her wailing cease. Suddenly she hurled the envelope to the ground and fell to her knees. She threw her head back and began to howl. With her free hand, she began to rake at her cheek. Brunetti, who was closest to her, saw the red trails appear, as though they were being slashed on with a row of red crayons.
Without thinking, he ran to her and grabbed her hand, holding it out to the side. He saw her start to swing at him with the other hand, but then she remembered the photos and stopped, though she reeled back and spat at him, again and again, spattering his shirt and the front of his trousers with her spittle.
'You kill my baby!' she shrieked. 'You kill my baby. In water, you kill her. My baby.' Her face was distorted by rage, and Brunetti saw that she was not an old woman, only a young one who had been aged by life. Both cheeks had caved in to fill the places of her missing teeth; two of the remaining front ones were chipped. Her hair was dry and pulled roughly under a kerchief, and her dark skin was oily and coarse.
Suddenly Dottoressa Pitteri was beside him, leaning over the woman. She said some words to her again and again, always the same phrase. She put her hand beside Brunetti's on the kneeling woman's arm, then gestured to him to let her go.
Brunetti obeyed, and as soon as his hand was removed, the woman seem to grow calmer. Her shrieks stopped and she bent forward, one arm wrapped around her stomach, the other holding the photos safely to the side. Her moans continued, and she muttered something Brunetti had no way of understanding. Dottoressa Pitteri took a handkerchief from the pocket of her jacket and pressed it against the woman's cheek, holding it there, saying nothing. There was no change in the woman's sobs, and she continued to mutter the same words. Dottoressa Pitteri turned the handkerchief to a fresh side, and Brunetti saw the streaks of blood.
Strong hands gripped Brunetti's upper arms, and he was thrust aside with force. He turned, crouching into a defensive stance, but it was the girl's father. Brunetti stood upright and watched as he approached the two women.
When he reached them, he put his hands on Dottoressa Pitteri's arms. As Brunetti watched, he actually lifted her from the ground and stepped aside to set her down a metre from his wife.
He went back to the keening woman and said something to her. She ignored him or didn't hear him and continued moaning, like an animal in pain. The man reached down and grabbed her by the upper arm. She was so thin that he had no trouble in pulling her to her feet.
She gave no sign that she saw him or knew what was happening to her. He swung her around until she was facing the caravan and used his other hand to give her a strong push in the middle of her back. She staggered forward and, almost losing her balance, instinctively put both hands out to steady herself. As Brunetti watched, the three photographs fluttered to the ground. The man, either seeing them or not seeing them, followed the woman. His foot came down on the face of one of the photos, sinking it into the dirt and mud. The other two fell face down.
As they watched, the woman stumbled up the steps and into the caravan. The man followed and slammed the door. Again, at the sound, the birds fled the branches of the trees and fluttered helplessly, filling the air with a higher-pitched version of the woman's cries.
Brunetti stooped and picked up the photos. The one the man had stepped on was beyond saving, crushed under the weight of the foot that had pressed mud into every crease. He slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. He walked over to the caravan and placed the other two on the top step, then went back to the car.
They drove back to Venice in silence.
22
As Brunetti had warned Patta, more than two hours had passed by the time he and Vianello finally returned to the Questura. When they got to the first floor, Brunetti suggested Vianello go back to the duty room, saying he would see to informing the Vice-Questore about the events of the afternoon.
Signorina Elettra looked up when he came in, and he watched recent events play across her face. He saw her remember his brusque question, her own umbrage at that, but then he saw her register the general state of his being, though he had no clear idea of how she registered it or what there was to register.
'What's wrong, Dottore?' she asked with real concern, all memory of their previous meeting cancelled.
'We went out to tell the girl's parents,' he explained, then told her, as briefly as he could, what had happened.
'Ah, the poor woman,' she said, when he had finished.
'How terrible, to have a child disappear and then to be told this’
'That's what's so strange’ Brunetti said. In the car, the tense silence had kept him distracted during the ride back, and it was only now that he could begin to consider the response of the girl's parents.
'What?'
'The girl's been gone almost a week, and none of them – not the mother, not the father – reported it to us.' He thought back to their time at the nomad camp and said, 'And when we got there, the man in charge – at least that's what I think he is – he didn't want to let us see them or talk to them.'
When she remained silent, Brunetti asked, 'Can you imagine if a child went missing here? It would be all over the papers, on every television station.' Still she did not answer, and so Brunetti asked, 'Well? Isn't that true?'
'I'm not sure they can be expected to respond the way we would, sir’
'What do you mean?'
He watched her strive for words, and finally she said, 'I think their attitude towards the law is more tentative than ours.'
'Tentative?' he asked with a sharpness of tone that surprised even him. Deliberately softening his voice, he asked, 'What do you mean?'
Finally, she set her pen down and pushed herself back from her desk. She looked different, somehow, when she did that, and he wondered if she had lost weight or got her hair cut or had done one of those other things women do. 'It's not as if their first thought, when something goes wrong, is to call the police, is it, sir?' When he said nothing, she added, 'Which is certainly understandable, given the way people in their community are treated’
'No one out there – except the mother – showed much concern that the girl was dead,' Brunetti allowed himself to be goaded into saying.
'And you think they'd do that in front of four policemen, sir?' she asked mildly.
He would stand no more of this. 'Why do you look different, Signorina?' he asked.
She was unable to disguise how much his question surprised her. 'You noticed?' she asked.
'Of course’ he answered, still puzzled.
She got gracefully to her feet. She extended her arms to the side, curved them upwards, then leaned towards him as she swept her right arm in his direction. 'I've started taking lessons’ she said, leaving him none the wiser. Yoga? Karate? Ballet?
His confusion must have been evident, for she laughed, then bent her knees, turning to face him sideways, her right hand cupped around an invisible something that she jabbed in his direction.
'Fencing?' he asked.
If so graceful a motion could be thought of as a lunge, she lunged forward and took two tiny steps in his direction, only to come up against the side of her desk.
The door to Patta's office opened suddenly, and the Vice-Questore emerged, a folder in his right hand, eyes on a single sheet he held in his left, the perfect image of a busy commander of men. By the time he glanced up, Signorina Elettra's rapier had disappeared, and she was just turning to him. 'Ah, Vice-Questore, I was coming in to tell you that Commissario Brunetti was here to report to you.'
'Ah, yes’ Patta said, giving Brunetti a speculative glance, as if he could free himself from the weight of the cares of office for just long enough to speak to him. 'All right, Brunetti’ he finally said. 'Come in and tell me.'
Patta put the folder of papers on Signorina Elettra's desk, keeping the single sheet in his hand. He left the door of his office open after he went in, an invitation to Brunetti to follow.
Brunetti attempted to intuit how much time Patta would allow him. Usually, if the Vice-Questore went back to his desk, it meant he wanted to be comfortable, and that meant he was willing to listen for more than a moment
