Neither Brunetti nor Signorina Elettra spoke as the taxi pulled into traffic, turning left in front of the station and moving off towards what Brunetti calculated must be the west. He was amazed, as he so often was, at how many cars crowded the roads, at how loud it all was, even through the closed windows of the taxi. Cars appeared to come at them from all directions, some sounding their horns, a noise Brunetti had always found particularly aggressive. The driver muttered under his breath in a language that was not Italian, braking and surging ahead in response to spaces that closed or opened ahead of them. Try as he might, Brunetti never quite managed to understand the cause and effect relationship between what a driver saw and what he did: perhaps there was none.
He sat back and studied the endless rows of new buildings to his left, all low, all ugly, and all apparently selling something.
Voice low, Signorina Elettra said, 'Shall we go ahead with what we planned?'
'I think so,' he replied, though it was she who had planned their roies, not they together, and surely not he. Tt will make me look more than a little desperate, and it suggests that I'm willing to do anything at all to keep you happy.'
'And it gives me an interesting role to play.'
Before he could respond, the taxi came to a sharp halt, pitching them forward, forcing them to brace their hands against the seats in front to avoid crashing into them. The driver swore and banged his fist repeatedly against the dashboard as he continued to mutter to himself. In front of them stood a square-backed truck, its red brake lights glaring. As they sat and watched, black fumes poured from beneath the truck. Within seconds, the taxi was trapped in a black cloud, and the inside began to fill with the acrid smell of burning oil.
'No, sir.'
Strangely comforted, Brunetti sat back and glanced at Signorina Elettra, who had her hand over her mouth and nose.
Brunetti was pulling out his handkerchief to hand to her when the taxi suddenly jerked forward and slid around the truck. Then they moved off at a speed that pressed them against the backs of their seats. When Brunetti looked, there was no sign of the truck.
'My God,' Signorina Elettra said, 'how can people live like this?'
I've no idea,' Brunetti answered.
They lapsed into silence and before long the taxi slowed and turned into an oval driveway in front of a three- storey building, all gleaming metal and glass.
Twelve Euro, fifty,' the driver said as they drew to a halt.
Brunetti gave him a ten and a five and told him to keep the change. 'Would you like a receipt, sir?' the driver asked. ‘I can make it for any amount you like.'
Brunetti thanked him and said it wasn't necessary, got out and went around to open the door for Signorina Elettra. She swung both feet out and stood, then took his arm and leaned towards him. It's show time, Commissario,' she said and gave him a broad smile that ended in a wink.
The automatic doors opened into a reception area that might have served for an advertising agency, perhaps even a television studio. Money was in evidence. It did not shout and it did not whistle, nor did it try in any vulgar way to call attention to itself. But it was there, evident in the parquet, the Persian rriiniatures on the walls, and in the pale leather chairs and sofa that sat around three sides of a square marble table on which rested a bouquet of flowers more splendid than anything Signorina Elettfa had to date thought of ordering for the Questura.
A young woman quite as beautiful as the flowers, if somewhat more restrained in colour choice, sat at a glass-topped table. No papers and nothing to write with could be seen, only a flat-screen computer and a keyboard. Through the surface of the desk, Brunetti saw that she sat with her feet neatly together, a pair of brown shoes peeping out from the bottom of what looked like black silk slacks.
She smiled as they approached, revealing dimples on either side of a perfect mouth. Her hair appeared to be naturally blonde, though Brunetti had abandoned the idea that he could any longer tell, and her eyes were green, though one seemed to be just minimally larger than the other. 'May I help you?' she asked, making it sound as if this were her single goal in life.
'My name is Brunini’ he said. I have a three-thirty appointment with Dottor Calamandri.'
Again that smile. 'One moment and I'll check.' She turned aside and typed a few letters into the computer, tapping mem out carefully with the tips of her blunt-cut fingernails. She waited a second, glanced back at them and said, 'If you'll take seats over there, the dottore will see you in five minutes.'
Brunetti nodded and started to turn away. The young woman came around her desk to lead them to the seats, almost as if she doubted they could make the two-metre trip unaided.
'Would either of you like something to drink?' she asked, her smile refusing to fade.
Signorina Elettra shook her head, not bothering to say thank you. She was, after all, the spoiled companion of a wealthy man, and such women did not smile at their inferiors. Nor did they smile at women who were younger than they, especially when they were in the company of a man.
They sat down and the young woman returned to her desk, where she busied herself at her computer, the screen of which Brunetti could not see. He looked at the magazines lying beneath the flowers:
He picked up
'As soon as this is over, I will be,' she said, looking up at him and trying to smile.
Neither spoke for some time, and. Brunetti's attention wandered back to the covers of the magazines. He heard a door open and looked up to see another woman, older than the one at the desk and less attractive, approaching them. Her brown hair was parted in the middle and cut to just below her ears, falling forward on both sides of her face. She wore a white lab jacket over a grey wool skirt. Her legs were fine and well-muscled, the legs of a woman who played tennis or ran, but no less beautiful for that.
Brunetti stood. The woman extended her hand, saying, 'Good afternoon, Signor Brunini.' Brunetti expressed his pleasure in meeting her. He noticed the reason for the hair style: a thick layer of makeup attempted - and failed - to cover the rough pitting left by acne or some other skin disease. The scars, confined to the sides of her cheeks, were almost completely hidden by her hair. 'I'm Dottoressa Fontana, Dottor Calamandri's assistant. I'll take you to him.'
Signorina Elettra, secure in the presence of far less competition than that offered by the woman at the desk, could afford a gracious smile. She. took Brunetti's arm, suggesting that she might need his help to make whatever distance it was to Dottor Calamandri's office.
Dottor Fontana led them down a corridor where the elegance of the waiting room gave way to the practical sense of a medical institution: the floor was made of square grey tiles, and the prints on the walls were black and white city prospects. The doctor's legs looked as good from the back as from the front.
Dottor Fontana stopped at a door on the right, knocked, and opened it. Allowing Brunetti and Signorina Elettra to precede her into the room, she followed them in and closed the door.
A man somewhat older than Brunetti sat behind a. desk the surface of which made no pretence to anything other than chaos. Stacks of files and loose papers lay everywhere, brochures, magazines, boxes of prescription drugs, pencils, pens, a Swiss Army knife, medical reviews abandoned as though the reader had been called away.
The same disorder was evident in the doctor himself, whose loosened tie showed at the top of his lab coat. Pencils and what might be a thermometer stuck up from the breast pocket of the jacket; his name was stitched into the top of the pocket. He had a faintly distracted air, as if he were not quite sure how this mess had accumulated before him. Clean-shaven and round-faced, he glanced up and smiled, reminding Brunetti of the doctors of his youth, men willing to be called out at night to visit people in their homes, men to whom the health of their patients was worth any time or effort.
Brunetti gave the room a quick glance and saw the usual: framed medical degrees on the walls, glass-fronted
