dermatologist about the foot fungus he kept picking up at work.
'All that can wait’ Patta said, a sentiment in which Brunetti most heartily joined. Then, when Brunetti stood in front of him, Patta asked, 'You've heard about this mix-up with the Carabinieri, I assume?'
Mix-up, was it? 'Yes, sir’
'Good, then. Sit down, Brunetti. You make me nervous standing there.'
Brunetti did as he was told.
The Carabinieri over-reacted, and they'll be lucky if the man in the hospital doesn't bring charges against them.' Patta's remark raised Brunetti's estimation of the man who had stood with the Vice-Questore outside Pedrolli's door. After a moment's reflection, Patta tempered his opinion and said, 'But I doubt that he will. No one wants that sort of legal trouble’ Indeed. Brunetti was tempted to ask if the white-haired man at the hospital would be involved in whatever legal mess were to ensue, but good sense suggested that he keep his knowledge of Patta's meeting to himself and so he asked, 'What would you like me to do, sir?'
There seems to be some uncertainty about the nature of the communications that took place between the Carabinieri and us,' Patta began. He peered across at Brunetti, as if to enquire whether he were receiving the coded message and knew what to do with it.
'I see, sir’ Brunetti said. So the Carabinieri N could produce evidence that they had informed the police of the projected raid, but the police could find no evidence that they had received it. Brunetti's mind cast back to the rules of logic he had studied with such interest, decades ago now, at university. There had been something about the difficulty - or was it the impossibility? - of proving a negative. This meant that Patta was thrashing about, trying to decide which would be less risky: to blame the Carabinieri for their excessive use of force or to find someone at the Questura to take the rap for the failure to transmit the Carabinieri's message?
'In fight of what's happened to this doctor, I'd like you to keep an eye on things and see that he's treated decently. So that nothing more happens.'
Brunetti prevented himself from completing the Vice-Questore's sentence by adding,'... that would lead to trouble for me'.
'Of course, Vice-Questore. Would it be all right if I spoke to him, perhaps to his wife?'
'Yes,' Patta said. 'Do whatever you want. Just see that this doesn't get out of control and cause trouble’
'Of course, Vice-Questore,' Brunetti said.
Patta, with responsibility effectively transferred to someone else, directed his attention to the papers on his desk.
'I'll keep you informed, sir,' Brunetti said and got to his feet.
Clearly too busy with the cares of office to respond, Patta waved a hand at him, and Brunetti left.
Because Paola had agreed to help him by asking around about Bianca Marcolini, Brunetti steeled himself and went down to the computer in the officers' room, where he managed to surprise his colleagues by the ease with which he connected to the Internet and then typed in the letters for
For the next hour, Brunetti was the centre of what became a team effort on the part of the uniformed branch to help the research along. Though none of the younger men actually pushed him aside, the occasional hand did slip in below his to type in a word or two; Brunetti, however, never quite relinquished possession of the keyboard or mouse. The fact that he insisted on printing out everything that was of interest to him gave him the sense, however spurious, that he was engaged in the same sort of research he used to conduct in the university library.
When he was finished and went to the printer to pick up the stack of papers that had accumulated, he was struck by two thoughts: it was all so fast, virtually instant, but he had no idea how true any of it was. What made one website more reliable than another, and what, in heaven's name, was 'II Centro per le Ricerche sull’Uomo'? Or 'Istituto della Demografia'? For all Brunetti knew, either the Catholic Church or the Hemlock Society could be behind all of the sources he had consulted.
He had long accepted that most of what he read in books and newspapers and magazines was only an approximation of the truth, always slanted to Left or Right. But at least he was aware of the prejudices of most journalists and had thus, over the decades, learned to read aggressively, and so he could almost always find some kernel of fact - he entertained no illusions of finding the truth - in what he read. But with the Internet, he was so ignorant of context that all of the sources carried equal weight with him. Brunetti was adrift in what could well be a sea of Internet lies and distortions and utterly without the compass he had learned to use in the more familiar sea of journalistic lies.
When he finally returned to his office and began to read what he had printed out, he was surprised at the consistency across the various websites. Though the numbers and percentages differed noinimally, there was no doubt as to the steep decline in birth rates in most Western countries, at least among the native populations. Immigrants had more children. He knew there was some politically correct manner in which this essential statistical truth was meant to be phrased: 'cultural variation', 'differing cultural expectations'. Phrase it as you chose: poor people had more children than rich people, just as poor people had always had more children than rich people. In the past, more of them had died, carried off by disease and poverty. But now, at home in the West, far more of them survived.
At the same time that the number of children born to immigrants was increasing all over Europe, their hosts were having difficulty even in reproducing themselves. European women were older now when they had their first child than they had been a generation ago. Fewer people bothered to get married. The cost of housing had risen dramatically, limiting the chance that young working people could easily set up a household of their own. And who today could afford to have a baby on only one salary?
All of those things, Brunetti knew, merely created options which people could choose to exercise, not physical impediments which could not be overcome. The steady decline in the number of viable sperm, however, was not a matter of choice. Pollution? Some genetic change? An undetected disease? Repeatedly, the websites made mention of a group of substances called phthalates, present in all manner of common products, including deodorants and food packaging: it would seem that there existed an inverse proportion between their presence in a man's blood and a lowered sperm count. Though the clear implication that these substances were responsible for a half-century of decreasing sperm counts was common, none of the articles dared to name them as a direct cause. Brunetti had always been of a mind that rising economic expectations must have exerted as strong an influence on the birth rate as falling sperm counts. After all, if there had been millions of sperm in the past, there were still half that number, and that should surely suffice.
One report stated that the sperm counts of immigrant men began to decline after they had lived in Europe for a few years, which would certainly lend credence to the theory that pollution or environmental contamination was the cause. Wasn't it the lead water pipes that were said to have contributed to the decline in health and fertility among the population of Imperial Rome? Not that it made any difference now, but at least the Romans had had no idea of that possible connection: it fell to later ages to discover the probable cause, and then do nothing to moderate their behaviour.
Historical reflection was cut short by the arrival of Vianello. As he came in, smiling broadly and holding up a few sheets of paper, the Inspector said, I used to hate white collar crime. But the more I learn, the more I like it’ He placed the papers on Brunetti's desk and took a seat.
Brunetti wondered if Vianello were planning a career move; not for a moment did he doubt the involvement of Signorina Elettra in whatever change had taken place in Vianello's assessment.
''Like it'?' Brunetti asked, indicating the papers, as though they were the instruments of Vianello's conversion.
'Well,' Vianello tempered, aware of Brunetti's amusement, 'in the sense that you don't have to go chasing after them or lurk in the rain outside their doors for hours, waiting for them to come out, so that you can follow them’
At Brunetti's continued silence, the Inspector went on. 'I used to think it was boring, sitting around, reading through tax and financial declarations, checking credit card statements and bank records’
Brunetti stopped himself from observing that, since most of these activities were illegal unless performed with an order from a judge, it was perhaps better that a policeman, at the very least, find them boring.
'And now?' Brunetti enquired mildly.
Vianello shrugged and smiled at the same time. 'And now I seem to be developing a taste for it’ He needed no prompting from Brunetti to explain: 'I suppose it's the thrill of the chase. You get a scent of what they might be
