That caught Patta's attention. 'No, it might be better if you went.
After all, you've already spoken to them, and I imagine they thought
you were sympathetic.' Never had that quality sounded so much like a
character defect as when Patta used it in reference to Brunetti. Patta
considered further. 'Yes, do it that way. Go and talk to them and see
how they feel. You'll know how to handle it. Once they've accepted
that it was suicide, we can close the case.'
'And turn our attention back to the Casino?' Brunetti could not
prevent himself from asking.
The coolness of Patta's glance not only lowered the temperature of the
room; it removed Brunetti to a greater distance. 'I think the city has
proven itself capable of attending to that problem,' Patta pronounced,
forcing Brunetti, not for the first time, to suspect that his superior
might not be as dull as he'd always found it convenient to believe
him.
Upstairs, he pushed papers around on his desk until he found the thin
file which contained the papers generated by the death of Ernesto Moro.
He dialled the father's number, and after six rings, a man's voice
answered with the surname.
'Dottor Moro,' Brunetti said, 'this is Commissario Brunetti. I'd like
to speak to you again, if possible.' Moro did not
answer, so Brunetti said into the silence, 'Could you tell me a time
that's> convenient for you?'
He heard the other man sigh. 'I told you I had nothing further to say
to you, Commissario.' His voice was calm, entirely without
expression.
'I know that, Dottore, and I apologize for disturbing you, but I need
to speak to you again.'
'Need?'
'I think so.'
'We need very little in this life, Commissario. Have you ever
considered that?' Moro asked, quite as if he were prepared to spend
the rest of the afternoon discussing the question.
'Often, sir. And I agree.'
'Have you read Ivan Ilych?' Moro surprised him by asking.
The writer or the short story, Dottore?'
Brunetti's response must have surprised Moro in turn, for there
followed a long silence before the doctor answered, The short story.'
'Yes. Often.'
Again, the doctor sighed, after which the line lay silent for almost a
minute. 'Come at four, Commissario/ Moro said and hung up.
Though reluctant to face both of Ernesto's parents on the same day,
Brunetti still forced himself to phone Signora Moro. He let the phone
ring once, cut the connection, then pressed the 'Redial' button, filled
with relief when the phone rang on unanswered. He had made no attempt
to keep a check on the whereabouts of either parent. For all he knew,
she could have left the city any time after the boy's funeral two days
ago; left the city, left the country, left everything behind save her
motherhood.
He knew that such thoughts would take him nowhere, and so he returned
his attention to the papers on his desk.
The man who let Brunetti into the Moro apartment at four
that afternoon might well have been the doctor's older brother, if such
a brother were afflicted with some wasting disease. The worst signs
were to be found in his eyes, which seemed covered with a thin film of
opaque liquid. The whites had taken on the tinge of ivory often seen
in people of advanced age, and inverted dark triangles had settled
under both eyes. The fine nose had become a beak, and the thick column
of his neck was now a trunk held upright by tendons that pulled the
skin away from the muscle. To disguise his shock at the change in the
man, Brunetti lowered his gaze to the floor. But when he noticed that
the cuffs of the doctor's trousers hung limply over the backs of his
shoes and dragged on the floor, he raised his eyes and looked directly
at the doctor, who turned away and led him into the sitting room.
'Yes, Commissario? What is it you've come to say?' Moro asked in a
voice of unwavering politeness when they were seated opposite one
another.
Either his cousin had come frequently or someone else was seeing that
the apartment was kept clean. The parquet glistened, the rugs lay in
geometrical regularity, three Murano vases held enormous sprays of
flowers. Death had made no inroads into the evident prosperity of the
family, though Moro might as well have been living in the atrium of a
bank for all the attention he paid to his surroundings.
'I think this has put you beyond lies, Dottore,' Brunetti said
abruptly.
