'Probably not. Besides, all the refugees will end up here, not
there.'
'What refugees?' Brunetti asked, not clear where the conversation was
going.
'From Bangladesh. If the country is flooded and finds itself
permanently under water, the people certainly aren't going to remain
there and agree to drown so that they don't inconvenience anyone.
They'll have to migrate somewhere, and as there's little chance they'll
be allowed to go east, they'll end up here.'
'Isn't your geography a bit imaginative here, Signorina?'
'I don't mean they, the Bangladeshis, will come here, but
the people they displace will move west, and the ones they displace
will end up here, or the ones That they in then turn displace will.'
She looked up, confused at his slowness in understanding. 'You've read
history, haven't you, sir?' At his nod, she concluded, Then you know
that this is what happens.'
'Perhaps,' Brunetti said, his scepticism audible.
'We'll see,' she said mildly and folded the paper closed. 'What can I
do for you, sir?'
'I spoke to the Vice-Questore this morning, and he seemed reluctant to
put his entire faith in Lieutenant Scarpa's opinion that the Moro boy
killed himself.'
'Is he afraid of a Moro Report on the police?' she asked, grasping at
once what Patta himself probably refused to admit.
'More than likely. At any rate, he wants us to exclude all other
possibilities before he closes the case.'
There's only one other possibility, isn't there?'
'Yes.'
'What do you think?' She shoved the paper aside on her desk and leaned
slightly forward, her body giving evidence of the curiosity she managed
to keep out of her voice.
'I can't believe he committed suicide.'
She agreed. 'It doesn't make sense that a boy that young would leave
his family behind.'
'Kids don't always have their parents' feelings in mind when they
decide to do something,' Brunetti temporized, unsure why he did so;
perhaps to muster the arguments he knew would be presented against his
own opinion.
'I know that. But there's the little sister,' she said. 'You'd think
he'd give her some thought. But maybe you're right.'
'How old is she?' Brunetti asked, intrigued by this mystery child in
whom both parents had displayed so little interest.
There was something about her in one of the articles about
the family, or perhaps someone I know said something about her,
Sigiiorma Eiettra answered, Everyone s talking about them now.' She
closed her eyes, trying to remember. She tilted her head to one side,
and he imagined her scrolling through the banks of information in her
mind. Finally she said, 'It must be something I read because I don't
have any emotional memory of having heard it, and I'd have that if
someone had told me about her.'
'Have you saved everything?'
'Yes, all of the newspaper clippings and the articles from the
magazines are in the file, the same one that has the articles about
Dottor Moro's report.' Before he could ask to see it, she said, 'No,
I'll look through them. I might remember the article when I see it or
start reading it.' She glanced at her watch. 'Give me fifteen minutes
and I'll bring it up to you.'
Thank you, Signorina,' he said and went to his office to wait for her.
He called Signora Moro's number, but still there was no answer. Why
had she not mentioned the daughter, and why, in both houses, had there
been no sign of the child? He started to make a list of the things he
wanted Signorina Elettra to check and was still adding to it when she
came into the office, the file in her hand. 'Here it is, sir,' she
said as she came in. 'Valentina. She's nine.'
'Does it say which parent she lives with?'
'No, nothing at all,' she said. 'She was mentioned in an article about
Moro, six years ago. It said he had one son, Ernesto, twelve, and the
daughter, Valentina, three. And the article in La Nuova mentions
her.'
'I didn't see any sign of her when I spoke to the parents.'
'Did you say anything?'
