The Girl of his Dreams

the palazzo away in some private gambling club, after which the entire family had had to move. Though they'd been good friends, Brunetti had never heard from the boy again.

'Well?' Vianello called Brunetti's attention back by asking. When Brunetti did not respond, the Inspector went on, 'Even if what you say is true, and this boy he called the tiger man did do something to the Gypsy girl, we've got no chance of proving it. Do you hear me, Guido; no chance. Zero.'

Brunetti's attention started to wander to the buildings behind Vianello, but the Inspector called it back by placing his hand on Brunetti's arm. 'Guido, this is suicide for you. You go out there, and let's say you manage to convince this kid's parents to bring him in to talk about 'tiger man'.' To express his opinion of the probable consequences of this, Vianello closed his eyes, and Brunetti saw the muscles of his jaw draw tight.

'So you've got an under-age witness – and I'm sure the kid's family will have a long accumulation of arrests and convictions – and you're going to get this kid – and may I interject here what you told me, that the kid barely speaks Italian? – and you're going to get this kid to bring testimony against the son of the Minister of the Interior?'

The boat suddenly veered into a cross-wave, knocking both of them against the railing. Foa pulled the wheel back and turned his eyes forward again.

Brunetti opened his mouth to suggest they go down into the cabin before continuing this conversation, but Vianello rode right over him, 'And you think you'll find a prosecuting magistrate – whose career depends, as I hardly need to point out to you, upon that same Minister – and you think this prosecuting magistrate is going to work to get a conviction?' He pushed his face closer to Brunetti and added, 'On this testimony?' Then, as if that question were not sufficiently devastating, he added, 'On this evidence?'

Brunetti put his hand into the pocket of his jacket and fingered the cuff link and the ring. He had seen Fornari's nervousness, he had seen the rage in the small boy's face, the primitive lust for vengeance given full rein by the fact that his mother longed for it, too. This was evidence, but evidence that no court would credit, indeed, that no court would hear. In the halls of justice, where 'The law is equal for all', Brunetti's impressions were entirely without weight and entirely without merit. As he knew, and as Vianello had just reminded him, the law wanted evidence, not the opinion of a man who had run to ground a child half crazed with fear and then held him in the air until he told his story. Brunetti could imagine what any defence lawyer, let alone one who was defending the son of a cabinet minister, would do to a construction such as this.

‘I want to be sure,' Brunetti said.

'Sure about what?'

'Sure that what the boy told me is true.'

Vianello lost all patience. 'Can't you understand that whether it's true or not doesn't matter, not in the least?' He grabbed Brunetti by the arm and pulled him down the three steps and into the cabin of the boat. When they were seated opposite one another, the Inspector went on. 'The kid could be telling the truth – for all I know, he is

– but that doesn't make any difference, Guido. You've got the child of a Gypsy with a long criminal record bringing a charge against the son of the Minister of the Interior.'

'You've told me that three times already, Lorenzo,' Brunetti said tiredly.

'I'll tell you three more times if it will make you listen to me,' Vianello shot back. He paused for a long time and then, in a milder voice, went on, 'You might want to commit professional suicide, but I don't.'

'No one's asking you to.'

'I'm on my way out to this Gypsy camp with you, aren't I? I'm going out there with you while you talk to someone that Patta has told you not to talk to.'

'He never said that specifically,' Brunetti protested, splitting hairs.

'He didn't have to, for God's sake. He told you to leave this alone, and the first thing you do is run out there, without any authorization and in open defiance of your superior's orders – our superior's orders – to talk to people he's told you to leave alone.'

'The boy and the other sister were there that night. They saw what happened.'

'And you think their parents will let them talk to you, or to a judge?'

'The mother wants vengeance as much as the boy does. Probably more.'

'So now we're vigilantes, helping the Gypsies against the rest of the world?' Vianello hid his exasperation by looking away from Brunetti, raising his head and closing his eyes for a moment, as if pleading with patience to return to him.

The boat began to slow and Brunetti saw that they had arrived at Piazzale Roma. He got to his feet and pushed open one side of the swinging doors. 'You can go back with Foa, then’ he said, then started up the steps to the deck.

As he got to the top, he heard Vianello coming up the steps behind him, 'Oh, for God's sake, stop being such a prima donna, Guido’ the Inspector said in his most disgruntled voice.

Today there was a new driver but, like the other, this one knew the way to the camp and remarked during the trip on how often he had taken people there. He chatted amiably on the way, and Vianello and Brunetti decided to accept the interlude his monologue offered rather than continue with their own conversation.

Brunetti had heard it all before, so he paid little attention, allowing himself the pleasure of watching the still- unfolding springtime that surrounded them once they left the city. Like most urban people, Brunetti romanticized the country and rural life. Once, when the family was eating roast chicken and Chiara, in one of her vegetarian phases, had asked him if he had ever killed a chicken, Brunetti had answered that he had never killed anything. He could not remember where the discussion had gone from there: to wherever most futile discussions went, he supposed.

The car turned, slowed, and stopped, and the driver got out to open the gate. Once inside, he got out again and closed it, then pulled around in a wide half-circle and parked facing the gate, as if eager to get all this taken care of so they could leave again.

'Wait here’ Brunetti said, leaning forward to touch him on the shoulder. He and Vianello got out of the car and closed the doors. No one was visible: no men sat on the steps of the caravans that day.

The blue Mercedes, Brunetti saw at once, was gone, as was the roulotte in which he had seen the female forms appear and disappear and into which Rocich had returned after every meeting. None of the towed cars had returned to their places in front of the roulottes: the unattached caravans remained in the back line like pieces on a chessboard upon which some of the pawns had been sacrificed.

Brunetti and Vianello walked over to the leader's caravan. They stood in front of it. At that instant, as if it were a sudden eruption of birdcall, the varied tones of different telefonini could be heard from the row of roulottes. Brunetti distinguished four different calls, and then silence fell.

A few minutes passed, and then the door of the roulotte opened. From it came Tanovic. He gave an easy smile which made Brunetti uncomfortable.

'Ah, Mr Policeman,' the man said as he came down the steps. With a nod to Vianello, he added, 'And Mr Assistant Policeman.' He walked up to them, smiling, but he did not extend his hand, nor did the other two men.

'Why you come to visit us again?' He looked behind him and ran his eyes down the line of cars, turning in a full circle to study the entire line. 'To take more cars?' As he asked this, voice light and joking, Brunetti saw the rancour in his eyes that eliminated all humour.

'No, I've come to speak to Signor Rocich,' Brunetti said, then pointed to the place where the car and roulotte had been parked. 'But I see they're gone. Do you know where?'

The man smiled again. 'Ah, very difficult to tell, Mr Policeman.' He leaned forward and spread his smile upon Vianello, who remained stony-faced. 'My people are, what you call us – nomads – we go places, no one know where we go, when we go.' He smiled again, but his voice had turned sour. 'No one care.'

'I've got his licence plate number,' Brunetti said. 'Perhaps the road police could help me locate him.'

The man's smile grew stronger, but even less friendly. 'Old car. Old number. No help, I think.'

'What does that mean,' Brunetti asked. ''Old car'?'

'Have new car, new number.'

'What kind of new car?'

'Good car. Not Italian shit car. Real car, German car.' 'What kind?'