Drawing Conclusions

you get inside, you discover that the people live in a complete mess, with dirty dishes in the bedroom and old shoes and newspapers in the kitchen.’ She saw his dawning understanding and went on. ‘And they’ve lived that way since the house was built, so all that’s happened as time passed and more things came into the house is that the mess has turned to complete chaos, and even finding the simplest thing – a teaspoon, for example – requires you to go through the whole house room by room, and search for it everywhere.’

Not that he needed to know, but because her explanation forced him to be curious: ‘Is this the case in all public offices?’

‘Mercifully not, Commissario.’

‘Which are the best?’ he asked, unaware of the ambiguity of his question.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There’s no best; it’s only least bad.’ Seeing that she had not satisfied him, she said, ‘Finding out who has been given a passport is usually easy. And gun permits. Those records are quite orderly. But after that there’s a great deal of confusion, and there’s no hope of knowing who has a permesso di soggiorno or a work permit, or really understanding what the rules or criteria are for getting them.’

Since those all fell under the Ministry for which Brunetti worked, the news came as little surprise. He could not resist the temptation and asked, ‘And the worst?’

‘I’m not really competent to judge,’ she said with admirably feigned modesty, ‘but the ones I find it most difficult to, well, to navigate – however easy it is to get to the point where I can – are those which authorize people to do things, or perhaps it’s better to say those agencies which are meant to protect us.’ In response to his furrowed brow, she said, ‘I mean those offices where they’re supposed to check that nurses have the right documents and that they really did study where they say they did. Or, for that fact, doctors and psychiatrists and dentists.’ She spoke with dispassion, the frustrated researcher reporting her findings. ‘There’s terrible negligence there. Getting into their system is easy, as I told you, but after that it’s all very difficult.’ Then, gracious and generous as ever, she added, ‘For them as well, I’m sure, poor things.’

Brunetti’s family occasionally watched a television programme that made public some of the worst cases of governmental negligence. For reasons he did not understand, his children found it wonderfully funny, while he and Paola cringed at the nonchalance with which its nightly revelations were greeted when presented to the authorities who had failed to prevent or detect abuses. How many fake doctors had the programme discovered, how many fake healers? And how many of them had been stopped?

Brunetti pulled himself away from these thoughts and said, ‘I’d be very grateful for anything you could find about either her or her husband.’

‘Of course, sir,’ she said, not unrelieved to have an end called to their discussion of her cyber-explorations and their resulting discoveries. ‘I’ll see what I can find.’ Then, efficiency itself, ‘How far back should I go?’

‘Until you find something interesting,’ he said, trying to sound as if he were joking but fearing he did not succeed.

After this, Brunetti repaired to his office. Once at his desk, he was suddenly assailed by hunger, looked at his watch, and was surprised to see that it was well past three. He called home but no one answered: he hung up before the machine kicked in. Paola refused to carry a telefonino, and the kids, both probably already back at school, were not likely to be of any help. He could try her on her office phone, but she seldom answered it: her students knew where to find her, and any colleague who wanted to speak to her, as far as she was concerned, could walk down the hall to her office.

He thought of calling home again and this time leaving a message, but nothing he could say would change the fact that he had once again failed to show up for lunch and had not thought to call. The kids would hear about something like this for days had either tried it.

His phone rang, and he answered with his name.

‘This is Maddalena Orsoni,’ she said. ‘It turns out that I came back sooner than planned.’

In most circumstances, Brunetti would offer some cliche about hoping this did not mean she had encountered any sort of difficulty, but she did not sound like the sort of woman to have much patience with cliche or sentiment, and so he said, ‘Would it be possible for us to meet now?’

Neither of them, he noticed, made any reference to the subject that concerned them. He was a public official in pursuit of information, yet he instinctively avoided asking any specific questions on the phone. How convenient Venice made it to have a conversation, to meet on the street, as if by accident, and go for a coffee; how easy to walk across town to have a drink and a chat.

‘Yes,’ she finally answered.

‘A bar?’

‘Fine.’

‘I don’t know where you are,’ he said, adding, ‘but I’m at San Lorenzo. So choose a place that’s convenient for you; I’ll meet you there.’

She took some time considering this and finally said, ‘There’s a bar just at the end of Barbaria delle Tole in Campo Santa Giustina, on the corner on the left as you come in from SS. Giovanni e Paolo. I can be there in ten minutes.’

‘I’ll see you there,’ he said and replaced the phone.

19

What an odd place to meet. Could any campo be more out of the way than Campo Santa Giustina? Only someone heading towards San Francesco della Vigna or to the Celestia boat stop would pass through it, or someone like Brunetti who often walked for the simple pleasure of seeing or re-seeing the city. He recalled coming here, years ago, in search of the person rumoured to be able to repair dolls. Chiara’s grandparents had given her a porcelain-headed girl in a hoop skirt for Christmas, but the doll had lost an eye. Brunetti no longer remembered whether he had managed to find the eye, but he did remember the taciturn grey- haired woman who ran the Doll Hospital, looking as much like a patient as did the dolls she kept in the window. He had passed through the campo since then but had never veered over to look in the window to check up on new patients.

It took him only a short time to get there. Across the campo he recognized the dreary window of the second-hand clothing store. Like most Italians of his age, Brunetti disliked the idea of buying used clothing; indeed, used anything, unless it were, say, a painting. But who would be tempted, save by abject misery, to want anything in that window? Brunetti had not been to Bulgaria when it was still a Communist country, but he imagined its shop windows must have looked like this: dusty, sober, earth-coloured pleas that people pass by without looking.

He went into the bar. A dark-haired woman was the only client, sitting at a table near the window. He approached and asked, ‘Signora Orsoni?’

She looked at him without smiling or extending her hand. ‘Good afternoon, Commissario,’ she said and nodded towards the seat opposite her.

He pulled the chair away from the table and sat. Before he could say anything, the barman approached their table and they asked for coffee; then Brunetti changed his mind and asked for a glass of white wine and a panini.

When the man moved away, they studied one another, each waiting for the other to speak. Brunetti saw a woman in her early fifties, with light eyes in surprising contrast to her dark hair and olive skin. She had made no attempt to colour the grey in her hair: that and the crow’s feet around her eyes spoke of a lack of concern with maintaining the appearance of youth.

‘I’m Maddalena Orsoni, Commissario. I set up Alba Libera, and I’ve run it since it began.’

‘How long ago was that?’ he asked, displaying no surprise at her refusal to engage in the usual social preliminaries to conversation.

‘Four years.’

‘May I ask why you started it?’

‘Because my brother-in-law killed my sister,’ she said. Though she must have given this same answer many