called, Signora. I haven't had time to try to locate Signora Moro.' He
felt like an explorer on a glacier who suddenly sees an enormous
crevasse yawn open in front of him: so far he had said nothing about
the death of Signora Moro's son and to do so at this point would be
impossible. 'Is she here with her husband?'
Her voice became bland and noncommittal. 'They're separated,' she
said.
'Ah, I didn't know that. But is she still here in Venice?'
He could all but follow her thoughts as she considered this. A
policeman would find her friend; sooner or later, he'd find her. 'Yes/
she finally answered.
'Could you give me the address?'
Slowly she answered: 'Yes, wait while I get it, please.' There was a
soft tap as she set the phone down, then a long
silence, and then the woman was back. 'It's San Marco 2823,' she said,
then gave him the phone number, as well.
Brunetti thanked her and was considering what else he could ask her
when the woman said, 'What you need to do is let the phone ring once
and then call back. She doesn't want to be disturbed.'
'I can understand that, Signora/ he said, the memory of Ernesto Moro's
limp body suddenly appearing to him like the ghost of one of Ugolino's
sons.
The woman said goodbye and hung up, leaving Brunetti, he realized, in
possession of little more information than he had had before he made
the call.
He was aware of how dark his office had become. The late afternoon sun
had faded away, and he doubted that he could any longer see the numbers
on the phone clearly enough to dial them. He walked over to the switch
by the door and turned on the light and was surprised by the
unaccustomed order he had established on his desk while talking to
Signora Ferro: a stack of folders sat at the centre, a piece of paper
to one side, a pencil placed across it in a neat horizontal. He
thought of the obsessive neatness of his mother's house in the years
before she- lapsed into the senility in whose embrace she still lay,
and then the explosion of disorder in the house during the last months
before she was taken from it.
Seated at his desk again, he was suddenly overcome by exhaustion and
had to fight the impulse to lay his head on the desk and close his
eyes. It had been more than ten hours since they had been called to
the school, hours during which death and misery had soaked into him
like liquid into blotting paper. Not for the first time in his career
he found himself wondering how much longer he could continue to do this
work. In the past, he had comforted himself with the belief that a
vacation would help, and often his physical removal from the city and
the crimes he saw there did in fact serve to
lift his mood, at least for the time he was away. But he could think
of no removal in time or space that would lift from him the sense of
futility that he now felt assailing him from every side.
He knew he should try to call Signora Moro, willed himself to reach for
the phone, but he could not do it. Who was it whose gaze could turn
people to stone? The Basilisk? Medusa? With serpents for hair and an
open, glaring mouth. He conjured up an image of the tangled, swirling
locks, but could not remember who had painted or sculpted them.
His departure from the Questura had the feel of flight about it, at
least to Brunetti. His chair remained pushed back from his desk, his
door open, the papers set neatly at the centre of his desk, while he
fled the place and went home in a state not far from panic.
His nose brought him back to his senses. As he opened the door to the
apartment he was greeted by aromas from the kitchen: something
roasting, perhaps pork; and garlic, so pervasive it suggested that an
entire field of garlic had been seized and tossed into the oven along
with the pork.
He hung up his jacket, remembered that he had left his briefcase in his
office and shrugged off the thought. He paused at the door to the
kitchen, hoping to find his family already seated at the table, but the
room was empty, except for the garlic, the odour of which seemed to be
coming from a tall pot boiling over a low flame.
Devoting his entire attention to the smell, he attempted to remember
where he had smelled it before. He knew it was familiar, as a melody
is familiar even when a person cannot remember the piece from which it
comes. He tried to separate the scents: garlic, tomato, a touch of
rosemary, something fishy like clams or shrimp probably shrimp and,
perhaps, carrots. And the garlic, a universe of garlic. He summoned
up the sensation he had experienced in the office, of his spirit being
steeped in misery. He breathed deeply, hoping that the
garlic would drive the misery out. If it could drive away vampires,
then surely it could work its herbal magic against something as banal
as misery. He stood propped against the jamb, his eyes closed,
inhaling the scents, until a voice behind him said, 'That is not the
proud stance of a defender of justice and the rights of the
oppressed.'
