Happy to comply, he leaned down again and took eight or nine large
mouthfuls, each one bringing more relief to his tortured body. The
sudden flood of water triggered something in his stomach, and that in
turn triggered something in his brain, and he grew dizzy and had to
lean forward, hands propped on the front of the sink, until the world
grew quiet again.
He put his hands under the still flowing stream and drank again. At a
certain point, experience and sense told him any more would be risky,
so he stood up straight, eyes closed, and dragged his wet palms across
his face and down the front of his T-shirt. He lifted the hem and
wiped at his lips; then, refreshed and feeling as if he might again
begin to contemplate life, he turned to go back to his room.
And saw the bat, or what his muddled senses first perceived as a bat,
just there, off in the distance. It couldn't be a bat, for it was
easily two metres long and as wide as a man. But it had the shape of a
bat. It appeared to suspend itself against the wall, its head perched
above black wings that hung limp at its sides, clawed feet projecting
from beneath.
He ran his hands roughly over his face, as if to wipe away the sight,
but when he opened his eyes again the dark shape was still there. He
backed away from it and, driven by the fear of what might happen to him
if he took his eyes from the bat, he moved slowly in the direction of
the door of the bathroom, towards where he knew he would find the
switch for the long bars of neon lighting. Befuddled by a mixture of
terror and incredulity, he kept his hands behind him, one palm flat and
sliding ahead of him on the tile wall, certain that contact with the
wall was his only contact with reality.
Like a blind man, he followed his seeing hand along the wall until he
found the switch and the long double row of neon lights passed
illumination along one by one until a day like brightness filled the
room.
Fear drove him to close his eyes while the lights came flickering on,
fear of what horrid motion the bat-like shape would be driven to make
when disturbed from the safety of the near darkness. When the lights
grew silent, the young man opened his eyes and forced himself to
look.
Although the stark lighting transformed and revealed the shape, it did
not entirely remove its resemblance to a bat, nor did it minimize the
menace of those trailing wings. The wings, however, were revealed as
the engulfing folds of the dark cloak that served as the central
element of their winter uniform, and the head of the bat, now
illuminated, was the head of Ernesto Moro, a Venetian and, like the boy
now bent over the nearest sink, racked by violent vomiting, a student
at San Martino Military Academy.
It took a long time for the authorities to respond to the death of
Cadet Moro, though little of the delay had to do with the behaviour of
his classmate, Pietro Pellegrini. When the waves of sickness abated,
the boy returned to his room and, using the telefonino which seemed
almost a natural appendage, so often did he use and consult it, he
called his father, on a business trip in Milano, to explain what had
happened, or what he had just seen. His father, a lawyer, at first
said he would call the authorities, but then better sense intervened
and he told his son to do so himself and to do it instantly.
Not for a moment did it occur to Pellegrini's father that his son was
in any way involved in the death of the other boy, but he was a
criminal lawyer and familiar with the workings of the official mind. He
knew that suspicion was bound to fall upon the person who hesitated in
bringing a crime to the attention of the police, and he also knew how
eager they were to seize upon the obvious solution. So he told the boy
indeed, he could be said to have commanded him to call the authorities
instantly. The boy, trained in obedience by his father and by two
years at San Martino, assumed that the authorities were those in charge
of the school and thus went downstairs to report to his commander the
presence of a dead boy in the third floor bathroom.
The police officer at the Questura who took the call when it came from
the school asked the name of the caller, wrote it down, then asked him
how he came to know about this dead person and wrote down that answer,
as well. After hanging up, the policeman asked the colleague who was
working the switchboard with him if they should perhaps pass the report
on to the Carabinieri, for the Academy, as a military institution,
might be under the jurisdiction of the Carabinieri rather than the city
police. They debated this for a time, the second one calling down to
the officers' room to see if anyone there could solve the procedural
problem. The officer who answered their call maintained that the
Academy was a private institution with no official ties to the Army he
knew, because his dentist's son was a student there and so they were
the ones who should respond to the call. The men on the switchboard
discussed this for some time, finally agreeing with their colleague.
The one who had taken the call noticed that it was after eight and
dialled the interior number of his superior, Commissario Guido
Brunetti, sure that he would already be in his office.
Brunetti agreed that the case was theirs to investigate and then asked,
'When did the call come in?'
'Seven twenty-six, sir came Alvise's efficient, crisp reply.
A glance at his watch told Brunetti that it was now more than a
half-hour after that, but as Alvise was not the brightest star in the
firmament of his daily routine, he chose to make no comment and,
