Suffer the Little Children

‘I see,' Pedrolli said. ‘Perhaps you could be more specific?'

'It has to do with fraud here at the hospital,' Brunetti said, deciding to raise this first, before introducing the idea that he might be the victim of blackmail. Pedrolli relaxed just minimally.

'Fraud of what sort?'

'False appointments.' He saw the contraction of Pedrolli's eyes and went on, 'There are doctors here who are apparently scheduling appointments for patients they know will not keep those appointments; in some cases pharmacists schedule the appointments, and then the health service is charged for them, though they never take place. In at least three cases.

the patients for whom the appointments were scheduled are dead’

Pedrolli nodded affirmatively, then pressed his lips together. ‘I’d be a liar if I said I'd never heard about this, Commissario. But it doesn't happen in this department. My primario and I see to that’

Though Brunetti's impulse was to believe the doctor, he still asked, 'How?'

'All patients - well, their parents, since our patients are all children - who have appointments scheduled have to sign in with the nurse on duty, and at the end of her shift, she checks that list against the computer list of the patients who were actually seen by every doctor in the department.' He saw Brunetti's response and said, 'I know, it's very simple. It adds about five minutes of work to the nurse's day, but it eliminates any possibility of falsification.'

‘It sounds as though you set up your system specifically to avoid the possibility, Dottore,' Brunetti said. 'If I might say that'

‘I think you should say that, Commissario: that's exactly why we did it.' Pedrolli waited a moment until Brunetti's gaze met his, and then said, 'Word travels in a hospital’

‘I see,' Brunetti said.

'Is that all you wanted to ask me about?' Pedrolli said, beginning to shift his weight forward on his chair.

'No, Dottore, it isn't. If you'd have a moment's patience.. ‘

Pedrolli relaxed back into his chair and said,

'Of course’ but he looked at his watch as he said it. Suddenly Pedrolli's stomach made a thunderous groan and he gave that same almost embarrassed smile. ‘I haven't had lunch yet.'

'I'll try not to keep you too long,' Brunetti said, hoping that his own stomach would not begin to echo the doctor's.

'Dottore,' Brunetti began, 'are you a customer at the pharmacy in Campo Sant'Angelo’

'Yes. It's the one nearest to where I live.'

'You've used it for years?'

'Since we moved there, about four years ago. No, a bit more than that’

'Do you know the pharmacist well?' Brunetti asked.

A long time passed before Pedrolli said, pronouncing his words carefully, 'Ah, the exquisitely moral Dottor Franchi.' Then he added, I suppose I know him as well as any doctor knows a pharmacist.'

'Could you tell me what you mean by that, Dottore?'

Pedrolli shrugged. 'Dottor Franchi and I have diverging views of human weakness, I fear,' he said with a wry smile. 'He tends to take a sterner view than I do’ He gave a small smile. When Brunetti said nothing, Pedrolli continued, 'As to how well I know him professionally, I ask. him if patients of mine are collecting their prescriptions, and occasionally I go in to write and sign prescriptions when I've told someone over the phone to take a certain medicine.'

'And for yourself, Dottore? Do you buy things there?'

'I suppose I do; toothpaste or things we need in the house. Occasionally I'll get things my wife asks me to buy for her.'

'Do you get your prescriptions made up there?'

Pedrolli considered this question for a long time and finally said, 'No, I don't. I get any medicine I need here at the hospital.'

Brunetti nodded.

Pedrolli smiled, but it was not the same smile as before. 'Would you tell me why you're asking these questions, Commissario?'

Ignoring the question, Brunetti asked, 'In all these years, you've never had to get a prescription made up there?'

Pedrolli gazed off into the middle distance. 'Maybe, once, not too long after we moved in. I had flu, and Bianca went out to get medicine for me. She came back with something, but I don't remember if I needed a prescription for it.'

Pedrolli gazed away, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to recall, and he seemed about to speak when Brunetti interrupted to ask, 'If it had required a prescription, would that information have to be put into your medical records, Dottore?'

Pedrolli gave him a long look, and then suddenly his face went blank, as though someone had turned him off. Life returned in the form of a quick glance that Brunetti could not read. 'My medical records?' he finally asked, but it was not a question, not the way he said it. 'Why do you ask about them, Commissario?'

Brunetti saw no reason not to tell him, so long as he did not mention blackmail. 'We're looking into the inappropriate use of medical information, Dottore.'

He waited to see how Pedrolli would respond to this hint, but all the doctor did was blink, shrug, and say, 'I'm not sure that means anything specific to me.' It seemed to Brunetti that, behind the calm expression the doctor appeared to have nailed to his face, he was busy considering what Brunetti had just said, perhaps considering the possibilities towards which it might lead.

Brunetti realized that he had so far failed to raise with Pedrolli the chance of his son's return. He began again but in an entirely different tone of voice. 'What I would really like to do is talk to you about your son.'

He thought he heard Pedrolli gasp. Certainly the noise he made was stronger than a sigh, though the doctor's face remained impassive.

'What about my son would you like to know?' Pedrolli asked in a voice he struggled to control.

'Reports I've received suggest that the boy's natural mother is unlikely to make a claim that he be returned to her.' If Pedrolli understood the real meaning of this, he gave no sign of it, so Brunetti continued, 'And so I wondered if you had thought of pursuing the case in the courts.'

'What case?'

'Of having him returned to you?'

'How did you think that might be achieved, Commissario?'

'Your father-in-law is certainly a man ... well, a man with many connections. Perhaps he could ...' Brunetti watched the other man's face, waiting to see some play of emotion, but there was none.

The doctor glanced at his watch and said, 'I don't mean to be impolite, Commissario, but these are matters which concern my family and me, and I would prefer not to discuss them with you.'

Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I wish you well, Dottore. If I can ever be of help to you, I'd like to offer it,' Brunetti said, extending his hand.

Pedrolli took it, briefly looked as if he was going to say something, but remained silent.

Brunetti said he knew the way out of the hospital and left, planning to stop and have something to eat before his next meeting, with the doctor's father-in-law.

21

Brunetti stopped in a trattoria at the foot of the second bridge between the hospital and Campo Santa Marina but, finding that there was no table free, contented himself with a glass of vino novello and a plate of cicchetti, standing at the bar to eat them. Conversation swirled around him, but he overheard none of it, still recalling Pedrolli's surprise when asked about his medical records, or had it been at the suggestion that inappropriate use might have been made of them?

The fondi di carciofi were delicious, and Brunetti asked for two more, then another polpetta and another glass of wine. When he was finished, he was still not satisfied,