Blood from a stone

was a victim too, or that’s the way the memory feels to me. But it was because of work I saw him; I’m sure of that.’ He set the photo, face down, on the desk, looked at Brunetti and said, ‘If it comes to me, or if anyone recognizes him, I’ll call you.’

‘Good. Thanks,’ Brunetti said and got to his feet. The men shook hands and Brunetti went down the stairs and out into the Piazza.

Had he not had this mildly encouraging conversation with Moretti, Brunetti might have seen himself as a man abandoned by his wife at lunchtime, then might have added that her behaviour was even more heartless given the Christmas season. But Moretti had recognized the man, or thought he recognized him, and so Brunetti could not give himself over wholeheartedly to playing the role of the neglected spouse. He could, however, treat himself to a good lunch. Aunt Federica, apart from her temper, was known for the skill of her cook, so Paola was sure to arrive at their meeting sated not only with the latest family gossip but with the results of the recipes the Faliers had spent the last four centuries enjoying.

He took the public gondola beside the Gritti and arrived at the other side chilled to the bone and much in need of sustenance. This he found at Cantinone Storico in the form of a risotto with tiny shrimp which the waiter promised him were fresh and a grilled orata served with boiled potatoes. Asked if he’d like dessert, Brunetti thought of the heavy eating that lay ahead of him in the next weeks and, feeling quite pleased with himself, said all he wanted was a grappa and a coffee.

He finished just a little after three and so decided to walk to Campo San Bortolo. As he reached the crest of the Accademia bridge, he looked down into the campo on the other side and was surprised to find no sign of the vu cumpra. That morning’s Gazzettino had warned him how little time there remained for Christmas shopping. This made it all the stranger that the black men were not at their usual places. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, most of the people of Italy — he among them — always seemed to use these last days to buy their gifts. If it was the busiest times for the shops, then it had to be the busiest time for the ambulanti, and yet there was no sign of them.

When he turned right at the church and started into Campo Santo Stefano, he did see some sheets on the ground. At first he thought they must be the forgotten groundsheets of the crime scene, but then he saw the line of wind-up toys and linked wooden train carriages, carved to look like individual letters, spelling names across the sheet. The men stationed behind the sheets were not Africans but Orientals and Tamils, and off to the left he saw a band of poncho-draped Indios and their strange musical instruments. But as for Africans, the more Brunetti looked, the more they were not there.

He walked past the various vendors but resisted the idea of speaking to any of them. Innocent curiosity about the Africans would make no sense, and police questions could provoke flight. As he studied the men and the segregation of their products, he noticed that all of the items had been mass produced, and that caused him to wonder who decided which group would sell which things. And who supplied them? Or determined the prices? And who housed them? And who got them residence and work permits, if they had such things? If the black men from Castello had disappeared, they must have gone somewhere, but where? And as a result of whose decision and with whose help?

Pondering all of these questions and again amazed that this subterranean world could exist in the city where he lived, he continued down Calle della Mandola, through Campo San Luca, and into San Bortolo.

Paola was, as she had promised, waiting for him, right where she had waited for him for decades: beneath the statue of a perpetually dapper Goldoni. He kissed her and wrapped his right arm around her shoulder. ‘Tell me you ate badly and I’ll get you any Christmas present you want,’ he said.

‘We ate gloriously well, and there’s nothing I want,’ Paola answered. When he failed to respond, she went on, ‘Fettucine with truffles.’

‘White or black?’ he asked.

To goad him, she asked, ‘The truffles or the fettucine?’

He ignored the question and asked, ‘And what else?’

‘Stinco di maiale with roast potatoes and a zucchini gratin.’

‘If I hadn’t gone to Cantinone, I’d probably have to divorce you.’

‘And who would help with the Christmas shopping, then?’ she asked. Into his silence, she said, as if by way of consolation, ‘I didn’t have dessert.’

‘Good, me neither. So we can stop on the way home.’

She grabbed his arm and squeezed it and said, ‘Where do we start?’

‘Chiara, I think,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I have no idea. None at all.’

‘We could get her a telefonino,’ she suggested.

‘And thus undo two years of resistance at a single stroke?’ he asked.

‘All her friends have them,’ Paola said, sounding just like Chiara.

‘You sound just like Chiara,’ said Brunetti in dismissal. ‘Clothes?’

‘No, she’s got too many already.’

Brunetti stopped in his tracks, turned to her, and said, ‘I think that is the first time in my life, perhaps in recorded history, that a woman has admitted the concept of too much clothing might exist.’

‘Over-reaction to the truffles,’ she suggested.

‘Perhaps.’

‘I’ll get over it.’

‘Doubtless.’

Telefonino and clothes excluded, Paola suggested books, so they went down towards San Luca, in the general area of which there were three bookstores. In the first they found nothing that Paola thought Chiara would like, but in the second she bought a complete set of the novels of Jane Austen, in English.

‘But you have those,’ Brunetti said.

‘Everyone should have them,’ Paola said. ‘If I thought you’d read them, I’d get you a set, too.’

He started to protest that he had read them once, when Paola’s attention swung away from him and riveted itself to the far wall. He turned, following the direction of her gaze, but all he saw was an enormous poster of a young man who looked vaguely familiar; perhaps, he found himself thinking, this was the way the black man was familiar to Moretti. So intently did Paola stare that Brunetti finally waved his hand in front of her face and said, ‘Earth to Paola, Earth to Paola, can you hear me? Come in, please.’

She looked back at him for an instant and then, her eyes returning to the poster, said, ‘That’s it. That’s perfect.’

‘What’s perfect?’ he asked.

‘The poster. She’ll love it.’

‘The poster?’ he repeated.

‘Yes.’ Before he could ask who the boy was, Paola grew serious and said, ‘Guido, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

He imagined the worst: Chiara running off to follow a rock group, joining some sort of sect. ‘What?’

‘Chiara is in love with the future heir to the British throne,’ she said, pointing at the poster.

‘An Englishman?’ Brunetti asked, shocked, remembering everything he’d ever heard about them: Battenberg, Windsor, Hanover, whatever they called themselves. ‘With someone from that family?’ he asked.

‘Would you rather have her be in love with one of the male issue of our own dear Savoia family?’ she asked sweetly.

Brunetti was too stunned to speak. He started to answer her, recalled everything he had ever heard about that family, and pursed his lips. Easily, brightly, surprising not a few people in the bookstore, Brunetti began to whistle ‘Rule, Britannia!’

18

The bookseller suggested they buy a heavy cardboard tube for the poster, which turned out to be a good