you.' As he spoke, Perulli's voice grew more heated. He looked at
Brunetti, who said nothing, and that silence seemed to be enough to
unleash even more of Perulli's anger. 'I don't know why you want to
know about Moro, but it's a good thing someone's going to take a closer
look at him.' Red spots the size of golf balls flashed into being on
his cheeks.
'Why?' Brunetti asked.
Again, Perulli uncrossed his legs, but this time he leaned forward,
towards Brunetti, the forefinger of his right hand jabbing the space
between them. 'Because he's a sanctimonious bastard, always talking
about fraud and dishonesty and .. .' Here Perulli's voice changed,
deepening and dragging out the final syllables of words in a way
Brunetti realized was very much like Moro's. 'Our responsibility to
the citizen,' he went on, the imitation suddenly becoming sarcastic
exaggeration. 'We can't continue to treat our offices, this
Parliament, as though it were a trough and we a herd of pigs,' Perulli
intoned. It was clear to Brunetti that he was again quoting Moro.
Brunetti thought the other man would go on: Augusto had never known
when a joke had gone on long enough. But Perulli surprised him by
lapsing into silence, though he
couldn't resist the temptation to goad Brunetti by saying, 'If he's
done something, it's no surprise to me: he's no different from any one
of us.'
'With your front trotters in the trough?' Brunetti asked mildly.
He might just as well have slapped the other man across the face.
Perulli lurched forward, his right hand aiming for Bj Brunetti's
throat, but he had forgotten the low table between 'I them. It caught
Perulli just below the knees and sent him sprawling across and then
beyond it.
Brunetti had risen to his feet while Perulli was clattering across the
table. Seeing him on the floor, stunned, he started to reach down to
help him to his feet but then stopped himself. Curious, he stepped to
one side and bent over to look closer. Perulli's hair had fallen
forward, and Brunetti could see the little round, puckered scar just
behind the left ear. Gratified to have detected the cause of Perulli's
youthful appearance, he stood and waited, and when he saw Perulli pull
his knees up under him and place his hands flat on the floor on either
side of him, Brunetti turned and left the apartment.
When he got outside and looked at his watch, Brunetti was surprised to
see that it was almost five. He found himself very hungry and
geographically halfway between work and home. He didn't know what he'd
find to eat at home, and by the time he got there and had something, it
would be too late to bother to go back to the Questura. He sent the
feet of memory up towards San Marco, recalling every bar or trattoria
he knew on the way, then, at the thought of what he would encounter in
that direction, he re plotted the trip via Campo Sant' Angelo and back
through Campo San Fantin. Knowing it was absurd and aware that he had
himself chosen to forgo lunch, he was assaulted by a wave of self-pity:
he was doing his job as best he knew how, and he found himself hungry
at a time when it would be impossible to get a meal. He remembered
then one of the few stories his father ever told about the war, though
he recalled it in a garbled fashion, for it had never been told the
same way twice. At some point, marching across Lower Saxony in the
days just after the end of the war, his father and two companions had
been
befriended by a stray dog that emerged from under a bombed house to
follow them. The next day, they ate the dog. Over the course of
decades, this story had taken on talismanic powers for Brunetti, and he
found himself unable to keep his mind from it whenever anyone talked
about food in a way he thought too precious, as though it were a
fashion accessory rather than a basic need. All he had to do was hear
one of Paola's friends go on about her delicate digestion and how she
couldn't even bear to buy vegetables that had been displayed next to
garlic, and the story came to mind. He remembered, years ago, sitting
across the table from a man who told the other guests how impossible it
was for him to eat any meat that had not come from his own butcher,
that he could taste the difference in quality instantly. When the man
finished the story, and after he had received the required accolade for
his delicacy of palate, Brunetti had told the story of the dog.
He cut through to Campo San Fantin and stopped in a bar for two
tramezzini and a glass of white wine. While he was there, an
attractive dark-haired woman came in for a coffee wearing a tight
leopard-patterned coat and an outrageous black hat that looked like a
black pizza balanced on a skullcap. He studied her for a moment as she
sipped at her coffee; indeed, he joined every man in the bar in
studying her. All of them, he concluded, joined with him in giving
thanks that she had come in to lift their hearts and brighten their
day.
Cheered by having seen her, he left the bar and walked back to the
Quesrura. As he entered his office, he saw a folder lying on his desk,
and when he opened it he was astonished to discover the autopsy report
on Ernesto Moro. His immediate reaction was to wonder what Venturi was
up to, what manoeuvre or power play he might be involved in and against
whom. His speed in having performed the autopsy could be explained
only as an attempt to win Brunetti's favour, and that favour could be
of use to the pathologist only
if he were planning to move against some rival or perceived rival
