How to explain that a child was dead, and even if it could be
explained, what explanation could hope to stem the torrent of grief
that must flow from those words?
Paola and the children were long gone, so he left the house, glad of
the chance to drink his coffee in the company of a familiar
pasticceria, with conversation no more demanding than the idle comments
someone might make to him. He bought both // Tempo and II Gazzettino
at the edicola in Campo Santa Marina and went into Didovich for a
coffee and a brioche.
CADET AT EXCLUSIVE VENETIAN SCHOOL HANGS HIMSELF, the first paper
declared on one of the inner pages, while the front page of the second
carried the headline, son of ex parliamentarian FOUND DEAD AT SAN
MARTINO. The loWCr case headlines informed the people of Venice that
the father of the victim had resigned from Parliament after his hotly
contested health report had been condemned by the then Minister of
Health, that the police were investigating the boy's death, and that
his parents were separated. Reading the lead paragraphs, Brunetti was
sure that anyone who read them, regardless of the information contained
in the article that followed, would already suspect that the parents or
the way they lived was somehow related to, if not directly responsible
for, the boy's death.
Terrible, isn't it? This boy?' one of the women at the counter asked
the owner, waving her hand towards Brunetti's newspaper. She bit into
her brioche and shook her head.
'What's the matter with kids today? They have so much. Why can't they
be content with it?' another one answered.
As if on cue, a third woman the same age as the other two, her hair the
standard post-menopausal red, set her coffee cup resoundingly back into
its saucer and said, 'It's because the
parents don't pay attention to them. I stayed home to take care of my
children, and so nothing like this ever happened.' A stranger to this
culture might well assume that no option was open to the children of
working mothers but suicide. The three women nodded in united
disapproval at this latest proof of the perfidy and ingratitude of
youth and the irresponsibility of all parents other than themselves.
Brunetti folded his paper, paid, and left the pasticceria. The same
headlines blared forth from the yellow posters taped to the back wall
of the edicola. In their real grief, attacks like this could do no
more than glance off the souls of the Moros: this belief was the only
comfort Brunetti could find in the face of this latest evidence of the
mendacity of the press.
Inside the Questura, he went directly to his office, where he saw new
files lying on his desk. He dialled Signorina Elettra, who answered
the phone by saying, 'He wants to see you immediately.'
It no longer surprised him when Signorina Elettra knew that it was he
who was calling: she had spent considerable police funds in having
Telecom install a new phone line in her office, though the moneys
currently available could not provide for anyone except her to have a
terminal on which the number of the caller appeared. Nor was he
surprised by her use of the pronoun: she granted this distinction only
to her immediate superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta.
'Immediately now?' he asked.
'Immediately yesterday afternoon, I'd say,' she answered.
Brunetti went downstairs and into her office without taking time to
examine the folders. He had expected to find Signorina Elettra at her
desk, but her office was empty. He stuck his head back outside the
door to check to see if she were in the hallway, but there was no sign
of her.
Reluctant to present himself to Patta without first having some
indication of his superior's mood or what it was Patta wanted to see
him about, Brunetti toyed with the idea of
going back to his office to read the folders or to the officers' room
to see if Vianello or Pucetti were there. As he stood undecided, the
door to Vice-Questore Patta's office opened, and Signora Elettra
emerged, today wearing what looked very much like a bomber jacket,
buttoned tight at the waist, puffy and full over the bust and
shoulders; well, a bomber jacket, were bombardiers given to the wearing
of uniforms made of apricot-coloured raw silk.
Patta had a clear view from his office into hers. 'I'd like to see
you, Brunetti,' he called. Brunetti glanced at Signorina Elettra as he
turned toward Patta's door, but the only thing she had time to do was
push her lips tightly together in either disapproval or disgust. Like
ships in the night, they passed, barely acknowledging the presence of
the other.
'Close the door,' Patta said, glancing up and then back at the papers
on his desk. Brunetti turned to do so, certain that Patta's use of the
word 'please' would provide the clue to what sort of meeting this would
be. The fact that Brunetti had time to formulate this thought
destroyed any possibility that it was going to be a pleasant
interchange of ideas between colleagues. A short delay would be the
habitual flick of the whip from a carriage driver: aimed to snap the
air and catch the beast's attention without doing it any harm, it was
an unconscious assertion of command, not meant to inflict damage. A
