Suffer the Little Children

'If you say that again, I'll drown the children’ 'They're too big.'

There was some thrashing about, and then he saw the side of her face. One eye opened.

‘I’ll bring you coffee,' he said amiably and got out of bed. 'And then we'll talk.'

Though the promise was not easily won from her, Paola agreed to phone her father and ask him if he would arrange a meeting. Brunetti knew that he could, as a police officer, have arranged one himself, but he knew it would be more easily done, and he would be more gracefully received, were the request to come through the agency of Conte Orazio Falier.

Paola told him she would phone the Count that afternoon: her father was in South America, and she had to find out where exactly he was to be able to figure out the time difference before she called him.

Thus it was that Brunetti, thinking of his father-in-law, was momentarily confused when Vianello came into his office in mid-morning, saying, 'Pedrolli's on the list’

Brunetti looked across at the Inspector and asked,'What list?'

'The list on the computer. Dottor Franchi's. He's been a customer there for the last four years.'

'Of the pharmacy?'

‘Yes’

‘Pedrolli?'

'Yes.'

'And Franchi has seen his medical records?' It was only then that Brunetti noticed the file in Vianello's hand.

It's all in here,' Vianello said. He came and stood next to Brunetti and put the file on the desk. He opened it and shuffled through the stack of papers, pulling out four or five. Brunetti saw short paragraphs of very small print, numbers, dates. Glancing down the first page, he saw Latin terms, more dates, brief comments that made little sense to him.

Vianello spread the papers out on the desk so that they could look at all of them at the same time. 'This goes back only seven years,' Vianello said. 'That’s as far back as they could be traced.'

‘Why?'

Vianello raised a hand. 'Who knows? The original files were lost? They haven't got that far back in computerizing the records? You name it'

'Have you read it?' Brunetti asked.

The first two paragraphs,' the Inspector said, his eyes on the third.

Together, they read down the first sheet of paper, then the next, and then the rernaining pages. Pedrolli's visits to fertility specialists appeared to have begun three years before, the year after his marriage.

At the bottom of two of the pages were what looked to Brunetti to be lab reports: he saw lists of names and lists of numbers which made little sense to him. He did recognize the words 'cholesterol' and 'glucose', though he had no idea what the numbers beside them meant in terms of Pedrolli's health.

The last page was a report, apparently emailed to ULSS from a clinic in Verona and dated two years ago.

'Probable malformation of the sperm ducts due to trauma experienced in adolescence,' Brunetti read. 'Sperm production normal, present in testicles, but obstruction of tubes results in total sterility.'

'Poor devil, eh?' said Vianello.

Sexual behaviour is the ichor, the very life-blood, of gossip. Remove it, and there is relatively little left to chew over in the lives of other people, certainly very little of any interest, aside from their money or their work or their health. Some people might take an interest in those things, but none of them possesses the all-consuming fascination of sexual behaviour and its consequences. The story of Pedrolli's affair and the subsequent birth of his child - to make no mention of his wife's noble acceptance of that child - was the sort of thing that would make the rounds.

But here was proof that Pedrolli, regardless of gossip, could not have been the father of the' child and so must have acquired the baby in some other way. One had but to indicate the word 'sterility' to the police, and it would not be long before Pedrolli would be listed among those to be investigated for illegal possession of a child he clearly could not have fathered. Since his name was on the birth certificate along with the mother's, she could be easily located, and then it was only a matter of time before the forces of the state could be expected to arrive to save the child. A person who valued virtuous behaviour would almost be constrained to make such a thing known to the authorities, wouldn't he? Well, unless perhaps a certain sum were to change hands, perhaps at regular intervals?

Brunetti reassembled the sheaf of papers, careful to keep them in order. 'What else is in there?' he asked, pointing to the file.

'Pucetti and I have already come across HIV and drug rehabilitation, even a surgeon with a history of hepatitis B.'

'A gold mine, really,' Brunetti said.

'I'm afraid so,' Vianello answered.

'Have you gone through them all?'

'No, only about half. But I came up here as soon as I saw that Pedrolli was a client of his.'

'Good,' Brunetti said. 'How many of you are working on this?'

'Just me and Pucetti,' Vianello said.

'How do you know what you're finding?'

Brunetti asked, tapping the medical reports with the back of his fingers.

'He's at one of the computers. And when he doesn't know what something is, he checks the medical dictionary.'

'Where'd he get that?' Brunetti enquired.

'The whole thing's on a disc: her friend sent it when he sent us these lists. He thought it would make things easier for us.'

'Thoughtful fellow,' observed Brunetti.

'Yes,' Vianello answered without true conviction.

'Go back and see what else you can find, all right? I want to read through this again.'

Vianello moved away from the desk but stopped, looking less than fully persuaded.

'Go on,' Brunetti said, gesturing towards the door. 'I'll come down soon.'

He glanced through the papers but with no great interest: he had learned what he needed to know the first time he read them. He looked out the window, suddenly unable to remember, not only what time of day it was, but the season. He got up and went over to the window, opened it. The air was cool, the grass across the way tired and dusty and in need of the rain that seemed to be in the air. His watch showed that it was almost one. He picked up the papers and went downstairs, only to be told that Vianello and Pucetti had gone out for lunch. Paola would be out, so Brunetti was not planning to eat at home. He tried not to feel sorry for himself that his colleagues had not asked him to join them and returned to his office. He dialled the number at the hospital of Ettore Rizzardi, the medico legale of the city, planning to leave a message, and was surprised when the doctor answered the phone.

'It’s me, Ettore’

'Hmm?'

'And good afternoon to you, too, Dottor Rizzardi’ Brunetti said in a voice he made sound as mindlessly cheerful as he could.

'What is it, Guido?' the doctor asked. 'I'm in the middle of something.'

'Malformation of the sperm ducts due to a trauma in adolescence?' Brunetti asked.

'No kids.'

'One hundred per cent?' 'Probably. Next question?' 'Fixable?'

'Perhaps. Any more questions?'

'Personal, not medical,' Brunetti answered. 'About Pedrolli, the paediatrician.'

‘I know who he is,' Rizzardi said with some asperity. Tost his son.'

'What did you hear about how he got his son?'

'Story I was told said he brought him back from some woman in Cosenza.'