felt it lightly, as a person with a mild cold might discover that ins
temperature has increased a degree or two without feeling any real
symptoms. If this increase in petty crime produced any symptoms for
Brunetti himself, it was in the amount of paperwork he was obliged to
initial and, presumably, read.
It was a period in which there was very little violent crime in the
houses or on the streets of Venice, and so Patta, no doubt feeling
withdrawal symptoms after his name had not appeared in the Gazzettino
for more than a week, ordered Brunetti, and requested Signorina
Elettra, to prepare a report providing statistics which would show the
high clear-up rate of the Venetian police. The report, he stipulated,
was to show that the perpetrators of most crimes were found and
arrested and that, during the last year, there had been a consequent
decrease in crime within the city.
'But that's nonsense,' Brunetti said, when Signorina Elettra informed
him of their task.
'No more nonsensical than any other statistic we're provided with she
said.
His patience short because of the time he knew he'd waste in preparing
this report, he asked curtly, 'Like what?'
'Like the statistics about road fatalities,' she said, smiling, patient
in the face of his annoyance.
'What about them?' he asked, not really interested, yet doubtful that
anything so well documented could be altered.
'If you die a week or more after you're injured in an accident, you
didn't die because of the accident,' she said, almost with pride. 'At
least, not statistically.'
'Does that mean the hospitals kill you?' he asked, aiming towards
irony.
'That's certainly often enough the case, sir,' she said with every
appearance of patience. 'I'm not sure just how they list these deaths,
but they aren't counted as traffic fatalities.'
Not for an instant did it occur to Brunetti to doubt her. Her
idea, however, sent his mind tumbling back to the report they had to
prepare. 'Do you think we could use this technique ourselves?'
'You mean, if someone who is murdered takes a week to die, they weren't
murdered?' she asked. 'Or if a theft is reported after more than a
week, then nothing was stolen?' He nodded, and Signorina Elettra
devoted herself to considering the possibility. Finally she answered,
'I'm sure the Vice-Questore would be delighted, though I'm afraid there
would be certain difficulties if we were questioned about it.'
He drew his imagination away from these angel flights of mathematics
and back to the grim truth of the report they had to write. 'Do you
think we can do it and get the results he wants?'
Her voice grew serious. 'I think what he wants won't be hard to give
him. All we have to do is exercise caution about the number of crimes
reported.'
'What does that mean?'
'That we count only those where people came down here or went to the
Carabinieri to fill out a formal den uncia
'What will that achieve?'
'I've told you before, Commissario. People don't bother to report
crimes, least of all pick-pocketing or burglary. So when they phone to
report it but then don't bother to come down here to fill out the
papers, the crime hasn't been reported.' She paused for a moment,
allowing Brunetti, who knew just how Jesuitical her reasoning could be,
to prepare himself for the consequences towards which this must lead
her. 'And if there is no official den uncia which, in a certain sense,
means the act never occurred then I see no reason why we should have to
include them in our calculations.'
'What percentage would you estimate people don't bother to report?' he
asked.
'I have no way of knowing, sir,' she said. 'After all, it's
philosophically impossible to prove a negative.' There
followed another pause, and then she said, 'I'd guess a bit more than
half.'
'Are or aren't reported?' a surprised Brunetti asked.
'Aren't.'
This time it was Brunetti who paused for a long time before he said,
That's very lucky for us, isn't it?'
'Indeed,' was her response, then she asked, 'Would you like me to take
care of it, sir? He wants it for the newspapers, and they want to be
able to say that Venice is a happy island, virtually free from crime,
