At the last name, Brunetti noticed the man's face twist in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut to avoid showing whatever emotion it was he felt, then turned his head away, eyes still closed.

'What happened to him?' Brunetti asked.

Damasco shook his head as if wanting to shake away both the question and the reason for it. 'It's your business to find that out, Commissario. My concern is treating the physical consequences.'

Damasco saw how surprised the other two were by his abruptness and led them away from the bed. At the door, he said, 'Dottoressa Cardinale called me at about two this morning. She said that there was a man in the emergency room - she told me who it was, Gustavo Pedrolli, one of our colleagues - who had been brought in by the Carabinieri. He had been hit behind the left ear, by something hard enough to have caused a fracture of the skull. Luckily, the skull is thick there, so it's only a hairline fracture, but still it's a serious injury. Or can be.

'Whenl got here about twenty minutes later, there were two Carabinieri guarding the door. They told me the injured man had to be kept under guard because he had assaulted one of their colleagues when they tried to arrest him.' Damasco closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in an indication of how credible he found this explanation.

'Soon after that, my colleague in Pronto Soccorso called to tell me that this man, this "assaulted" man, had nothing more than a displaced cartilage in his nose, so I'm not willing to believe he was the victim of a serious assault’ Curious, Brunetti asked, 'Is Dottor Pedrolli the sort of man who would react like this? So violently?'

Damasco started to speak but appeared to reconsider, then said, 'No. A naked man doesn't attack a man with a machine-gun, does he?' He paused and then added, 'Not unless he's defending his family, he doesn't.' When he saw that he had their attention, he went on, 'They tried to stop me from coming in here to see my patient. Perhaps they thought I'd try to help him escape through a window or something: I have no idea. Or help him concoct some sort of story. I told them I'm a doctor, and when I demanded the name of their commanding officer, they let me in, though the one in charge insisted that the other stay in here with me while I examined Gustavo.' He added, not without pride, 'But then I threw him out. They can't do that here.'

The way Damasco spoke the last word struck a responsive chord in Brunetti. No, not here, and certainly not without asking permission of the local police. Brunetti saw no sense, however, in mentioning this to Damasco and so limited himself to saying, 'The way you spoke to him, Dottore,' Brunetti began, 'made it sound like your patient's unable to speak. Could you tell me more about that?'

Damasco glanced away, as if looking for the answer to this question on the wall. Finally he said, ^‘He seems to want to speak, but no words come out’

'The blow?' Brunetti asked.

Damasco shrugged. It could be.' He looked at the two men one by one, as if judging how much he should tell them. 'The brain's a strange thing, and the mind's even stranger. I've been working with the one for thirty years, and I've learned something about the way it works, but the other is still a mystery to me’

'Is that the case here, Dottore?' Brunetti asked, sensing that the doctor wanted to be asked.

Again, the shrug, and then Damasco said. Tor all I know, the blow isn't the cause of the silence. It could be shock, or it could be that he's decided not to speak until he has a clearer idea of what’s going on’ Damasco reached up and rubbed at his face with open palms.

When he lowered his hands, he said, ‘I don't know. As I say, I work with the physical brain, the neurons and synapses, and the things that can be tested and measured. All the rest - the non-physical stuff, the mind, if you will -I leave that to other people’

'But you mention it, Dottore,' Brunetti said, keeping his voice as low as the doctor's.

‘Yes, I mention it. I've known Gustavo for a long time, so I know a little about the way he thinks and reacts to things. So I mention it’

'Would you be willing to expand on that, Dottore?' Brunetti asked.

'About what?'

'About the way your patient thinks and reacts?'

Damasco turned his full attention to Brunetti, and his consideration of the question was as clear as it was serious. 'No, I don't think I can, Commissario, except to say that he is rigorously honest, a quality which, at least professionally, has sometimes worked to his disadvantage,' he said, then paused, as though listening to his own words. Then he added, 'He's my friend, but he's also my patient, and my responsibility is to protect him as best I can.'

'Protect him from what?' Brunetti asked, choosing to ignore for the moment Dottor Damasco's observations about the consequences of his friend's honesty.

Damasco's smile was both natural and good-natured as he said, 'If from nothing else, Commissario, then from the police.' He turned away and walked over to the figure on the bed. Glancing back, he said, 'I'd like to be left alone with my patient, gentlemen, if you don't mind.'

5

 

As Brunetti and Vianello left the room, they saw that Marvilli was still there, propped against the wall, his arms and legs crossed, as he had been when Brunetti first saw him.

'What did the doctor have to say?' Marvilli asked.

That his patient can't talk and that if s caused by a blow to his head,' Brunetti said, opting to provide only one of the possibilities the doctor had offered. He allowed the Captain to consider this before asking, 'Do you want to tell me what happened?'

Marvilli's eyes shot up and down the corridor, as if checking for unsympathetic listeners, but there was no one in sight. He uncrossed his legs and unfolded his arms, then pushed up his sleeve and looked at his watch. 'The bar's still not open, is it?' he asked, suddenly sounding more tired than wary. Then he added, 'The machine's broken. And I'd really like a coffee.'

'Sometimes the bar downstairs opens early,' Vianello said.

Nodding by way of thanks, Marvilli started to walk away, not waiting to see if the policemen would follow. He passed through the door into the Department of Dermatology, and Brunetti was too surprised and too slow to call him back. 'Come on,' said Vianello, turning in the opposite direction. 'He’ll find it eventually.'

Downstairs, as they approached the open door of the bar, they heard the rasping noise of the coffee grinder and the hiss of the espresso machine. As they walked in, the barman started to object, but when Brunetti identified them as police, he agreed to serve them. The two men stood at the bar, stirring sugar into their coffees, waiting for Marvilli. Two attendants in blue smocks entered and ordered caffe coretto, one with a stiff shot of grappa and the other with Fernet-Branca. They drank quickly and left without paying, though Brunetti watched the barman take a notebook wedged beside the cash register, thumb through it, and write in it briefly.

'Good morning, Commissario’ a soft voice said from behind him, and he turned to see Dottor Cardinale.

'Ah, Dottoressa,' Brunetti said, making room for her at the bar. 'May I offer you a coffee?' he asked, making his voice loud enough for the barman to hear.

'And save my life’ she said, smiling. She set her doctor's bag on the floor. 'The last hour is the worst. Usually no one comes in, and by then I've started to think about coffee. I suppose that's what it's like if you're stranded in die desert’ she said. 'All you can think of is that first sip, the first taste of it saving your life.'

Her coffee came and she poured three sugars into it. Seeing the looks on the policemen's faces, she said, If I saw my patients doing this, I'd scream at them.' She swirled the cup around a few times, and Brunetti had the feeling she knew exactly how many times to swirl it before it would be cool enough to drink.

With one gulp, she downed the coffee, set the cup back in the saucer, looked at Brunetti and said, ‘I am saved. I am human again.'

'Dare you risk another?' Brunetti asked.

'Not if I want to sleep when I get home’ she said, 'but thank you for the offer.'

She bent to pick up her bag and Brunetti said, 'How badly was that policeman hurt, Dottoressa?'

'Aside from his pride, not very much at all, I'd say.' She hefted the bag, adding. If he'd been hit really hard, the bone would have been broken or the cartilage knocked entirely out of place. This was nothing more than if he'd walked into a door. That is, if he was standing very near.'

'And Dottor Pedrolli?' Brunetti asked.

She shook her head. 'I told you: neurologia is not something I know much about. That's why I called Dottor Damasco.'

Over her shoulder, Brunetti saw Marvilli. The Captain, not bothering to conceal his irritation at having got lost, came up to the bar and ordered a coffee.

Dottoressa Cardinale shifted her bag to her left hand, shook hands with Brunetti and then leaned forward to shake Vianello's. 'Thanks again for the coffee, Commissario’ she said. She smiled at Marvilli and extended her hand. After only a moment's hesitation, he relented and took it.

The doctor went out into the corridor and looked back into the bar. She waited for Marvilli to turn and look at her. With an enormous smile, she said, 'Great boots, Captain,' turned, and was gone.

Brunetti kept his eyes on his coffee, finished it, and set down the cup quietly in its saucer. Seeing that they were the only customers in the bar, he turned to Marvilli. 'Do you think you could tell me a bit more about this operation. Captain?'

Marvilli took a sip and set down his cup before saying, 'As I told you before, Commissario, the investigation has been going on for some time.'

'Since when?' Brunetti asked.

'As I told you: almost two years.'

Vianello set down his cup perhaps a bit too loudly and asked the barman for three more coffees.

‘Yes, Captain, you told me that,' answered Brunetti. 'But what I meant was what event triggered the investigation, especially this part of it?'

I'm not sure I can tell you that, Commissario. But I can say that the action here was only part of a series of actions in other cities that took place last night.' He pushed his cup away and added, 'Beyond that, I'm not sure what I can tell you.'

Brunetti resisted the impulse to point out that one of the 'actions' had put a man in hospital. 'Captain,' he said softly, ‘I, however, am sure that I'm at liberty to arrest you - or whichever of your men struck Dottor Pedrolli - for assault’ Brunetti smiled and added, 'I'm not going to, of course, but I mention it as an example of how we need not feel ourselves bound by what we are or are not at liberty to do’ He flirted with the idea of suggesting that the Captain's boots were enough to cause him to charge him with impersonating a cavalry officer, but good sense prevailed.

He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it in. Stirring gently and keeping his eyes on his spoon, he continued in an entirely conversational tone. In the absence of any information about this operation of yours and thus entirely unsure if your men had any right to carry it out in this city. Captain, I'm left with no choice but to protect the safety of the people of Venice. Which is my duty’ He looked up. 'That's why I would like more information.'

Wearily, Marvilli reached for his second coffee and pushed his empty cup and saucer across the bar. He pushed so hard that they slid off the other side and clattered, without breaking, into the sink below. 'Sorry,' he said automatically. The barman retrieved the cup and saucer.

Marvilli shifted his attention to Brunetti and asked, 'And if all this is only a bluff, Commissario?'

'If that's your response. Captain,' Brunetti said, 'I'm afraid I'll have to lodge an official complaint about the excessive violence used by your men and request an official investigation.' He put down his cup. 'In the absence of a warrant from a judge authorizing your entry into Doctor Pedrolli's home, your men remain guilty of assault.'

'There's a warrant,' Marvilli said.

'Issued by a judge in this city?'

After a long pause, Marvilli said, ‘I don't know that the judge is from this city, Commissario. But I know there is a warrant. We would never have done something like this without one - not here and not in the other cities’

That was certainly likely enough, Brunetti agreed. The times when the police could break in anywhere without a warrant were not upon them, not yet. After all, this was not the United States.

In a voice into which he put all the tiredness of a man woken long before his usual time and out of patience with what had happened since then, Brunetti said, 'If we can both stop being tough guys. Captain, perhaps we could walk back to the Questura together, and you could tell me along the way just what's going on’ He dug out a ten-Euro note and placed it on the bar then turned towards the door.

'Your change, Signore’ the barman called after him.

Brunetti smiled at him. 'You saved the Dottoressa's life, remember? That's beyond price, I'd say’ The barman laughed and thanked him, and Brunetti and Vianello headed down the corridor towards the entrance hall. A thoughtful Marvilli followed.

Outside, Brunetti felt the growing warmth of the day and observed that the pavement was damp in places: he could not remember if it had been raining when he had arrived at the hospital; while inside he had not been aware of rain. There was no sign of it now, and the air had been washed clean, presenting them with one of those pellucid days that early autumn gives the city, perhaps as consolation for having stolen the summer. Brunetti was tempted to walk down to the end of the canal to see if the mountains were visible beyond the laguna, but he knew that would most likely provoke Marvilli, so he abandoned the idea. If he waited until the afternoon, smog and gathering humidity would have obscured the mountains again, but perhaps tomorrow they would be visible.

As they crossed the campo, Brunetti noticed that the statue of Colleoni was finally free of the scaffolding that had covered it for years: it was wonderful to see the old villain again. He cut right beyond Rosa Salva, still not open, and started down Calle Bressana. At the top of the bridge he waited for Vianello and Marvilli to join him, but Vianello opted to remain at the bottom of the steps, leaning back against the low wall, establishing a distance between Brunetti and himself. Brunetti turned and leaned against the low wall of the bridge. Marvilli, standing beside him but looking in the other direction, started to speak. 'About two years ago, we were informed that a Polish woman, in the country legally, employed as a domestic, unmarried, was about to give birth in a hospital in Vicenza. Some days later, a married couple from Milano, in their late thirties, childless, came out of the same hospital with the baby and a birth certificate with the man's name on it. He claimed that the Polish woman was his lover and that the child was his, and the Polish woman testified that this was true.'

Marvilli rested his forearms on the flat surface of the bridge, gazing off at the buildings at the end of the canal. As if there had been no break in the conversation, he continued, 'What made no sense was that the man, the supposed father, had been working in England at the time the child would have been conceived. She must have been pregnant when she arrived in Italy: her work permit says she entered the country six months before the baby was born. The man claiming to be the father has never been to Poland, and she never left there before she came here’ Before Brunetti could ask, Marvilli said, 'We're sure. Believe me’ He paused and studied Brunetti's face. 'He's not the father’

'How did you find out about all of this?' Brunetti asked.

His eyes still on the water, Marvilli replied, his voice suddenly grown nervous, as if he were divulging information he was not authorized to provide. 'One of the women in the room with the Polish woman. She had a baby at the same time. She said that all the Polish woman could talk about was her boyfriend and how much she wanted to make him happy. It seemed that the way she was going to make him happy was by taking a lot of money back to Poland, which is what she told him every time she phoned him’

'I see,' said Brunetti. 'And this other woman in the room with her called you?'

'No, she told her husband, who works for the social services, and he called the command in Vicenza’

Brunetti turned and started off in the same direction as Marvilli, his attention drawn by an approaching taxi, and said, 'How wonderfully convenient, Captain. How very lucky indeed are the forces of order to be graced by such fortunate coincidences. The other woman just happened to speak enough Polish to understand what she told her boyfriend.' Brunetti glanced sideways at the Captain. 'Not to mention the convenient fact that her husband just happened to work for the social services and that he was conscientious enough to think of alerting the

Carabinieri’ His look was long, and he made no attempt to disguise his anger.

Marvilli hesitated for a long time before he said, 'All right, Commissario’ He raised his hands in surrender. 'We knew about it before, from another source, and she was already planted in the room when the Polish woman got there’

'And the concerned call you received from the man from social services?'

'These operations are secret,' said an irritated Marvilli.

'Go on, Captain’ Brunetti said, slipping open the buttons on his jacket as the morning light advanced and the temperature rose.

Marvilli turned to him abruptly. 'May I speak honestly, Commissario?' As the light increased, Brunetti noticed that Marvilli looked younger.

‘I shouldn't bother to point this out, Captain, but your question suggests that you haven't been so far; but, yes, you may speak honestly’ Brunetti said in a voice grown suddenly gentle.

Marvilli blinked, not sure whether to respond to Brunetti's words or to his tone. He rose up on his toes and stretched backwards, saying, 'God, I hate these early morning things. We didn't even bother to sleep.'

'Another coffee?' Brunetti suggested.

For the first time, Marvilli smiled, and it made him look still younger. ‘You told the barman the coffee saved that doctor's life. It'll probably save mine, too.' -

"Vianello,' Brunetti called to the Inspector, who was still at the bottom of the steps, pretending to admire the facade of the building to his left. 'What’s open around here?'

Vianello looked at his watch. Tonte dei Greci’ he said and started up the steps towards them.

When they reached the bar, the metal grille that protected the door and front windows was raised a few centimetres, enough to suggest that coffee was available inside. Brunetti tapped on the grille, calling out, 'Sergio, you in there?' He tapped again, and after a moment four hirsute fingers appeared at the bottom of the grille, and it slowly began to rise. Marvilli surprised them by squatting down and helping to lift the grille until it slid into place above the door and Sergio stood before them: thick, dark, hairy and as welcome a sight as Brunetti could imagine.

'Don't you guys ever sleep?' Sergio asked, more bark than bite. He retreated into the bar and went behind the counter.

'Three?' he asked, not bothering to specify: the sight of them was enough.

Brunetti nodded and led me others to a booth by the front window.

He heard the hiss of the coffee machine, and a banging at the door; he looked up to see a tall African in a light blue jellaba and woollen jacket carrying a paper-covered tray of fresh pastries. Sergio called out, 'Take it over to the men at the table, Bambola, would you?'

The African turned towards them, and when he saw Marvilli's uniform jacket gave an instinctive jerk of recognition and fear. He stopped and pulled the tray defensively closer to his chest.

Vianello made a casual gesture. It's before work’ he called. Bambola looked from Vianello to the other two, and they nodded in agreement. His face relaxed and he walked over to their table and set the tray down; then, like a magician, he whipped back the paper, filling the space between them, with the aromas of cream, eggs, sugar, raisins, and fresh baked dough.

'Just leave it,' Marvilli said, then added, 'please.'

The African went over to the counter and said something to Sergio, then left the bar.

Each of them chose a pastry, and then Sergio was there with three coffees on a tray and a plate on to which he placed several of the pastries. He picked up the remainder and carried them behind the counter, where he began to place them on a Plexiglas tray.

As if in silent acknowledgement that it is difficult to discuss police business while eating cream-filled brioche, the three men remained silent until the coffees and the pastries were gone. Brunetti felt the rush of caffeine and sugar, and saw that the others were looking more alert.

Then, after this couple from Milano took the Polish woman's baby home, what happened?' Brunetti asked. In the hospital, the Captain had said that the Pedrolli operation was 'separate,' but Brunetti was certain that he could, sooner or later, be led to explain this.

Tossing his paper napkin on to the plate.

Marvilli said, 'A judge issued an order allowing them to be kept under surveillance’

'Which means?' Brunetti asked, as though he didn't already know.

'Their home phone and fax and email were tapped, so were their telefonini. Their mail was opened, and they were followed occasionally,' Marvilli answered.

'And was the same true for Dottor Pedrolli and his wife?' Brunetti asked.

'No, they were different,' said Marvilli.

'In what way?'

Marvilli's lips flattened into a straight line and he said, 'I can't say more than that we received the information about them from a different source.'

'Can't or won't?' Brunetti asked.

'Can't,' Marvilli said, sounding displeased. Brunetti was unsure whether this resulted from being asked the question or from not being able to answer it.

He decided to risk one more question. 'Did you know about them from the beginning, too?'

Marvilli shook his head but said nothing.

Brunetti accepted Marvilli's response with apparent resignation, intrigued by the repeated suggestion that Pedrolli's situation was somehow different and in some way separate from the long-planned action. He sensed that Vianello wanted to say something and decided to let him. It would serve as a jgraceful way to move the subject away from the anomalous case of the Pedrollis. He turned to Vianello and, careful to use his first name, asked, 'What is it, Lorenzo?'

'Captain,' Vianello began, 'if your superiors knew what these people had done, why weren't they simply arrested?'

'The middle man, the person behind the arrangements. That's who we wanted,' Marvilli explained. He turned to Brunetti and said, 'You realize by now that it's not just the people who were arrested last night that we're interested in, no?'

Brunetti nodded.

'These aren't isolated cases,' Marvilli continued. This is going on all over the country. We probably don't have any idea of how common it is.'

He turned back to Vianello. 'That's why we need the middle man, so we can find out who was providing the documents, the birth certificates, in one case even false medical papers, claiming that a woman had given birth to a child that wasn't hers.' He folded his hands on the table like an obedient schoolboy.

Brunetti waited a few moments before saying, 'We've had a few cases here, in the Veneto, but as far as I know, this is the first time anyone's been arrested in the city.'

Marvilli acknowledged this and Brunetti asked, Does anyone have any idea ... well, of the whole picture?'

‘I can't answer that, either, Commissario. I was assigned this case only last night, and I was briefed about it then.' It seemed to Brunetti that the Captain had certainly learned a great deal in a very short time.

Instead of commenting on this, Brunetti asked, 'And do you know if this man you call the middle man was arrested?'

Marvilli shrugged, leading Brunetti to assume that the answer was no. 'What I do know is that two of the couples who were to be arrested last night had visited the same clinic in Verona,' the Captain finally said.

The surprise Brunetti felt at the name of a city in the economic heart of the country forced him to accept how automatic was his assumption that crime was somehow the natural heritage of the South. But why should the willingness to go to criminal lengths to have a child be more prevalent there than in the comfortable, rich North?

He tuned back in to hear Marvilli say, '... Dottor Pedrolli and his wife.'

'Sorry, Captain, could you say that again? I was thinking about something else.'

Marvilli pleased Brunetti by showing no irritation that his listener's attention had drifted away. 'As I said, two of the other couples had been to the same clinic in Verona, a clinic that specializes in fertility problems. People are referred there from all over the country’ He watched them register this and added, 'About two years ago, the Pedrollis went to the same clinic for a joint exam.' Brunetti had no idea how many clinics in the Veneto specialized in fertility problems and wondered whether this need be anything more than coincidence.

'And?' Brunetti asked, curious as to how deeply and for how long the police might have concerned themselves with the clinic and with the lives of the people who went there as patients.

'And nothing,' Marvilli said angrily. 'Nothing. They had an appointment, and that's all we know.'

Brunetti forbore to ask whether the Carabinieri had kept both the Pedrollis and the clinic under surveillance and if so, to what extent. He wondered how, in fact, the Carabinieri had learned of their visit, and by what right, but the voice of patience whispered into his ear a list of the secrets open to the not inconsiderable skills of Signorina Elettra Zorzi, his superior's secretary, and so he held close to his bosom his sense of righteous indignation at the thought of the invasion of a citizen's privacy. He asked, 'And did you find any connection to this clinic?'

Marvilli pushed the plate away. 'We're working on it,' he said evasively.

Brunetti stretched his legs out under the table, careful not to nudge Marvilli's. He slumped down slightly on the bench and folded his arms across his chest. 'Let me think out loud, Captain, if I may.' The glance Marvilli gave Brunetti was wary. 'Hundreds of people must consult this clinic every year.'

When Marvilli did not answer, Brunetti asked, 'Am I right, Captain?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' Brunetti said and smiled as though

Marvilli had confirmed in advance whatever theory he was about to propose. 'Then the Pedrollis are among hundreds of people with similar problems.' He smiled again at Marvilli, as though trying to encourage enthusiasm in a favourite pupil. 'So how is it, I wonder, that the Carabinieri decided that Dottor Pedrolli - out of all the people who went for a consultation at this clinic - also adopted a child illegally? That is, if this middle man has not been arrested.'

Marvilli hesitated too long before answering, 'I wasn't told.'

After another pause, the Captain added, 'I think that's something you should discuss with Dottor Pedrolli.'

A more brutal man than Brunetti, or a more unforgiving one, would have reminded Marvilli that Pedrolli was incapable of discussion in his current state. Instead, he surprised Marvilli by saying, ‘I shouldn't have asked you that.' Deciding to change the subject, Brunetti continued, 'And the children? What'll happen to them?'

The same thing as to all of them’ Marvilli said.

'Which is?' Brunetti asked. 'They'll be sent to an orphanage.'

6

 

 

Brunetti gave no sign of the effect Marvilli's words had had on him and resisted the desire to exchange glances with Vianello. He hoped the Inspector would follow his example and say nothing that would lessen, or spoil, the easy communication they seemed to have established with the Captain.

'And then what?' Brunetti asked professionally. 'What happens to the children?'

Marvilli could not disguise his confusion. 'I told you, Commissario. We see that they're taken to an orphanage, and then it’s the duty of the social services and the Children's Court to see that they're taken care of.'

Brunetti chose to let this lie and continued, 'I see. So in each case, you ...' Brunetti tried to think what word he was supposed to use here. Repossessed? Confiscated? Stole? -'got the baby and handed it over to social services.'

'That was our responsibility’ agreed Marvilli simply.

Brunetti asked, 'And Pedrolli? What will happen to him?'

Marvilli considered before answering, 'That will depend on the examining magistrate, I suppose. If Pedrolli decides to cooperate, then the charges will be minor.'

'Cooperate how?' Brunetti asked. From Marvilli's silence, Brunetti realized that he had asked the wrong question, but before he could ask another, Marvilli shot back his cuff and looked at his watch. 'I think I have to get back to headquarters, Signori.' He moved sideways and out of the booth. When he was standing, he asked, 'Will you let me pay for this?'

Thanks, Captain, but no,' Brunetti answered with a smile. 'I'd like to be able to save two lives in one day.'

Marvilli laughed. He offered his hand to Brunetti and then, with a polite, 'Goodbye, Inspector’ leaned across the table and shook Vianello's hand as well.

If Brunetti expected him to make some remark about keeping the local police informed, perhaps to ask them to share with the Carabinieri any information they might obtain, he was disappointed. The Captain thanked Brunetti again for the coffee, turned and left the bar.

Brunetti looked at the plates and discarded napkins. 'If I have another coffee, I'll be able to fly back to the Questura.'

'Same here,' muttered Vianello, then asked, 'Where do we start?'

'With Pedrolli, I think, and then perhaps we should find this clinic in Verona,' Brunetti answered. 'And I'd like very much to know how the Carabinieri found out about Pedrolli.'

Vianello gestured towards the place where Marvilli had been sitting. 'Yes, he was very coy about that, wasn't he?'

Neither proposed a solution, and finally, after a contemplative silence, Vianello said, 'The wife's probably at the hospital. You want to go and talk to her?'

Brunetti nodded. He got to his feet and went over to the bar.

'Ten Euros, Commissario,' said Sergio.

Brunetti placed the bill on the counter then half turned to the door, where Vianello was already waiting for him. Over his shoulder, Brunetti asked, 'Bambola?'

Sergio smiled. ‘I saw his real name on his work permit, and there was no way I was going to be able to pronounce it. So he suggested I call him Bambola, since it's as close as anyone can get to his real name in Italian.'

'Work permit?' Brunetti asked.

'At that pasticceria in Barbaria delle Tolle,' Sergio said, pronouncing the name of the calle in Veneziano, something Brunetti had never heard a foreigner succeed in doing. 'He actually has one.'

Vianello and Brunetti left the bar, heading back to the Questura. It was not yet seven, so they went to the squad room, where there was an ancient black and white television on which they could watch the early morning news. They sat through the interminable political reports, as ministers and politicians were filmed speaking into microphones while a voiceover explained what they had supposedly said. Then a car bomb. Government denials that inflation was rising. Three new saints.

Gradually, other officers drifted in and joined them. The programme moved on to a badly focused film of a blue Carabinieri sedan pulling up at the Questura in Brescia. A man with his face buried in his handcuffed hands emerged from the car. The voiceover explained that the Carabinieri had effected night-time raids in Brescia, Verona, and Venice to close up a ring of baby-traffickers. Five people had been arrested and three babies consigned to the care of the state.

‘Poor things,' Vianello muttered, and it was clear that he was speaking about the children.

'But what else to do with them?' Brunetti responded.

Alvise, who had come in unnoticed and now stood near them, interrupted loudly, as though speaking to the television but in reality addressing Brunetti, 'What else? Leave them with their parents, for the love of God’

'Their parents didn't want them’ Brunetti observed drily. 'That's why all this is happening.'

Alvise threw his right hand into the air. ‘I don't mean the people they were born to: I mean their parents, the people who raised them, who had them for -' he raised his voice further -'some of them had them for eighteen months. That's a year and a half. They re walking by then, talking. You can't just go in and take them away and put them in an orphanage. Porco Giuda, these are children, not shipments of cocaine we can sequester and put in a closet’ Alvise slammed his hand down on a table and gave his superior a red-faced look. 'What sort of country is this, anyway, where something like this can happen?'

Brunetti could only agree. Alvise's question was perfectly fair. What sort of country, indeed?

The screen was filled with soccer players, either on strike or being arrested, Brunetti could not tell and did not care, so he turned away from the television and left the room, followed by Vianello.

As they climbed the stairs, the Inspector said, 'He's right, you know. Alvise.'

Brunetti did not answer, so Vianello added, 'It might be the first time in recorded history that he has been right, but he's right.'

Brunetti waited at the top of the stairs, and when Vianello reached him, said, 'The law is a heartless beast, Lorenzo.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It means,' Brunetti said, stopping just inside the door to his office, 'that if these people are allowed to keep the babies, it establishes a precedent: people can buy babies or get them any way they want and from anywhere they want, and for any purpose they want, and it's completely legal for them to do so.'

'What other purpose could there be than to raise them and love them?' asked an outraged Vianello.

From the first time he had heard them, Brunetti had decided to treat all rumours of the buying of babies and children for use as involuntary organ donors as an urban myth. But, over the years, the rumours had grown in frequency and moved geographically from the Third World to the First, and now, though he still refused to believe them, hearing them unsettled him. Logic suggested that an operation as complicated as a transplant required a number of people and a controlled and well-staffed medical environment where at least one of the patients could recover. The chances that this could happen and that all of those involved would keep quiet were odds Brunetti was not willing to give. This, at least, surely held true in Italy. Beyond its borders, Brunetti no longer dared to speculate.

He still remembered reading - it must have been more than a decade ago - the agonized, and agonizing, letter in La Repubblica, from a woman who admitted that she had broken what she knew to be the law and taken her twelve-year-old daughter to India for a kidney transplant. The letter recounted the diagnosis, the assigning of her daughter's name to a ranking so low on the health service waiting list for transplants as to amount to a sentence of death.

The woman wrote that she was fully aware that some person, some other child, perhaps, would be constrained by poverty to sell a piece of their living flesh. She knew, further, that the donor's health would afterwards be permanently compromised, regardless of what they were paid and regardless of what they did with the money. But when she measured her daughter's life against the increased risk for some stranger, she had opted to accept that guilt. So she had taken her daughter to India with one badly functioning kidney and had brought her back to Italy with a healthy one.

One of the things Brunetti had always secretly admired about some of the ancients - and he had to admit that it was one of the reasons he read them so relentlessly - was the apparent ease with which they made ethical decisions. Right and wrong; white and black. Ah, what easy times they seemed.

But along came science to stick a rod between the spinning wheels of ethical decision while the rules tried to catch up with science and technology. Conception could be achieved any which way, the dead were no longer entirely dead, the living not necessarily fully alive, and maybe there did exist a place where hearts and livers were for sale.

He wanted to express this in his answer to Vianello, but could find no way to compress or phrase it so that it made any sense. Instead, he turned to Vianello and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I don't have any big answers, only small ideas’

'What does that mean?'

'It means,' he said, though the idea came to him only as he spoke, 'that because we didn't arrest him, maybe we can try to protect him’

‘I’m not sure I understand,' said Vianello.

'I'm not sure I do, either, Lorenzo, but I think he's a man who might need protection.'

‘From Marvilli?'

'No, not from him. But from the sort of men Marvilli works for.'

Vianello sat down in one of the chairs in Brunetti's office. 'Have you dealt with them before?' he asked.

Brunetti, still feeling the buzz of the caffeine and sugar and too restless to sit, leaned against his desk. 'No, not with the men in Verona. I suppose I meant the type’

'Men who'd give the babies to an orphanage?' Vianello asked, unable to evade the hold that thought had taken on him.

'Yes,' Brunetti agreed, 'I suppose you could refer to them that way.'

Vianello acknowledged this concept with a shake of his head. 'How can we protect him?'

'The first way would be to find out if he has a lawyer and, if so, who that is’ Brunetti answered.

With a wry smile, Vianello said, 'Sounds like you want to stack the deck against us.'

'If they're going to charge him with the list Marvilli gave us, then he needs a good one.'

'Donatini?' Vianello suggested, pronouncing the name as though it were a dirty word.

Brunetti raised his hands in feigned horror. 'No, I'd draw the line short of that. He'll need someone as good as Donatini, but honest.'

More because it was expected of him than because he fully meant it, Vianello repeated, 'Honest? A lawyer?'

'There are some, you know’ Brunetti said. 'There's Rosato, though I don't know how much criminal work she does. And Barasciutti, and Leonardi...' His voice wound down and stopped.

Without feeling it necessary to mention that they had been working among criminal lawyers for close to half a century between them and had come up with the names of only three honest ones, Vianello said, 'Instead of honest, we could settle for effective.' They chose to overlook the fact that this would place Donatini's name back at the top of the list.

Brunetti glanced at his watch. 'When I see his wife, I'll ask her if she knows one.' He pushed himself away from his desk, walked around behind it and sat down.

He noticed some papers that had not been there when he left the previous day but barely glanced at them. "There's one thing we have to find out’ he said.

'Who authorized it?' Vianello asked.

'Exactly. There's no way a squad of Carabinieri would come into the city and break into a home without having permission from a judge and without having informed us.'

'Patta?' Vianello asked. 'Could he have known?'

The Vice-Questore's name had been the first to come to Brunetti's mind, but the more he considered this, the less likely it seemed. 'Possibly. But then we would have heard.' He did not mention that the inevitable source of that information would not have been the Vice-Questore himself but his secretary, Signorina Elettra.

'Then who?' Vianello asked.

After some time, Brunetti said, 'It could have been Scarpa.'

'But he belongs to Patta,' Vianello said, making no attempt to disguise his distaste for the Lieutenant.

'He's mishandled a few things recently. He could have taken it straight to the Questore as a way of trying to bolster his position’

'But when Patta hears about it?' Vianello asked. 'He's not going to like having been hopped over by Scarpa.' . It was not the first time that Brunetti had considered the symbiosis between those two gentlemen from the South, Vice-Questore Patta and his watchdog. Lieutenant Scarpa. He had always assumed that Scarpa's sights were set on the Vice-Questore's patronage. Could it be, however, that the Lieutenant saw his liaison with Patta as nothing more than a flirtation, a stepping stone on the way to the realization of a higher ambition and that his real target was the Questore himself?

Over the years, Brunetti had learned that he underestimated Scarpa to his cost, so perhaps it was best to admit this possibility and bear it in mind in his future dealings with the Lieutenant. Patta might be a fool and much given to indolence and personal vanity, but Brunetti had seen no evidence that he was corrupt in anything beyond the trivial nor that he was in the hands of the Mafia.

He glanced away from Vianello to follow this train of thought. Have we arrived, then, he wondered, at the point where the absence of a vice equals the presence of its opposite? Have we all gone mad?

Vianello, accustomed to Brunetti's habits, waited until his superior's attention returned and asked, 'Shall we ask her to find out?'

‘I think she'd enjoy that,' Brunetti answered immediately, though he suspected he should not give even this much encouragement to Signorina Elettra's habit of undermining the system of police security.

'Do you remember that woman who came in about six months ago, the one who told us about the pregnant girl?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello nodded and asked, 'Why?'

Brunetti cast his mind back to the woman he had interviewed. Short, older than sixty, with much-permed blonde hair, and very worried that her husband would somehow become aware that she had been to see the police. But someone had told her to come. A daughter or a daughter-in-law, he remembered, was mixed up in it somehow.

'I'd like you to check if there was a transcript made of the interview. I don't remember whether I asked for one, and I don't remember her name. It was in the spring some time, wasn't it?'

‘I think so’ Vianello answered. 'I'll see if I can track it down’

It might not have anything to do with this, but I'd Uke to read what she said, maybe talk to her again’

If there is a transcript, I'll find it,' Vianello said.

Brunetti looked at his watch. 'I'm going over to the hospital to see what his wife will tell me,' he said to Vianello. 'And do ask Signorina Elettra if she can find out who was informed about the Carabinieri... operation’ He wanted to use a stronger word - attack, raid - but he restrained himself.

‘I’ll speak to her when she comes in this afternoon,' said the Inspector.

'Afternoon?' asked a puzzled Brunetti.

It's Tuesday,' Vianello said by way of explanation, as if to say, 'Food stores close on

Wednesday afternoon, fish restaurants don't open on Monday, and Signorina Elettra doesn't work on Tuesday mornings’ 'Ah, yes, of course’

 

 

7

 

She was strong. Had Brunetti been asked to explain why this word came to him when he first saw Pedrolli's wife, he would have been hard-pressed to answer, but the word came to his mind when he saw her and remained with him for as long as he dealt with her. She stood at the side of her husband's bed and gave Brunetti a startled look when he came in, even though he had knocked. Perhaps she expected someone else, someone in a white doctor's coat.

She was beautiful: that was the second thing that struck Brunetti: tall and slender with a mane of dark brown curls. She had high cheekbones and light eyes that might have been green or might have been grey, and a long, thin nose that tipped up at the end. Her mouth was large, disproportionately so below her nose, but the full lips seemed somehow to suit her face perfectly. Though she must have been in her early forties, her face was still unwrinkled, the skin taut. She looked at least a decade younger than the man in the bed, though the circumstances prevented that from being a fair comparison.

When she registered that Brunetti was not whoever she was expecting, she turned back to her husband, who appeared to be asleep. Brunetti could see Pedrolli's forehead and nose and chin, and the long shape of his body under the blanket.

She kept her eyes on her husband, and Brunetti kept his on her. She was wearing a dark green woollen skirt and a beige sweater. Brown shoes, expensive shoes, made for standing, and not for walking.

'Signora?' said Brunetti, remaining by the door.

'Yes?' she said, glancing at him quickly but then turning back to her husband.

'I'm from the police,' he said.

Her rage was instantaneous and caught him off guard. Her voice took on a threatening sibilance that sounded one remove from physical violence. 'You do this to us, and you dare to come into this room? You beat him unconscious and leave him lying there, speechless, and you come in here and you dare to talk to me?'

Fists clenched, she took two steps towards Brunetti, who could not stop himself from raising his hands, palms outward, in a gesture more suited to warding off evil spirits than the threat of physical violence. I had nothing to do with what happened last night, Signora. I'm here to investigate the attack on your husband’

'liar’ she spat, but she came no nearer.

'Signora’ Brunetti said, intentionally keeping his voice low, I was called at home at two o'clock this morning and came down here because the Questura had received a report that a man had been attacked and taken to the hospital’ It was an elaboration - one might even have called it a lie - but the essence was true. 'If you wish, you can ask the doctors or the nurses if this is so’

He paused and watched her consider. 'What's your name?' she demanded.

'Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police. The operation in which your husband was injured .. ‘ He watched her begin to object, but he continued '... was a Carabinieri operation, not ours. To the best of my knowledge, we were not informed of it in advance’ Perhaps he should not have told her this, but he did so in an attempt to deflect her wrath and induce her to speak to him.

The attempt failed, for she immediately returned to the attack, though no matter how forceful her words, her voice never grew louder than a whisper. 'You mean these gorillas are free to come into the city whenever they want and break into our homes and kidnap our children and leave a man lying there like that?' She turned and pointed to her husband, and the gesture, as well as the words, struck Brunetti as intentionally dramatic. However sympathetic he might be towards Pedrolli and his wife, Brunetti did not allow himself to forget, as she seemed capable of doing, that they were accused of illegally adopting a child and that her husband was under arrest

'Signora, I don't want to disturb your husband.' She seemed to soften, so he continued. 'If I can find a nurse who will stay in the room with him, will you come into the corridor and talk to me?'

'If you can find a nurse in this place, you're better than I. I haven't seen anyone since they brought me in here’ she said, still angry, but less so now. "They're quite happy just to leave him lying there.'

Good sense told Brunetti not to respond. He held up his hand in a calming gesture. The uniformed Carabiniere still sat in the corridor though he didn't so much as glance up when Brunetti left the room. At the end of the corridor, the day shift was just coming on duty, two women of middle years dressed in today's nursing uniform: jeans and sweaters worn under long white jackets. The taller of the two wore red shoes; the other had white hair.

He took his warrant card from his wallet and showed it to them. ‘I’m here for Dottor Pedrolli’ he said.

'What for?' the tall one demanded. 'Don't you think you've done enough?'

The older one put a restraining hand on her colleague's arm, as if she feared she and Brunetti were about to get into a fist-fight. She tugged at her colleague's arm, not gently, and said, 'Be careful, Gina,' then, to Brunetti, 'What is it you want?' Her tone, though milder, still seemed to accuse Brunetti of complicity in the blow that had put Dottor Pedrolli in the room halfway down the corridor.

Unwilling to relent, the one called Gina snorted, but at least she was listening to him, so Brunetti continued. I was here at three this morning to visit someone I thought was the victim of an attack. My men were not involved in it.'

The older one at least seemed willing to believe him, and that appeared to lessen the tension. 'Do you know him?' he asked, directing the question only at her.

She nodded. ‘I used to work in paediatrics, until about two years ago, and there was no one better. Believe me, he's the best. Sometimes I'd think he was the only one who really cared about the kids: he was certainly the only one who ever acted like it was important to listen to them and talk to them. He spent most of his time here; he'd come in for almost anything. We all knew he was the one to call if anything happened during the night. He never made you feel you shouldn't have called him.'

Brunetti smiled at this description and turned to her colleague. 'Do you know him, too, nurse?'

She shook her head. The older woman gave her arm a squeeze and said, 'Come on, Gina. You know you do,' and released her hold.

Gina spoke to her friend. 'I never worked with him, Sandra. But, yes,' she said, and now she turned her attention to Brunetti. 'I've seen him around sometimes, in the bar or in the corridors, but I don't think we've ever spoken - well, not more than to say good morning or something like that.' At Brunetti's nod, she continued. 'But I've heard about him: I suppose everyone does, sooner or later. He's a good man.'

'And a good doctor,' Sandra added. Neither Brunetti nor Gina seemed willing to speak, and so she changed the subject. 'I read the chart. They don't know what it is. Damasco wants to take more X-rays and do a CAT scan later this morning: that's what he wrote before he went home.'

Brunetti knew he would be able to get the medical information later, so he turned to Gina. 'Do you know his wife?'

The question surprised her, and she grew suddenly formal. 'No. That is, I never met her. But I've spoken to her on the phone a few times.' She glanced at the door to Pedrolli's room. 'She's in there with him, isn't she?'

'Yes,' Brunetti answered. 'And I'd like one of you to stay with him while I talk to her out here, if that's possible.'

The two women exchanged a glance and Sandra said, ‘I’ll do it.'

'All right,' said Gina, leaving Brunetti with her colleague.

He led the way to the door, knocked, and entered. Pedrolli's wife was where he had left her, by the bed, looking at her husband.

She glanced in their direction and, seeing the nurse's white jacket, asked her, 'Do you know when a doctor will come to see him?' Though the words were neutral enough, her tone suggested that she feared there might be days to wait, or longer.

'Rounds begin at ten, Signora,' the nurse answered dispassionately.

Pedrolli's wife looked at her watch, drew her lips together, and addressed Brunetti. 'There's plenty of time for us to talk, then.' She touched the back of her husband's right hand and turned away from the bed.

Brunetti stepped back to allow her to precede him, then pulled the door shut. She glanced at the Carabiniere and back at Brunetti with a look that suggested he was responsible for the other man's presence, but said nothing. The corridor ended at a large window that looked down on a courtyard and a scrawny pine tree leaning so sharply to one side that it appeared to grow horizontally, some branches touching the ground.

Reaching the window, he said, 'My name is Guido Brunetti, Signora.' He did not offer his hand.

'Bianca Marcolini,' she said, half turned away from him and gazing through the window at the tree.

As if he had not recognized the surname.

Brunetti said, I'd like to speak to you about last night, Signora, if I may’

‘I’m not sure there's much to say, Commissario. Two masked men broke into our home along with another man. They were armed. They beat my husband insensible and left him like that,' she said, pointing angrily back towards his room. Then she added, her voice rough, 'And they took our child’

Brunetti had no idea whether she was trying to provoke him by continuing to act as though he had been responsible, but he simply asked, 'Would you tell me what you remember of what happened, Signora?'

'I just told you what happened,' she said. 'Weren't you listening, Commissario?'

'Yes,' he agreed. 'You did tell me. But I need a clearer picture, Signora. I need to know what was said, and whether the men who came into your house announced themselves as Carabinieri and whether they attacked your husband without provocation.' Brunetti wondered why the Carabinieri had worn masks: usually they did that only when there was some danger that they would be photographed and thus identified. In the case of the arrest of a paediatrician, that hardly seemed the case.

'Of course they didn't tell us who they were,' she said, raising her voice. 'Do you think my husband would have tried to fight them if they had?' He watched as she cast her thoughts back to the scene in her bedroom. 'He told me to call the police, for God's sake’

Making no attempt to correct her for confusing the Carabinieri with the police, Brunetti asked, 'Did he, or you, have any reason to expect them to come, Signora?'

‘I don't know what you mean,' she said angrily, perhaps trying to deflect the question with her tone.

'Let me try to make my question clearer, then, if I might. Is there any reason why you, or your husband, thought the police or the Carabinieri might be interested in you or might approach you?' Even as he said it, Brunetti knew he had chosen the wrong word, one that was sure to inflame her.

He was not wrong. '"Approach" us,' she gasped, driven beyond her powers of restraint. She took a step away from the window and raised her hand. She shot a finger out at him and said, her voice tight with rage she could no longer contain, 'Might approach us. That was no approach, Signore: it was an attack, an assault, a raid.' She stopped, and Brunetti saw that the flesh around her mouth stood out white in the sudden redness of her face. She took a step towards him but then faltered. She braced a hand against the windowsill, locking her elbow to keep herself from falling.

Brunetti, was immediately beside her, supporting her until she half leaned, half sat on the windowsill. He kept his hold on her arm. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, hands propped on her knees, head hanging limply.

Halfway down the corridor, Sandra put her head out of the door to Pedrolli's room, but Brunetti raised a calming hand and she moved back inside. The woman beside him took a number of deep, rasping breaths, her head still lowered.

A man in a white lab coat came into view at the end of the corridor, but his attention was on a sheet of paper in his hand: he ignored, or didn't see, Brunetti and the woman. He disappeared into one of the rooms without knocking.

Time passed, until finally Signora Marcolini pushed herself up and stood, but did not open her eyes. Brunetti released her arm.

'Thank you,' she said, still breathing heavily. Eyes still closed, she said, 'It was terrible. The noise woke me up. Men shouting, and when I looked, I saw a man hit Gustavo with something, and then he was on the ground, and then Alfredo started to scream, and I thought they were there to hurt us.'

She opened her eyes and looked at Brunetti. 'I think we must have been a little crazy. From the fear.'

‘Fear of what, Signora?' Brunetti asked softly, hoping his question would not propel her into rage again.

That they'd arrest us,' she said.

'Because of the baby?'

She lowered her head, but he heard her answer, 'Yes.'

8

 

'Would you like to tell me about it, Signora?' Brunetti asked. He glanced along the corridor and saw the man in the white lab coat leave the room on the left and head back towards the double glass doors at the end of the corridor. The man went through the doors, turned, and disappeared.

Experience told Brunetti to remain as still as he could until his presence became an almost imperceptible part of the woman's surroundings. A minute passed, and then another. Intensely aware of the woman beside him, he continued to gaze off down the corridor.

Finally she said, in a softer voice, 'We couldn't have children. And we couldn't adopt.' Another pause, and then she added, 'Or, if we