so no one is likely to question my numbers or my accounting.'
'It is, though, isn't it?' he asked.
'What, a happy island?'
'Yes.'
'In comparison with the rest of the country, yes, I think so.'
'How long do you think it will stay like that?'
Signorina Elettra shrugged. As Brunetti was turning to leave her
office, she opened her desk drawer and took a few sheets of paper from
it. 'I didn't forget about Dottor Moro, sir,' she said as she handed
it to him.
He thanked her and left her office. As he walked up the stairs, he saw
that it explained the reason for Patta's familiarity with Dr. Fernando
Moro. There was nothing unusual: Signora Patta's mother had been a
patient of Moro's since he had returned to the practice of medicine.
Signorina Elettra had not managed to provide copies of her medical
records, but she had supplied the dates of her visits to Dottor Moro,
twenty-seven in all during the last two years. At the bottom,
Signorina Elettra had added, in her own hand: 'Breast cancer.' He
checked the date of the last appointment: little more than two months
ago.
As with any superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta was often the
subject of speculation among those under his command. His motives for
action or inertia were usually transparent: power, its maintenance and
aggrandizement. In
9i the past, however, he had proven capable of great weakness, had even
been deflected from his headlong pursuit of power, but only when he
acted in defence of his family. Brunetti, though often suspicious of
Patta and usually deeply contemptuous of his motives, felt nothing but
respect for this weakness.
Brunetti had told himself that decency demanded he wait at least two
days before attempting to speak again to either of the boy's parents.
That time had passed, and he arrived at the Questura that morning with
the intention of interviewing one or both of them. Dottor Moro's home
phone was answered by a machine. The phone at his practice said that,
until further notice, the doctor's patients would be seen by Doctor D.
Biasi, whose office hours and phone number were given. Brunetti re
dialled the first number and left his name and his direct number at the
Questura, requesting that the doctor call him.
That left the mother. Signorina Elettra had provided a brief
biography. Venetian, like her husband, she had met Moro in liceo, then
both had gone on to the University of Padova, where Moro opted for
medicine, Federica for child psychology. They married when her studies
were completed but didn't return to Venice until Moro was offered a
place at the Ospedale Civile, when she had opened a private practice in
the city.
Their legal separation, which took place with unseemly haste after her
accident, had been a surprise to their friends. They had not divorced,
and neither appeared to be involved with another person. There was no
evidence that they had contact with one another, and any communication
they had seemed to take place through their lawyers.
Signorina Elettra had clipped the article about Ernesto's death that
had appeared in La Nuova to the outside of the folder. He chose not to
read it, though he did read the caption under the photo of the family,
'in happier times'.
Federica Moro's smile was the centre of the photo: she stood with her
right arm wrapped around the back of her husband, her head leaning on
his chest, her other hand ruffling her son's hair. The photo showed
them on a beach, in shorts and T-shirts, tanned and bursting with
happiness and health; behind them the head of a swimmer bobbed just to
her husband's right. The picture must have been taken years ago, for
Ernesto was still a boy, not a young man. Federica looked away from
the camera, and the other two looked at her, Ernesto's glance open and
proud, as who would not be proud to have such an attractive woman as a
mother? Fernando's look was calmer, yet no less proud.
One of them, Brunetti thought, must just have said something funny, or
perhaps they'd seen something on the beach that made them laugh. Or
was it the photographer, perhaps, who had been the clown of the moment?
Brunetti was struck by the fact that, of the three of them, Federica
had the shortest hair: boyish, only a few centimetres long. It stood
in sharp contrast to the fullness of her body and the natural ease with
which she embraced her husband.
Who would dare to publish such a photo, and who could have given it to
the paper, surely knowing how it would be used? He slipped the
clipping free and stuck it inside the folder. The same number Signora
Ferro had given him was written on the outside; he dialled, forgetting
what she had told him about letting it ring once and hanging up.
On the fourth ring, a woman's voice answered, saying only 'SIT
'Signora Moro?' Brunetti asked.
'Si.'
