Paola appeared beside him, kissed his cheek without really looking at
him, and slipped past him into the kitchen.
'Is that Guglielmo's soup?'
'The very same,' Paola said, lifting the lid from the pot and taking a
long wooden spoon from the counter to stir at the contents. Twelve
heads of garlic,' she whispered, her voice filled with something that
approached awe.
'And we've survived it every time,' Brunetti added.
'Proof of divine intervention, I think,' Paola suggested.
'And, if Guglielmo is to be believed, a sure cure for worms and high
blood pressure.'
'And an even surer way to get yourself a seat on the vaporetto
tomorrow.'
Brunetti laughed, feeling his tension begin to evaporate. He
remembered their friend Guglielmo, who had served as military attache
in Cairo for four years, during which time he had studied Arabic,
converted to Coptic Christianity, and made a fortune smuggling
archaeological artefacts out of the country on military aeroplanes.
Devoted to food, he had taken with him, when he left, a broad variety
of recipes, most of which called for inordinate quantities of garlic.
'Is it true that they've found dried-up garlic in mummy coffins?'
Brunetti asked, pushing himself away from the door.
'You'd probably find it in the pockets of Guglielmo's dress uniform,
too,' Paola observed, replacing the lid and taking her first good look
at her husband. Her voice changed. 'What's the matter with you?'
He tried to smile but failed. 'Bad day.'
'What?'
'A suicide that might not be.'
'Who?'
'A boy.'
'How old?'
'Seventeen.'
The death, the gender and the age stopped Paola in her tracks. She
took a deep breath, shook her head as if to dismiss superstitious
possibility, and put her hand on his arm. 'Tell me about it.'
For a reason he didn't understand, perhaps the same superstition,
Brunetti didn't want to have to look at Paola as he told her about
Ernesto Moro, so he busied himself with taking down two glasses and
getting a chilled bottle of Tocai out of the refrigerator. As he went
through the business of opening the bottle, he spoke, deliberately
slowing his actions so that they would last as long as the explanation
he had to give. 'He was a student at the San Martino. We had a call
this morning, and when we got there, we found him hanging in the
shower. Vianello did, that is.'
He poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Paola, who ignored it
and asked, 'Who was he?'
'Fernando Moro's son.'
'Dottor Moro?'
'Yes,' Brunetti said and pressed the glass into her hand until she
accepted it.
'Does he know?'
Brunetti turned away from her, set his glass down, and opened the
refrigerator, searching for something he could eat by way of
distraction. His back to her, he went on, 'Yes.'
She said nothing while he rooted around and found a plastic container
of olives, which he opened and placed on the counter. As soon as he
saw them, dark and plump in their yellow oil, he lost the taste for
them and picked up his glass again. Conscious of Paola's attention, he
glanced at her.
'Did you have to tell him?'
'He came while I was there with the boy's body, then I went and talked
to him at his home.'
Today?' she asked, unable to disguise what was either astonishment or
horror.
'I wasn't there long he said and regretted the words the instant they
were out of his mouth.
Paola shot him a look, but what she saw on his face made her let his
remark pass without comment. The mother?' she asked.
