Marvilli's response was cut off by the opening of the door to Pedrolli's room. A man in middle years, vaguely familiar to Brunetti, stepped into the corridor, looking back at something inside. He wore what seemed to be a Harris tweed jacket over a pale yellow sweater, and jeans.
He raised a hand and pointed into the corridor. 'Out’ he said in a dangerous voice, his eyes still on something or, it now seemed, someone.
A much younger man, dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying a machine-gun, appeared just in the doorway. He stopped, his face rigid with confusion, and looked down the corridor. He opened his mouth as if to speak.
The Captain waved him to silence and then jerked his head to one side, commanding him from the room. The man with the gun walked out into the corridor and down to Marvilli, but the Captain repeated the gesture, this time angrily, and the young man continued past him. All of them could hear the sound of his disappearing boots.
When silence returned, the doctor closed the door and approached them. He nodded in recognition of Vianello, then asked Marvilli, 'Are you the person in charge?' His voice was openly aggressive.
‘Yes, I am’ Marvilli answered, and Brunetti could hear him struggle to keep his voice calm. 'May I ask who you are?' the Captain asked, then added, 'and why you ask?'
'Because I'm a doctor and I've got a patient in there who's been the victim of an assault, and since you're a Carabiniere officer and presumably know what's going on, I'd like to report it and report it as a crime’
'Assault?' Marvilli asked with feigned curiosity. 'Your patient attacked two of my men and broke the nose of one of them. So if there's any talk of assault, he's the one who is more likely to be charged with it’
The doctor looked at Marvilli with contempt, and made no effort to keep it out of his voice. I have no idea what your rank is, officer, but unless your men decided to take his clothes off him after fracturing his skull, then your men -and I assume they were armed - were assaulted by a naked man’ After a brief pause, he added, I don't know where you come from, but in Venice we don't allow the police to beat people up’ He turned away from Marvilli, making it clear that he had said all he wanted to say to him. Addressing Vianello, he said, 'Inspector, could I have a word with you?' Then, as Vianello started to speak, he added, 'Inside’
'Of course, Dottore,' Vianello said. Indicating Brunetti with his right hand, he said, 'This is my superior, Commissario Brunetti. He's very concerned about what's gone on here.'
'Ah, that's who you are,' the doctor said, extending a hand to Brunetti and giving him an easy smile, as though it were perfectly natural to be introduced at four o'clock in the morning. 'I'd like to speak to you, as well,' he said, as though Marvilli were not standing less than a metre from them.
The doctor stood aside until Brunetti and Vianello had gone in; then he closed the door behind them. 'My name's Damasco’ he said, moving towards the bed. 'Bartolomeo.'
On the bed lay a man, who looked up at them with confused eyes. The overhead light was not on, and the only illumination came from a small lamp on the other side of the bed. Brunetti could make out a shock of light brown hair that fell across the man's forehead and a beard in which there seemed to be a great deal of grey. The skin above the beard was rough and pitted, and the top of his left ear swollen and red.
Pedrolli opened his mouth, but the other doctor bent over him and said, 'Don't worry, Gustavo. These men are here to help. And don't worry about your voice. It'll come back. You just need to rest and give the drugs a chance to work.' He patted the other man on his naked shoulder, then pulled the blanket up to his neck.
The man on the bed stared up at him intently, as if willing him to understand what it was he wanted to say. ‘Don't worry, Gustavo. Bianca's fine. Alfredo's fine.'
At the last name, Brunetti noticed the man's face twist in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut to avoid showing whatever emotion it was he felt, then turned his head away, eyes still closed.
'What happened to him?' Brunetti asked.
Damasco shook his head as if wanting to shake away both the question and the reason for it. 'It's your business to find that out, Commissario. My concern is treating the physical consequences.'
Damasco saw how surprised the other two were by his abruptness and led them away from the bed. At the door, he said, 'Dottoressa Cardinale called me at about two this morning. She said that there was a man in the emergency room - she told me who it was, Gustavo Pedrolli, one of our colleagues - who had been brought in by the Carabinieri. He had been hit behind the left ear, by something hard enough to have caused a fracture of the skull. Luckily, the skull is thick there, so it's only a hairline fracture, but still it's a serious injury. Or can be.
'Whenl got here about twenty minutes later, there were two Carabinieri guarding the door. They told me the injured man had to be kept under guard because he had assaulted one of their colleagues when they tried to arrest him.' Damasco closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in an indication of how credible he found this explanation.
'Soon after that, my colleague in Pronto Soccorso called to tell me that this man, this 'assaulted' man, had nothing more than a displaced cartilage in his nose, so I'm not willing to believe he was the victim of a serious assault’ Curious, Brunetti asked, 'Is Dottor Pedrolli the sort of man who would react like this? So violently?'
Damasco started to speak but appeared to reconsider, then said, 'No. A naked man doesn't attack a man with a machine-gun, does he?' He paused and then added, 'Not unless he's defending his family, he doesn't.' When he saw that he had their attention, he went on, 'They tried to stop me from coming in here to see my patient. Perhaps they thought I'd try to help him escape through a window or something: I have no idea. Or help him concoct some sort of story. I told them I'm a doctor, and when I demanded the name of their commanding officer, they let me in, though the one in charge insisted that the other stay in here with me while I examined Gustavo.' He added, not without pride, 'But then I threw him out. They can't do that here.'
The way Damasco spoke the last word struck a responsive chord in Brunetti. No, not here, and certainly not without asking permission of the local police. Brunetti saw no sense, however, in mentioning this to Damasco and so limited himself to saying, 'The way you spoke to him, Dottore,' Brunetti began, 'made it sound like your patient's unable to speak. Could you tell me more about that?'
Damasco glanced away, as if looking for the answer to this question on the wall. Finally he said, ‘He seems to want to speak, but no words come out’
'The blow?' Brunetti asked.
Damasco shrugged. It could be.' He looked at the two men one by one, as if judging how much he should tell them. 'The brain's a strange thing, and the mind's even stranger. I've been working with the one for thirty years, and I've learned something about the way it works, but the other is still a mystery to me’
'Is that the case here, Dottore?' Brunetti asked, sensing that the doctor wanted to be asked.
Again, the shrug, and then Damasco said. Tor all I know, the blow isn't the cause of the silence. It could be shock, or it could be that he's decided not to speak until he has a clearer idea of what’s going on’ Damasco reached up and rubbed at his face with open palms.
When he lowered his hands, he said, ‘I don't know. As I say, I work with the physical brain, the neurons and synapses, and the things that can be tested and measured. All the rest - the non-physical stuff, the mind, if you will -I leave that to other people’
'But you mention it, Dottore,' Brunetti said, keeping his voice as low as the doctor's.
‘Yes, I mention it. I've known Gustavo for a long time, so I know a little about the way he thinks and reacts to things. So I mention it’
'Would you be willing to expand on that, Dottore?' Brunetti asked.
'About what?'
'About the way your patient thinks and reacts?'
Damasco turned his full attention to Brunetti, and his consideration of the question was as clear as it was serious. 'No, I don't think I can, Commissario, except to say that he is rigorously honest, a quality which, at least professionally, has sometimes worked to his disadvantage,' he said, then paused, as though listening to his own words. Then he added, 'He's my friend, but he's also my patient, and my responsibility is to protect him as best I can.'
'Protect him from what?' Brunetti asked, choosing to ignore for the moment Dottor Damasco's observations about the consequences of his friend's honesty.
Damasco's smile was both natural and good-natured as he said, 'If from nothing else, Commissario, then from the police.' He turned away and walked over to the figure on the bed. Glancing back, he said, 'I'd like to be left
