keeping his mind
occupied with matters other than the death of young men, he began rough
calculations. If the cranes cost five thousand Euros a day, it would
cost the city almost two million Euros to keep them there a year,
whether they worked or not. He stood for a long time, numbers moving
around in his head in far greater activity than had been shown by any
of those cranes for some time.
Abruptly he turned away and went back to his desk. There was no one to
call, so he left his office, went downstairs and out of the Questura.
He walked to the bar at the foot of the bridge, where he had a panino
and a glass of red wine and let the words of the day's newspaper pass
under his eyes.
4i
Though he prevaricated as much as he could, Brunetti still had no
choice but eventually to return to the Questura. He stopped in the
officers' room to look for Vianello and found him there with Pucetti.
The younger officer started to get to his feet, but Brunetti waved him
