The Girl of his Dreams

death while leaving the scene of a robbery was the testimony of a child who claimed that his sister had been killed by the tiger man. As evidence of that, Brunetti had in his possession a single cuff link and a ring set with a piece of cheap red glass.

There were no signs of violence on the child's body other than that which would result from sliding down a terracotta roof, and the cause of death was drowning.

His judgement that the Fornaris had come into possession of some sort of guilty knowledge was entirely subjective. His original assessment – and Vianello's – had been

that Fornari's wife had been genuinely surprised by the news of the robbery.

Fornari had seemed worried when Brunetti spoke to him, but he was a businessman working in Russia: well might he look worried. His wife had seemed nervous that time, as well. So what? Their daughter had seemed entirely untroubled to meet Brunetti. But then he remembered her coughing. It had begun when he had said he was about to leave and would get Vianello. 'Inspector’ Vianello, he had said.

Even that was meaningless: people coughed all the time.

Brunetti shifted around under the covers, turned over on to his back and studied the ceiling until the growing light told him he could linger no more. The only thing for it was to talk to Patta and see if, just this once, the Vice-Questore would see the pattern that could be made from these events.

'Once again, you're letting yourself be carried away, Brunetti,' Patta said some hours later, just as Brunetti knew he would. Brunetti had not wasted time trying to predict his superior's exact words, but he had accurately predicted his superior's response. 'It's obvious that they had no idea what happened,' the Vice-Questore explained. 'She and her son probably came home and found the door to the terrace open: people forget about these things all the time. Unfortunately, the child had been in there while they were out.'

Patta, who had been pacing his office as he spelled out his judgement, turned suddenly and, much in the manner of the clever prosecution lawyer in American films, said, 'You said she was wearing a plastic shoe?'

'Yes’

'Well, there you are,' Patta said, opening his hands in a gesture that suggested he had just revealed the final piece of evidence and there really was no need to waste more time in discussion.

'Where am I?' Brunetti risked saying.

Patta's expression made it clear that Brunetti was sailing too close to the wind. In a voice rich with sweet reason itself, the Vice-Questore went on. 'Plastic. On a slanted roof. A roof made from terracotta tiles.' He paused, then asked, 'I don't have to draw you a picture, do I, Commissario?' Patta's use of Brunetti's title was often an advance warning sign.

'No, Vice-Questore. I understand.'

'So this Signora Vivarini and her son, as I suggested, came home; she found the door to the terrace open and didn't give it a thought.' Patta paused long enough to smile in Brunetti's direction, now transformed into the charming defence attorney. 'There's no way they could be troubled by that, is there, Commissario?'

'No, sir.'

'You said you thought Signora Vivarini was surprised to learn of the robbery, didn't you?' 'Yes, sir.'

'Well, then, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.'

1 told you about the daughter, coughing like that when I used Vianello's title.' As he heard himself saying it, Brunetti realized how limp, almost pathetic, it sounded. 'Before that, everything was entirely normal: she came in, introduced herself as Ludovica Fornari, shook my hand, but when I said -'

'What?' Patta interrupted, face suddenly alert.

'Excuse me?'

'What did you say the girl's name was?' 'Ludovica Fornari. Why?' And then he thought to add, 'sir.'

'You always talked about Signora Vivarini,' Patta said.

'It's in the report, sir. The husband's name.'

Patta waved that aside with a violent gesture, as if he were long past the point where he had to pay attention to written reports. 'Why didn't you tell me this before?' he demanded.

‘I didn't think it important, sir.'

'Of course it's important,' Patta said, speaking as he would to a particularly dull pupil.

'May I ask why, sir?'

'You're Venetian, aren't you?' Patta asked, just short of sarcasm.

Surprised, the best Brunetti could do was say, 'Yes.' 'And you don't know who she is?' Brunetti knew who her parents were, but from the way Patta spoke, Brunetti knew he knew nothing. 'No, sir, I don't.'

'She's the fidanzata of the son of the Minister of the Interior. That's who she is.'

Had this really been a cheap courtroom drama and Brunetti the lawyer whose only purpose in the scene was to be defeated utterly by the brilliant coup de theatre of his opposite, then this was the point where he should have slapped his palm to his forehead and said out loud, ‘I should have known,' or 'I had no idea.'

Instead, Brunetti remained silent, ostensibly to permit Patta to reveal more but actually to give himself time to fit it all together.

'I'm surprised at you, Brunetti, really I am,' Patta began. 'My son knows both children – he's in the same rowing club with the son – but I had no idea who you were talking about all this time. The Fornari girl. Of course’ Brunetti sat with a look of bright attention plastered across his face, as if still trapped in the conventions of this cheap film.

The Minister of the Interior. Among whose duties was the direction of the various forces of order, including the police. The scandal magazines loved his family: his wife one of the heiresses of a huge industrial fortune; the eldest son an anthropologist missing and believed dead in New Caledonia; a daughter famous for commuting between Rome and Los Angeles in pursuit of a film career that never quite managed to take off; another daughter married to a Spanish doctor and living quietly in Madrid; and the now-heir, a boy of unpredictable temper who had already been involved in more than one discoteca fracas and about whom rumours of more serious offences – always left unprosecuted – circulated widely among the police. The mother was Venetian, Brunetti knew, the Minister himself Roman.

'… idea is entirely untenable’ Patta said, approaching the end of his peroration. Thus the idea of even his most remote involvement with such a thing – which I hardly have to tell you is absolutely unthinkable – is not an idea we are going to consider.' The Vice-Questore waited for Brunetti to respond, but Brunetti was busy wondering how, and what, he could find out about the boy.

Brunetti nodded, as though he had been following every word his superior had said. He was curious about, among other things, who the 'his' and the 'we' in Patta's discourse were. The first could as easily be the Minister as his son; the 'we' most likely referred to the police, but could just as easily refer to the entire political establishment.

'Have I made myself sufficiently clear, Commissario?' Patta asked, this time infusing his voice with the heavy menace usually reserved for the villain of melodrama.

'Yes, sir,' Brunetti answered. He rose to his feet and said, I'm sure your analysis of the situation is correct, and we should be very careful about involving someone as important as this in our investigations without serious justification.'

'There is no justification,' Patta shot back, not attempting to hide his anger, 'serious or otherwise.'

'Of course,' Brunetti said, 'that's evident.' He took a few steps towards the door, waiting to see what sort of final warning Patta would choose to give him, but the Vice-Questore said nothing further. Brunetti wished his superior a polite good morning and left the office.

Outside, Signorina Elettra glanced at him as he emerged. 'Unpleasant, eh?' she asked.

'It seems that the Fornari girl is the fidanzata of the son of the Minister of the Interior,' he said. Her eyes widened, and he watched as she began to consider a new perspective on events. Then, should Lieutenant Scarpa perhaps be hiding behind the arras, he added, 'This, of course, means it is unthinkable that we make an attempt to find out the boy's past history or about any accusations that might have been made against him.'

She shook her head, dismissing such a course of action. 'If he's the son of a minister,' she said earnestly,