'Against my sense that it's all a dreadful mess and there's no hope for any of us,' she said calmly and led him to their bed.
The first thing he did when he got to the Questura the next morning was call Rizzardi and ask about the body of the girl.
'She's still here’ the pathologist answered. ‘I had a call from some woman in the social services, saying that it was not their responsibility, and we had to take care of it'
'What does that mean?'
'We informed the Treviso police. They said they'd send someone to the camp to speak to the parents.'
'But do you know if they did?' Brunetti asked.
Rizzardi answered, 'All I'm sure of is that we – the hospital administration, that is – sent the parents a letter, telling them that the child's body was here and that they could come and get her.' The doctor paused for a moment, then added, 'The letter gave the name of the company that takes care of it.'
'Of what?'
'Moving the dead.'
'Oh.'
'First to Piazzale Roma by boat, then in a hearse to wherever they have to go on the mainland.'
Brunetti had nothing to say to this.
Finally Rizzardi said, 'But no one's come in here to get her.'
Brunetti stared at the wall of his office and tried to understand what he had just been told. Into his silence, Rizzardi said, 'It's never happened before, not that I know of. I've spoken to Giacomini – he's the only magistrate I could think of who might know about something like this – and he said he'd look into it and see what the procedure is.'
'When did you talk to him?' Brunetti asked.
'Yesterday afternoon.'
'And?'
'And he's a busy man, Guido.' As he heard the mounting impatience in Rizzardi's voice, the fear came to Brunetti that the doctor, who spent his days surrounded by the silent dead, would say that the girl was not going anywhere or that he would somehow speak lightly of the situation. He could not abide the thought of that possibility, not in a man of whom he thought so highly, so he said, 'Let me know when you hear, Ettore, all right?' and, without waiting for an answer, replaced the phone.
He sat quietly for some time, looking first at the papers on his desk, reading the words and reading them again, waiting for them to make some sort of sense. But they remained letters and words on paper and nothing more. The wall offered no more than the papers. He knew Giacomini, a serious man: surely he would find the proper way to proceed.
Brunetti remembered having written down the name of the doctor: Calfi. Rocich had seemed too surprised to have had time to lie. He called down to the officers' room and asked for Pucetti. When the younger man answered, Brunetti said, 'I'd like you to find me the address and phone number of a doctor named Calfi. Somewhere out by the nomad camp. I don't know his first name.'
'Yes, sir,' Pucetti said and hung up.
Brunetti waited. He should have thought of the doctor long before this, as soon as Rizzardi had told him the results of the autopsy. A doctor would have treated them all: the girl, the mother, the other children, perhaps even Rocich himself. How else would the man have known the doctor's name?
After only a few minutes, Pucetti called back with the doctor's first name, Edoardo; his address, in Scorze; and the phone number of his surgery.
Brunetti dialled the number and, after seven rings, got a recorded voice asking him to describe his problem and leave his name and number, and the doctor would call him back. 'Describe my problem,' Brunetti said while he waited for the machine to click to recording mode. 'Dottor Calfi, this is Commissario Brunetti from Venezia. I'd like to ask you some questions about patients of yours. I'd be very grateful if you would call me here at the Questura.' Brunetti gave his direct number and hung up.
Which of the family were his patients? Did he know that the girl was infected with gonorrhoea? Did her parents know? Had he any idea how she might have contracted the disease? As Brunetti ran through the list of questions he wanted to ask, his thoughts turned to the doctor who had cared for his family when he and his brother were children. As he recalled him, his mother slipped back into his memory, for she had always stayed with him those few times he had been sick as a child. She had always brought him mugs of hot water, lemon and honey, telling him it was nature's best way to fight a cold, or flu, or just about anything that went wrong with him. To this day, it was the remedy he insisted on using with his own children.
His reflections were interrupted by a call from Signorina Elettra, who, with thinly veiled contempt for the ease with which the Department of Public Instruction allowed its files to be 'accessed', told Brunetti that both of the Fornari children were excellent students, the son already accepted at the Bocconi Business School in Milano. He thanked her for the information, got up, and went down to the officers' room in search of Vianello, who had chosen to accompany one of his informants the day before when she spoke to a magistrate and had thus been unable to accompany Brunetti to the nomad camp.
When Brunetti turned into the final flight of steps, he saw Vianello at the bottom. 'You coming up?' Brunetti asked.
'Yes’ the Inspector answered, starting up the steps towards him. 'I'd like to know what happened when you went out there.'
As they walked slowly back to Brunetti's office, he told Vianello about his visit to the camp, concluding with his phone call to the doctor. Vianello listened closely and, when he was finished, complimented Brunetti for having thought to call the tow trucks.
Brunetti was flattered that Vianello saw the humour, as well as the ingenuity, of this.
'And you think she heard you?' Vianello asked.
'She must have’ Brunetti answered. 'She was standing just behind the door: we were less than two metres from her.'
'If she understands Italian.'
'One of the children was there, too’ Brunetti explained. 'They're more likely to speak it.'
Vianello grunted in acknowledgement and followed
Brunetti into the office. As he took his seat, the Inspector said tiredly, 'There are times when I find myself wishing we had more tow trucks’
To do what?' Brunetti asked.
'Move them somewhere else.'
Brunetti stopped himself from staring, but he did say, 'I've known you to say kinder things, Lorenzo.' At Vianello's shrug, he added, 'I've never heard you say you don't like them.'
‘I don't.' Vianello shot back, voice entirely level.
Surprised to hear not so much the statement as the heat with which Vianello gave it, Brunetti didn't bother to disguise his reaction.
Vianello stretched his legs out in front of him and appeared to study his shoes for a moment, then looked at Brunetti and said, 'All right: what I said is an exaggeration. It's not that I particularly dislike them, more that I don't particularly like them.'
'It still sounds strange to hear you say it,' Brunetti insisted.
'And if I said I didn't like white wine? Or spinach? Would that sound strange?' Vianello asked, his voice moving up a notch. 'And would your voice have that same air of disappointment that I'm not thinking the proper thoughts or feeling the proper sentiments?' Brunetti declined to answer, and Vianello went on. 'So long as I say that I don't like a thing, an object, or even a movie or a book, it's perfectly all right to say it. But as soon as I say I don't like Gypsies, or Finns or people from Nova Scotia, for God's sake, all hell breaks loose.'
Vianello glanced at Brunetti, giving him the opportunity to say something if he chose; when he still remained silent, the Inspector went on. ‘I told you, I don't feel any active dislike towards them; I simply feel no active sympathy.'
'There are wiser ways to express your lack of feeling’ Brunetti suggested.
His words might have been ironic, but the tone was not, as Vianello clearly heard. 'You're right’ the Inspector
