Villatico and Carlo Renda were two local drug addicts, both in the terminal stages of AIDS and who thus could not be sent to prison. During the day they begged money from tourists and at night, if their begging failed to raise the necessary cash, they broke into pharmacies and stole drugs, mixing themselves intravenous cocktails that as often contained cold and flu remedies as anything else. The results of their experiments had landed them in the Emergency Room countless times, and each time they had survived, though the doctors at the hospital had long since declared their immune systems so fragile that the first cold or bout of flu was sure to carry them off.
In the face of Pucetti’s obvious disgust at the two men, Brunetti said nothing about his own awkward sympathy for them. Neither had ever held a job, neither of them appeared to have had a lucid interval in the last decade, but still neither had ever resorted to violence, not even verbal resistance to the abuse they sometimes encountered.
‘Overnight express?’ Pucetti asked, recalling Brunetti’s attention.
‘Yes. And thank you, Pucetti.’
The officer saluted and left, leaving Brunetti faintly troubled by the difference in their response to the two drug addicts. Pucetti’s was the generation that was all in favour of sentiment, sharing other people’s pain, voicing compassion for the downtrodden, yet Brunetti often found in them traces of a ruthlessness that chilled his spirit and made him fearful for the future. He wondered if the cheap sentimentality of television and film had sent them into some sort of emotional insulin shock and suffocated their ability to feel empathy with the unappealing victims of the mess that real life created.
Carlo was festooned with badly drawn tattoos and moved about the city with the nervous eagerness of a crab, while Fabio often stank of urine and was a stranger to reason. In all the years he had known them, Brunetti had never given them money and longed to see them removed from the streets, but passing by them filled him with a vague unease, as though he were somehow responsible for their plight.
To distract himself from thoughts of the two doomed men, Brunetti checked the internal police phone list and dialled Moretti’s number.
‘Ah, Commissario,’ he said when Brunetti gave his name. ‘I’ve wanted to call you all day, but we’ve been invaded.’
‘Tourists?’ Brunetti asked, intending it as a joke.
‘Gypsies. There must be a gang in town: we’ve had nine people in here this morning, all telling the same old story: the little kids with the newspapers.’
‘I thought they used that in Rome,’ Brunetti said, remembering what it was like to be surrounded by a band of small children, all waving papers in front of their faces and yelling to distract the victim long enough for another one of them to grab wallet or purse.
‘They do, but they use it here now, too, it seems.’
‘Have you got any of them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘So far, three, but they’re all minors or look as though they are, so all we can do is ask their names and record them. Then they make a phone call, and soon someone with the same last name comes and picks them up and takes them away.’ Moretti let out a disgusted sigh and added, ‘I don’t even bother any more to tell them they have to send the kids to school, just like I don’t bother to tell the adults we arrest that they have to leave the country within forty-eight hours. The last time I told someone that, he laughed at me, right in my face.’ Another pause. ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t hit him.’
‘No sense in that, is there?’ Brunetti asked neutrally.
‘Of course not. But there are times when it would feel so good to be able to do it.’
‘Not worth it, though, is it?’
‘Of course not. But that doesn’t stop me wanting to.’
Thinking it better to change the subject, Brunetti said, ‘Was it about that black man? Did you remember where you saw him?’
‘No, I didn’t, but Cattaneo did.’ Before Brunetti could ask, he continued, ‘We were out on a call one night about two months ago. Late, maybe two in the morning, and some guy came out of a bar and came running after us. He said he wanted us to come back with him because there was going to be a fight. It was over near Campo Santa Margherita. But by the time we got there, there wasn’t much left of the argument.’
‘And he was there?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes, and I’d say it was a good thing it was stopped before it got any worse.’
‘Why?’
‘The other two. Both of them were twice his size. The only thing that stopped it going any further, I think, was the other people in the bar. Well, and then we walked in, and that helped quiet things down.’
‘This was at two in the morning?’ Brunetti asked, making no attempt to disguise his astonishment.
‘Times have changed, Commissario,’ Moretti said, but then qualified that by adding, ‘or maybe it’s only the area around Campo Santa Margherita that’s changed. All those bars, the pizzerias, the music places. It’s never quiet there at night any more. Some of them are open until two or three in the morning.’
Brunetti interrupted him by asking, ‘And the black man?’
‘There were a couple of men in the bar, standing between him and two others, the ones I’d say he’d been arguing with, keeping them apart.’ Moretti considered this, then added, ‘I don’t think it was much of anything, really. As I said, it looked like things had quieted down before we got there: no chairs turned over, nothing broken. Just this atmosphere in the air and three other men — might have been four of them — standing between them and sort of holding them apart.’
‘Did you learn what the argument was about?’
‘No. One of the others — I guess I could call him one of the peacekeepers — said the men had been sitting at a table, talking, when they started to argue. He said the black guy got up and headed for the door, and the men with him went after him and tried to pull him back to the table. That’s when this guy saw us walk by and came out to get us.’
‘How long before you went inside?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Couple of minutes, I’d say.’
‘You said Cattaneo remembered him?’
‘Yes. I showed him the picture, and he recognized him immediately. And then I did, too, once he reminded me. It was the same guy.’
‘What did you do?’ Brunetti asked.
‘We asked to see their papers.’
‘And.’
‘And he had a
‘What did it say?’ Brunetti asked.
‘It gave his name and place of birth,’ Moretti said, and then added, ‘I suppose.’
‘Why only suppose?’
‘Because I don’t remember any of the details.’ Before Brunetti could question this, Moretti said, ‘I must look at a hundred of them a week, sir. I look to see that the seal is right and the photo matches the person and hasn’t been tampered with, but the names are strange, and I usually don’t pay attention to the country where they’re from.’ Then he added, ‘Cattaneo can’t remember, either.’ Sensing Brunetti’s disappointment, the sergeant said, ‘All I remember is the accent.’
‘What accent?’
‘When this guy spoke Italian — he spoke it pretty well — he had an accent.’
‘And?’ Brunetti asked, then, ‘He was an African, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, of course, but his accent was different. I mean the
‘Different how?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It just sounded strange.’ Moretti hesitated, as if trying to recapture the sound, but the memory was clearly beyond his reach, and all he said was, ‘No, I can’t describe it better than that.’
‘And Cattaneo?’
‘I asked. He said he wasn’t even aware of it.’
Brunetti let this go and asked, ‘And the other men? Were they black, too?’
