Drawing Conclusions

him to go to hell. ‘Like talking to a statue.’ He leaned forward, and this time the old man did take one step backwards. ‘And then I have to listen to you,’ Brunetti said with angry disgust.

Brunetti drew a few deep breaths, as if enjoining himself to patience; but, like every bureaucrat, he had a point beyond which his patience was exhausted, and he had clearly passed it. ‘Try to help people, and all you get is abuse.’

As he spoke, his voice angrier with every sentence, Brunetti kept his eyes on the old man. If Brunetti had stuck him with a pin, he could not have deflated more quickly. Strangely enough, this time the other parts of his face flushed red, while his cheeks and his nose turned an unhealthy white. He cast a glance at the woman to see if she had been following, and Brunetti could almost smell his fear that she had heard and understood what his meddling had provoked.

The old man raised both hands in a placatory gesture towards Brunetti. ‘Signore, Signore,’ he said. All signs of aggression and anger had vanished. He pasted a thin smile on his face.

‘No,’ Brunetti said, snapping the notebook shut just under the other man’s nose and jamming it back in his pocket. ‘No. There’s no use wasting my time on the likes of you. No use ever trying to do anyone a favour.’ He forced his voice even louder and all but shouted, ‘You can wait for official notice, the way everyone else does.’

He turned and walked quickly towards the door. The old man took one tentative step towards him, hands still raised, now in near-supplication. ‘But Signore, I didn’t understand. I didn’t mean… She needs…’ he almost bleated in the tone of a citizen who sees himself losing the chance to receive a payment from a government office and who knows he will now have to wait for the bureaucracy to volunteer to make the payment.

Brunetti, enjoying his indignation, left the room and walked quickly down the corridor. He made his way to the front door and left the casa di cura without seeing either of the novices or any of the sisters.

18

Returned to the street and free of the role of irritated bureaucrat, Brunetti considered, and then regretted, the rashness of his behaviour. There had been no need for his charade, his heavy-handed impersonation, but something in him knew that the man should be prevented from suspecting that the authorities were taking an interest in the nursing home or any of the people in it, and so he had acted without thinking and given in to his impulse towards secrecy: should he ever have to deal with the old man in his official capacity as a representative of the law, the situation could be legally complicated by his original misrepresentation. He had seen cases destroyed by less.

But what was he doing, even thinking in terms of a case? All he had was a choleric old man shouting at him and a woman of uncertain lucidity warning him of trouble to come. When was trouble not coming?

The old man had foreseen trouble in the presence of an unknown visitor in her room and had been suspicious that Brunetti had been asking questions. Why should this concern him? Brunetti cast his memory back over the scene. He had explained that it was impossible to get any information from her, and the man’s anger had been dissipated only by the possibility that the woman would receive money.

Brunetti seldom permitted himself the luxury of disliking the people he met in the course of his work. He formed first impressions, surely, sometimes very strong ones. They were often correct, but not always. Over the years, he had come to accept that the negative ones were more distorting than the positive ones: it was too easy to follow the dictates of dislike.

But, of all the world, Brunetti most hated bullies. He hated them for the injustice of what they did and for their need to make others submit. Only once in his professional life had he lost control of himself, almost twenty years ago, during the questioning of a man who had kicked a prostitute to death. He had been captured because his three initials were embroidered on the linen handkerchief he had used to wipe the blood off his shoes and dropped not far from the woman’s body.

Luckily, three officers had been detailed to question the man, an accountant who shared control of a string of girls with their pimp. When asked to identify the handkerchief, it did not escape the observation of any of the policemen that he wore an identical one in his breast pocket.

As soon as he realized the meaning and the consequences of the handkerchiefs, he had said, man to man, just one of the boys, and oh, so eager to show what a tough boy he was, ‘She was just a whore. I shouldn’t have wasted a linen handkerchief on her.’ It was then that the younger, rawer Brunetti had jumped to his feet, already halfway across the table towards him. Wiser heads, and hands, had intervened, and Brunetti had been replanted solidly in his chair to wait out, silently, the interrogation.

Times had been different then, and his attempt had had no legal consequences. In today’s legal climate, however, were the old man ever to be accused of a crime, the disclosure of Brunetti’s true profession would be milk and honey to a defence attorney.

Mulling over all of this, Brunetti made his way back to the Questura. When he got there, he went directly to Signorina Elettra’s room, where he found her reading: not a magazine, as was her usual habit in quiet moments, but a book.

She slipped a piece of paper between the pages and closed the book. ‘Light workload today?’ he enquired.

‘You might put it that way, Commissario,’ she said, placing the book to the side of her computer, the front cover facing downward.

He approached her desk and said, ‘I met a woman today, one of the people that Signora Altavilla visited with at the casa di cura.’

‘And I’d like you to see what we can find out about her,’ she concluded, just as if she were channelling his thoughts, though she made no attempt to imitate his voice.

‘It’s that obvious?’ he asked, smiling.

‘You do get a certain predatory look,’ she said.

‘What else?’

‘You don’t usually limit yourself to that person, Signore, so I’m preparing myself to see what I can find, not only about her but about her husband and any children they might have.’

‘Sartori. I don’t know her first name, and I don’t know how long she’s been there. At least a few years, I’d guess. She has a husband who seems to have the default mechanism of anger. I don’t know his name, and I don’t know about children.’

‘Do you think she’s there as a private patient?’ Signorina Elettra asked, confusing him with the question.

‘I have no idea,’ he said. He thought back to the room, but it was just a room in an old people’s home. There had been no evidence of luxury, and he had not noticed any personal items. ‘Why? What difference would it make?’

‘If she’s there as a public patient, then I’d start first with the state records, but if she’s private, I’d have to access the records of the casa di cura.’ The mere sound of the word ‘access’ falling from the lips of Signorina Elettra induced in Brunetti a state analogous to that of a rabbit under the gaze of a boa constrictor.

‘Which is easier?’ he asked, refusing to add ‘to access’ and wise enough not to use ‘to get into’.

‘Ah, the casa di cura, certainly,’ she said, with the condescension of the heavyweight champion confronted by a nightclub bouncer.

‘The other?’ he asked, curious as always about the importance the state gave to the protection and accuracy of the information it possessed about its citizens.

His question elicited a sigh and a weary shake of her head. She made a tisking sound and said, ‘With government offices, the problem’s not about getting into the system – in most cases, a high school student could do it – it’s about then being able to find the information.’

‘I’m not sure I understand the distinction,’ Brunetti admitted.

She paused, considering what example would be simple enough for a person of his limited talents. ‘I suppose it’s like a burglary, Signore. Getting into the house is easy, especially when the door is left on the latch. But once