Suffer the Little Children

than other people, or whether they were simply less informed. He had heard rumours of countries where there existed an independent press that provided accurate information and where the television was not all controlled by one man; indeed, his own wife had expressed belief in the existence of these marvels.

Pelusso's voice summoned him back from these meanderings. 'Is there anything else?' the journalist asked.

'Yes. If you do hear anything definite about who wanted the stories dropped, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a call,' Brunetti said.

'I'll let you know,' Pelusso said and was gone.

Brunetti replaced the phone, his imagination drawn, by some route he could not identify, to poems Paola had read to him, years ago. They had been written by an Elizabethan poet about the deaths of his two children, a boy and a girl. Brunetti remembered her indignation that the poet was far more disturbed by the death of his son than that of his daughter, but Brunetti recalled only the shattered man's wish that he 'could lose all father now'. How profound would suffering have to be for a man to wish he had never been a father? Two of their friends had seen their children die, and neither had ever come back from that pain. By force of will, he pressed his attention towards the people who might be able to provide him with information about this business in babies, and he recalled his unsuccessful visit to the Ufficio Anagrafe.

Brunetti decided to phone them and within minutes had the information. If a man and the woman of a newborn child came into their office and signed a declaration that the man was the father of the child, that, in essence, was the end of it. Of course, they were required to present their identity cards and proof of the birth; if they chose, they could even do it at the hospital, where there was a branch of the office.

Brunetti had just whispered the words, 'A licence to steal', when Vianello came into his office without bothering to knock.

'They just got a call downstairs,' Vianello said without preamble. 'Someone broke into the pharmacy in Campo Sant'Angelo.'

'One of your pharmacists?' Brunetti asked with undisguised interest.

Vianello nodded but before Brunetti could ask another question, said, 'We're still looking into bank records.'

'Broke in and did what?' Brunetti asked, wondering if this could be an attempt to destroy evidence or throw dust in the eyes of anyone taking an interest in the pharmacy.

'Whoever called said she opened the door and didn't even bother to go in when she saw what had happened. She called us immediately.'

'But she didn't say what happened?' asked Brunetti with ill-disguised exasperation.

'No. I asked Foa to take us over. He's got the launch waiting.' When Brunetti remained at his desk, Vianello said, ‘I think we should go. Before anyone else gets there.'

'Interesting coincidence, isn't it?' Brunetti asked.

'I'm not sure what it is, but I doubt either one of us thinks this is a coincidence,' Vianello answered.

Brunetti glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost ten. 'Why was she just getting there now? Shouldn't they have opened an hour ago?'

'She didn't say, or if she did, Riverre didn't tell me. All he said was that she called and said someone had broken into the place.' In response to the growing impatience in Vianello's voice, Brunetti got to his feet and joined him at the door. 'All right. Let's go and have a look.'

The quickest way was for Foa to turn into Rio San Maurizio and then take them to Campo Sant'Angelo. They crossed the campo and approached the pharmacy. Light filtering in from outside muminated the posters on display in the two shop windows, though no lights appeared to be on inside. Brunetti's eye was drawn to a pair of sleek, tanned female thighs which presented themselves to the beholder, proof of the ease with which cellulite could be banished in a single week. Next to them a white-haired couple stood side by side on a spun-sugar beach, each gazing longingly into the eyes of the other, their hands joined; behind them glistened a tropical sea, on the sand below them a box of arthritis medicine.

‘Is this the only entrance?' Brunetti asked, pointing to the intact glass door between the two windows.

'No, the staff uses a door down the calle around that side,' Viariello answered, displaying a dubious familiarity with the workings of the pharmacy. Following his own directions, the Inspector led Brunetti to the left and then into a calle that led back towards La Fenice.

As they approached the first door on the right, a woman of about Brunetti's age stepped from the doorway, asking, 'Are you the police?'

'Si, Signora,' Brunetti answered, introducing himself and then Vianello. She could have been any of hundreds of Venetian women her age. Her hair was cut short and dyed dark red; her weight was concentrated in her torso, but she had the sense to disguise this with a box-cut jacket over a matching tari ‘I-shirt. Good calves showed under a knee-length brown skirt, and she wore brown pumps with low heels. She carried the remnants of a summer tan and wore little makeup beyond pale lipstick and blue eye shadow.

'I'm Eleonora Invernizzi. I work for Dottor Franchi.' Then, as if to prevent them from taking her for one of the pharmacists, she added, 'I'm the saleswoman.' She did not extend her hand and gazed back and forth at the two men.

'Could you tell us what happened, Signora?'

Brunetti asked. She was standing in front of the closed wooden door that presumably led into the pharmacy, but Brunetti made no move towards it.

She shifted the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and pointed to the lock. Both of them could see the damage: someone had jimmied open the door, with such force that the wood was splintered and stuck out jaggedly above and below the keyhole, suggesting that a crowbar had slipped a few times before it found sufficient purchase to spring the lock and allow the door to be pushed open.

Signora Invernizzi said, 'If I've told him once, I've told the dottore a hundred times that this lock is an invitation to thieves. Every time I tell him, he says, yes, he'll change it, get a porta blindata, but then he doesn't, and then I tell him again, and still he doesn't do it.' She pointed to the metal grate that covered a small window in the door. ‘I touched it there when I pushed the door open,' she said. 'Otherwise, I haven't touched anything. I didn't even go inside. I just looked and then called you.'

'That was very wise, Signora,' Vianello said.

Brunetti stepped up to the door and placed his palm on the point where the woman said she had put hers. He gave a gentle push, and the door swung easily inward until it stopped with a bang against the wall.

Ahead of them Brunetti saw a narrow corridor and an open door, above which glowed a dim red security light. It was when he lowered his eyes to the floor that he saw why Signora Invernizzi had called the police. For about a metre in front of the far doorway, the floor was strewn with a tapestry of boxes, bottles, and phials, all of which had been stomped on, shattered, and flattened. Brunetti took a few steps until he stood just at the edge of the mess. He extended his right foot and with his toe kicked things aside to clear a place to set his foot, then stepped forward and repeated the process until he reached the second doorway, where the corridor turned right, towards the front of the pharmacy.

Brunetti crossed the corridor and went through the door on the other side into what appeared to be the pharmacists' work space, where mess became catastrophe. Dangerous looking pieces of dark brown glass patterned the floor, among them shattered fragments of what had once been majolica apothecary jars. On one piece, tiny rosebuds wound themselves in a garland among three letters: 'IUM'. Liquids and powders had bled together into a thick soup that smelled faintly of rotten eggs and something astringent that might be rubbing alcohol. Some liquid had burned its way down the front of a cabinet, leaving a wave of corroded plastic behind. A cancerous circle in the linoleum tiles in front of the cabinet exposed patches of cement floor. Two jars still stood on the shelves, but the rest had been swept to the ground, where all but one had broken. Brunetti raised his head instinctively to back away from the fiery smell and found himself looking at the crucified Christ, who had also turned his head away from the stench.

From behind him, Brunetti heard Vianello call his name; he followed the Inspector's voice to the main room of the pharmacy. Perhaps to avoid being observed from outside, whoever had broken in had confined most of his attentions to the area behind the counter and thus farthest from the windows. Here too the counters had been swept clean. All of the drawers had been pulled from the cabinets and tossed to the floor; packages and bottles had