Through a glass, darkly

the Gazzettino and had in the past been both informative and helpful. Brunetti had no idea why Pelusso would call him, which meant he could not figure out what sort of favour Pelusso would be after.

'Indeed’ Brunetti said. 'It's good to hear your voice.'

Pelusso laughed outright. 'Have they been making you all take sensitivity classes so you'll know how to deal with the press?' he asked.

'It's that obvious, eh?' Brunetti asked.

'To hear a policeman saying he's glad to hear my voice gives me goose-flesh.'

'And if a friend says it?' Brunetti asked, making himself sound offended.

'Then it's different,' Pelusso said in a warmer tone. 'Do you want me to call again and we can start over?'

Brunetti laughed. 'No, Elio, not at all. Just tell me what you'd like to know.'

'This time I'm calling to tell, not to ask.'

Brunetti bit back the remark that he was going to write the date down so he would be sure to remember it and, instead, asked, 'Tell me what?'

'Someone I spoke to said that your boss has had a bug put in his ear by a certain Gianluca Fasano.'

'What sort of bug?'

'The sort that comes from people who don't like hearing that questions are being asked about their friends.'

'I suppose you wouldn't want to tell me who told you that, would you?' Brunetti asked.

'You're right. I wouldn't.'

'Is he reliable?'

'Yes.'

Brunetti considered this for some time. The waiter, either the waiter or Navarro. 'I was out at the glass factory next .to his,' he volunteered to Pelusso.

'De Cal's?' the reporter asked.

'Yes. You know him?'

'Enough to know he's a bastard and enough to know he's a very sick man.'

'How sick?' Brunetti asked. 'And how do you know it?'

'I've met him a few times over the years, but a friend of mine was in a room in the hospital with him, so I saw him there when I went to visit my friend.'

'And?' Brunetti asked.

'You know how it is in oncology,' Pelusso said.

'No one ever tells anyone what they think they don't want to hear. But my friend heard the word 'pancreas' enough times to suspect it didn't make any difference what else they said.'

'How long ago was this?'

'About a month. De Cal was in there for tests. Not treatment, but they still kept him in for two days—long enough for my friend to come to hate him as much as he seems to hate his son-in-law’ the reporter said. Then, perhaps because he felt he had given enough information and had no return on his investment, he asked, 'Why are you interested in Fasano?'

'I didn't know I was,' Brunetti said. 'But now maybe I am.'

'And De Cal?'

'He's threatened the husband of someone I know.'

'Sounds like something he'd do,' Pelusso said.

'Anything else?' Brunetti asked, though he knew it was greedy to do so.

'No.'

'Thanks for calling,' Brunetti said. 'I have to think about this for a while.'

'It's my single hope in life, to be of help to the forces of order,' Pelusso said in his most unctuous voice, waited for Brunetti's answering laugh, and when he heard it, hung up.

Inferno open in his lap, Brunetti wondered where Dante would have placed someone like De Cal. With the thieves? No, Brunetti had no reason to suspect he had ever stolen anything, save what the ordinary businessman was obliged to steal from the taxman in order to survive, and that was hardly to be considered a sin. Among the grafters? But how else to run a business? Brunetti remembered the man, his face red with anger, and realized that he would be among the wrathful and be torn limb from limb, like Filippo Argenti, by his fellow sinners. Yet if De Cal knew himself to be a dying man but still bent his mind to profit, then Dante might have put him among the hoarders and condemned him to push his heavy stone, for all eternity, against the stones of other men like himself.

Brunetti had once read in the science column of La Repubblica a report on experiments done with people suffering from Alzheimer's. Many of them lost the use of the brain mechanism that told them when they were hungry or full, and if given food repeatedly, would eat again and again, unconscious of the fact that they had just eaten and should no longer be hungry. He sometimes thought it was the same with people afflicted with the disease of greed: the concept of 'enough' had been eliminated from their minds.

He folded the papers in three and slipped them into the pocket of his jacket. Downstairs he left a note on Vianello's desk, telling the Inspector he had left for the day but would like to talk to him the following morning. Outside the Questura he gave himself over to what was left of the day. He went out to Riva degli Schiavoni and took the Number One to Salute, then headed west with no destination in mind, turning that decision over to his memory and his mood. He cut through the underpass by the abbey, down past building site after building site then left, down towards the Incurabili. Only a fragment of Bobo's fresco remained, glassed in now in order to save what was left from the elements. Had it been warmer, he would have had his first ice-cream of the year, not at Nico's but at the little place down by Ai Schiavi. He passed the Giustinian, crossed over to Fondamenta Foscarini and then went down to Tonolo for a coffee and a pastry. Because he had had no lunch to speak of, he had two: a cream-filled swan and a tiny chocolate eclair as light as silk.

In the window of a shop where he had once bought a grey sweater, he saw what might be its twin, but in green. The size was his and soon, without his bothering to try it on, so was the sweater. As he stepped out into the calle, he realized how happy he was, much in the way he had been as a boy to be out of school when the others were still inside, and no one to know where he was or what he was doing.

He went into a wine shop not far from San Pantalon and bought a bottle of Nebbiolo, a Sangiovese, and a very young Barbera. By then it was almost seven, and he decided to go home. As he turned into the calle, he noticed Raffi opening the front door of their building and called out to him, but his son didn't hear him and closed the door. Brunetti shifted packages, looking for his keys, and by the time he got inside it was too late to shout up the steps after his son.

As he turned into the final flight of stairs, he heard Raffi's voice, though he had seen him come in alone. This confusion was resolved halfway up the steps, when he saw Raffi, slouched against the wall outside the door, tele-fonino in hand. 'No, not tonight. I've got that calculus to do. You know how much homework he gives us.'

Brunetti smiled at his son, who held up a hand and, in a gesture of unmistakable male solidarity, rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, saying, 'Of course I want to see you.'

Brunetti let himself into the apartment, abandoning Raffi to what he assumed were the tender solicitations of Sara Paganuzzi. Inside, he found himself surrounded by the aroma of artichokes. The scent floated down the hallway from the kitchen, filling the house. The penetrating odour sent Brunetti's mind flashing back to the stench that had surrounded him twelve hours before. He set the packages on the floor and went down the corridor, away from the kitchen, and into the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, showered, his hair still wet, and wearing a pair of light cotton pants and a T-shirt, he went back down the hallway to get his sweater. Both packages were gone. He went down to the kitchen, where he saw the three bottles lined up on the counter, Paola at the stove, and Chiara setting the table.

Paola turned and made a kissing gesture towards him; Chiara said hello and smiled. 'Aren't you cold?' Paola asked.

'No’ Brunetti answered, turning back towards Raffi's room. As he walked down the corridor, his righteous