Fatal Remedies Part 2

Because a bank robbery in Venice was such an unusual event, it served to divert them and Brunetti told Paola - even though everyone in the city was sure to have read about it in the paper - the little that was known: a young man with a gun had walked into a bank three days before, demanded money, walked out with it in one hand, the pistol in the other, and had calmly disappeared in the direction of Rialto. The camera hidden in the ceiling of the bank had provided the police with a fuzzy picture, but it had allowed the police to make a tentative identification of the brother of a local man said to have powerful connections to the Mafia. The robber had pulled a scarf up over his mouth and nose as he entered the bank, but he'd removed it as he left, providing a man on the way in with a clear view of his face.

The witness, a pizzaiolo pizzaiolo from Treviso who had been going into the bank to make a mortgage payment, had had a good look at the robber and Brunetti hoped he would be able to pick him out from among the photos of suspects the police had a.s.sembled. That would be enough to make an arrest and it might be sufficient to win a conviction. So that was where Brunetti was headed that morning. from Treviso who had been going into the bank to make a mortgage payment, had had a good look at the robber and Brunetti hoped he would be able to pick him out from among the photos of suspects the police had a.s.sembled. That would be enough to make an arrest and it might be sufficient to win a conviction. So that was where Brunetti was headed that morning.

From the back part of the apartment they heard the sound of an opening door and the unmistakable heavy tread of Raffi, sleep-sodden, on his way towards the bathroom and, they hoped, consciousness.

Brunetti took another brioche, surprised to find himself so hungry at this hour: breakfast was something for which normally he had little understanding and less sympathy. While they awaited further sounds of life from the back of the apartment, they kept themselves very busy with their coffee and their brioches.

Brunetti was just finishing when another door opened. A few moments later Chiara stumbled down the hallway and came into the kitchen, one hand prodding at her eyes, as if to help them with the complicated business of opening. Saying nothing, she shuffled barefoot across the kitchen and lowered herself into Brunetti's lap. She wrapped one arm round his back and planted her head on his shoulder.

Brunetti put both arms round her and kissed the top of her head. 'You going to school like this today?' he asked in an entirely conversational voice, studying the pattern on her pyjamas. 'Nice. I'm sure your cla.s.smates will like the look. Balloons. Very tasteful, balloons. Chic, I'd even say. A fashion statement every twelve-year-old will envy.'

Paola lowered her head and returned her attention to her magazine.

Chiara shifted around in his lap, then pushed herself away from him to look down at her pyjamas. Before she could say anything, Raffi came into the kitchen, bent down to kiss his mother and went to the stove to pour himself a cup of coffee from the six-cup moka express. He added hot milk, came back to the table, sat down and said, 'I hope you don't mind that I used your razor, Pap Pap a a .' .'

'To do what?' Chiara asked, 'trim your fingernails? There's certainly nothing growing on that face of yours that needs a razor.' That said, she moved out of Raffi's range and closer to Brunetti, who gave her a reproving squeeze through the thick flannel of her pyjamas.

Raffi leaned towards her across the table, but his heart wasn't in it and he stopped his hand over the pile of brioches and picked one up. He dunked one end into the coffee and took an enormous bite. 'How come there's brioches?' he wanted to know. When no one answered he turned to Brunetti and asked, 'You go out?'

Brunetti nodded and took his arms from around Chiara. He slipped out from under her and got to his feet.

'You get the papers, too?' Raffi asked from around another mouthful of brioche.

'No,' Brunetti said, moving to the door.

'How come?'

'I forgot,' he lied to his only son, went into the hall, put on his coat and left the apartment.

Outside, he turned towards Rialto and the decades-long familiar route to the Questura. Most mornings he found delight in some small element of the walk: a particularly absurd headline on one of the national papers, some new misspelling on the front of the cheap sweat-shirts that filled the booths on both sides of the market, the first arrival of some longed-for fruit or vegetable. But this morning he saw little and noticed nothing as he made his way through the market, over the bridge and into the first of the narrow streets that would take him to the Questura and to work.

Much of the time it took him to walk to his office he spent thinking about Ruberti and Bellini, wondering if their personal loyalty to a superior who had treated them with a certain measure of humanity would prove sufficient motive for them to betray their oath of loyalty to the State. He a.s.sumed it would, but when he realized how suspiciously close this was to the scale of values that had animated Paola's behaviour, he forced his mind away from them and, instead, contemplated the day's immediate trial: the ninth of the 'convocations du personnel' 'convocations du personnel' which his immediate supervisor, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, had inst.i.tuted at the Questura after the recent training course he'd attended at Interpol headquarters in Lyon. which his immediate supervisor, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, had inst.i.tuted at the Questura after the recent training course he'd attended at Interpol headquarters in Lyon.

There, in Lyon, Patta had exposed himself to the elements of the various nations which now made up united Europe: champagne and truffles from France, Danish ham, English beer and some very old Spanish brandy. At the same time he had sampled the various managerial styles on offer by bureaucrats of the different nations. At the end of the course he'd returned to Italy, suitcases filled with smoked salmon and Irish b.u.t.ter, head bursting with new, progressive ideas about how to handle the people who worked for him. The first of these, and the only one so far to be revealed to the members of the Questura, was the now weekly 'convocations du personnel', 'convocations du personnel', an interminable meeting at which matters of surpa.s.sing triviality were presented to the entire staff, there to be discussed, dissected and ultimately disregarded by everyone present. an interminable meeting at which matters of surpa.s.sing triviality were presented to the entire staff, there to be discussed, dissected and ultimately disregarded by everyone present.

When the meetings had first begun two months ago, Brunetti had joined the majority in the opinion that they would not last more than a week or two, but here they were, after eight of them, with no end in sight. After the second Brunetti had started to bring his newspaper, but that had been stopped by Lieutenant Scarpa, Patta's personal a.s.sistant, who had repeatedly asked if Brunetti were so little interested in what happened in the city that he would read a paper during the meetings. He had then tried a book, but he could never find one small enough to hold in his cupped hands.

His salvation had come, as had often been the case in the last years, from Signorina Elettra. On the morning of the fifth meeting she had come into his office ten minutes before it was due to begin and asked Brunetti, with no explanation, for ten thousand lire.

He had handed it over and, in return, she'd given him twenty bra.s.s-centred five-hundred-lire coins. In response to his questioning look she'd handed him a small card, little bigger than the box that held compact discs.

He'd looked down at the card, seen that it was divided into twenty-five equally sized squares, each of which contained a word or phrase, printed in tiny letters. He'd had to hold it close to his eyes to read some of them: 'Maximize', 'prioritize', 'outsource', 'liaison', 'interface', 'issue' and a host of the newest, emptiest buzz-words to have slipped into the language in recent years.

'What's this?' he'd asked.

'Bingo,' was Signorina Elettra's simple answer. Before he could ask, she'd explained, 'My mother used to play it. All you have to do is wait for someone to use one of the words on your card - all the cards are different - and when you hear it, you cover it with a coin. The first one to cover five words in a straight line wins.'

'Wins what?'

'The money of all the other players.'

'What other players?'

'You'll see,' was all she'd had time to say before they were summoned to the meeting.

And since that day the meetings had been tolerable, at least for those provided with the small cards. That first day there had been only Brunetti, Signorina Elettra and one of the other commissari, a woman just returned from maternity leave. Since then, however, the cards had appeared on the laps or within the notebooks of an ever expanding number of people and each week Brunetti felt as much interest in seeing who had a card as in actually winning the game. Each week, too, the words changed, usually in conformity with the changing patterns or enthusiasms of Patta's speech: they sometimes reflected the Vice-Questore's attempts at urbanity and 'multiculturalism' - a word which had also appeared - as well as his occasional attempt to use the vocabulary of languages he did not speak; hence, 'voodoo economies', 'pyramid scheme' and 'Wirtschaftlicher Aufschwung'. 'Wirtschaftlicher Aufschwung'.

Brunetti arrived at the Questura half an hour before the meeting was scheduled to begin. Neither Ruberti nor Bellini was on duty when he got there, so it was a different officer who handed him the previous night's crime log when he asked to see it. He glanced with every appearance of lack of interest at the pages: a burglary in Dorsoduro at the home of people away on vacation; a fight in a bar in Santa Marta between sailors from a Turkish freighter and two crewmen from a Greek cruise ship. Three of them had been taken to p.r.o.nto Soccorso at the Giustinian Hospital, one with a broken arm, but no charges had been pressed as both boats were to sail that afternoon. The window of a travel agency in Campo Martin had been shattered by a rock, but no one had been arrested, nor had there been any witnesses. And the all-night machine that sold prophylactics in front of a pharmacy in Cannaregio had been prised open, probably with a screwdriver and, according to the calculations of the owner of the pharmacy, seventeen thousand lire had been taken. And sixteen packages of prophylactics.

The meeting, when it finally convened, brought no surprises. At the beginning of the second hour, Vice-Questore Patta announced that, in order to a.s.sure that they were not being used to launder money, the various non-profit organizations in the city would have to be asked to allow their files to be 'accessed' by the computers of the police, at which point Signorina Elettra made a small motion with her right hand, looked across at Vianello, smiled and said, but very softly, 'Bingo.'

'Excuse me, Signorina?' Vice-Questore Patta was aware that something had been going on for some time but ignorant of what it could be.

She looked at the Vice-Questore, repeated her smile and said, 'Dingo, sir.'

'Dingo?' he enquired, peering at her over the tops of the half-gla.s.ses he affected for these meetings.

'The animal protection people, sir, the ones who put the canisters in the shops to collect money to take care of strays. They're a non-profit organization. So we should contact them as well.'

'Indeed?' Patta asked, not certain that this was what he had heard, or what he had expected.

'I wouldn't want anyone to forget them,' she explained.

Patta turned his attention back to the papers in front of him and the meeting continued. Brunetti, chin propped on his hand, watched as six other people made small stacks of coins in front of themselves. Lieutenant Scarpa watched them carefully, but the cards, previously shielded by hands, notebooks and coffee cups, had all disappeared. Only the coins remained - and the meeting, which dragged itself tiredly along for yet another half-hour.

Just at the moment when insurrection - and most of the people in the room carried weapons - was about to break out, Patta removed his gla.s.ses and set them tiredly on the papers in front of him. 'Has anyone anything else to say?' he asked.

Anyone who might have spoken did not, no doubt deterred by the thought of all those weapons, so the meeting ended. Patta left, followed by Scarpa. Small piles of coins were slid down two sides of the table until they stood either in front of or directly across from Signorina Elettra. With a croupier's grace she swept them all off the side of the table into one cupped hand and got to her feet, signalling that the meeting really was over.

Brunetti went back upstairs with her, strangely cheered by the sound of coins jingling in the pocket of the grey silk jacket she wore. 'Accessed?' he repeated, using the English word but making it, this time, sound like an English word.

'It's computer speak, sir,' she said.

'To access?' he asked. 'It's a verb now?'

'Yes, sir, I believe it is.'

'But it didn't use to be,' Brunetti said, remembering when it had been a noun.

'I think Americans are allowed to do that to their words, sir.'

'Make them verbs? Or nouns? If they feel like it?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Ah,' Brunetti breathed.

He nodded to her at the top of the first flight of stairs, and she went towards the front of the building and her small office, just outside Patta's. Brunetti continued up to his own, thinking about the liberties some people thought they could take with language. Just like the liberties Paola thought she could take with the law.

Brunetti went into his office and closed the door. Everything, he realized when he tried to read the papers on his desk, would pull his thoughts back to Paola and the events of the early morning. There would be no resolution and they would not be free of it until they could talk about it, but the memory of what she had dared to do launched him into a state of anger so consuming that he knew he was still incapable of discussing it with her.

He looked out of the window, seeing nothing, and tried to discover the real reason for his rage. Her behaviour, had he failed to stamp out evidence of it, would have put his job and his career in jeopardy. Had it not been for Ruberti's and Bellini's presence and quiet complicity, the newspapers would soon have been full of the story. And there were many journalists -Brunetti busied himself for some minutes making a list of them - who would delight in telling the story of the criminal wife of the commissario. He rethought the phrase, turning it into a headline in capital letters.

But she had been stopped, at least for the present. He remembered taking her in his arms, recalled the current of raw fear running through her. Perhaps her exposure to real violence, even though it was no more than violence against property, would have been a sufficient gesture against injustice. And perhaps she would have time to realize that Brunetti's career would be put at risk by her action. He glanced down at his watch and saw that he had just enough time to get to the station for the train to Treviso. At the thought of being able to deal with something as straightforward as a bank robbery, Brunetti felt himself filled with a sense of happy relief.

5.

During the journey back from Treviso late in the afternoon, Brunetti felt no sense of success, even though the witness had identified a photo of the man the police believed was the one who appeared on the video and said he would be willing to testify against him. Feeling he had to do it, Brunetti explained who the suspect was, as well as the possible dangers of identifying and testifying against him. Much to his surprise, Signor Iacovantuono, who worked as a cook in a pizzeria, pizzeria, hadn't been worried about that, indeed, did not seem to be at all interested. He had seen a crime committed. He recognized photos of the man accused of it. And so to him it was his duty as a citizen to testify against the criminal, regardless of the risk to himself or his family. He had seemed, if anything, puzzled at Brunetti's continued a.s.surances that they would be provided with police protection. hadn't been worried about that, indeed, did not seem to be at all interested. He had seen a crime committed. He recognized photos of the man accused of it. And so to him it was his duty as a citizen to testify against the criminal, regardless of the risk to himself or his family. He had seemed, if anything, puzzled at Brunetti's continued a.s.surances that they would be provided with police protection.

More unsettling, Signor Iacovantuono was from Salerno and hence one of those criminally disposed southerners whose presence here in the north was said to be destroying the social fabric of the nation. 'But, Commissario,' he had insisted in his heavily accented voice, 'if we don't do something about these people, what life will our children have?'

Brunetti was unable to free himself from the echo of these words and began to fear that his days were now to be haunted by the baying of the moral hounds that had been unleashed in his conscience by Paola's actions of the night before. It had all seemed so simple to the dark-haired pizzaiolo pizzaiolo from Salerno: wrong had been done; it was his duty to see that it was punished. Even when warned of the potential danger, he had remained adamant in his need to do what he thought to be right. from Salerno: wrong had been done; it was his duty to see that it was punished. Even when warned of the potential danger, he had remained adamant in his need to do what he thought to be right.

As the sleeping fields on the outskirts of Venice swept past the window of the train, Brunetti wondered how it could seem so simple to Signor Iacovantuono and yet so complicated to him. Perhaps the fact that it was illegal to rob banks made it easier. After all, society was in general agreement about that. And no law said it was wrong to sell a ticket to Thailand or the Philippines; nor that it was illegal to buy one. Nor, for that matter, did the law concern itself with what a person chose to do when he got there, at least not laws that had ever been applied in Italy. Rather like those against blasphemy, they existed in a kind of juridical limbo for the existence of which no real proof had ever been seen.

For the last few months, even longer than that, articles had been appearing in national newspapers and magazines in which various experts a.n.a.lyzed the international traffic in s.e.x-tourism statistically, psychologically, sociologically - in any of those ways the press loved to chew up a hot topic. Brunetti could remember some of them, even recalled a photo of prep.u.b.escent girls, said to be working in a brothel in Cambodia, their budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s an offence to his eyes, their small faces blotted out by some sort of visual computer static.

He had read the Interpol reports on the subject, seen how the estimates of the numbers involved, both as clients and as - he could find no other word - victims varied by as much as half a million. He had read the numbers and part of him had always chosen to believe the lowest numbers given: his humanity would be soiled were he to accept the highest.

It was the most recent article - he thought it had appeared in Panorama - Panorama - which had provoked Paola to incendiary rage. He had heard the first salvo two weeks before in Paola's voice, which had shouted from the back of the apartment which had provoked Paola to incendiary rage. He had heard the first salvo two weeks before in Paola's voice, which had shouted from the back of the apartment 'b.a.s.t.a.r.di', 'b.a.s.t.a.r.di', a sound which had shattered the peace of a Sunday afternoon and, Brunetti now feared, far more than that. a sound which had shattered the peace of a Sunday afternoon and, Brunetti now feared, far more than that.

He had not had to go back to her study, for she had stormed into the living-room, the magazine a clenched cylinder in her right hand. There had been no preamble. 'Listen to this, Guido.'

Paola had unrolled the magazine, flattened the page against her knee and straightened up to read, '"A paedophile, as the word says, is one who doubtlessly loves children."' She stopped there and looked across the room at him.

'And rapists, presumably, love women?' Brunetti had asked.

'Do you believe this?' Paola had demanded, ignoring his remark. 'One of the most popular magazines in the country - and only G.o.d knows how that can be - and they can print this s.h.i.t?' She glanced down at the page and added, 'And he teaches sociology. G.o.d, have these people no conscience? When is someone in this disgusting country going to say that we're responsible for our behaviour instead of blaming it on society or, for G.o.d's sake, the victim?'

Because Brunetti could never answer questions like this, he had made no attempt to do so. Instead, he asked her what else the article said.

She'd told him then, her rage not at all diminished by her having to become lucid to do so. Like any good tour, the article touched all the by now famous sites: Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Manila, then brought things closer to home by regurgitating the most recent cases in Belgium and Italy. But it was the tone which had enraged her and, he had to admit, disgusted Brunetti: starting from the astonishing premise that paedophiles loved children, the magazine's resident sociologist had gone on to explain how a permissive society induced men to do these things. Part of the reason, this sage opined, was the tremendous seductiveness of children. Rage had stopped Paola from reading further.

's.e.x-tourism,' Paola had muttered between teeth clenched so hard that Brunetti could see the tendons in her neck pulled out from the skin. 'G.o.d, to think that they can do it, that they can buy a ticket, sign up for a tour, and go and rape ten-year-olds.' She had thrown the magazine to the back of the sofa and returned to her study, but it was that night after dinner that she had first proposed the idea of stopping the industry.

Brunetti had at first thought she was joking and now, in retrospect, he feared that his refusal to take her seriously might have upped the ante and driven her that fatal step from outrage to action. He remembered asking her, his voice in memory arch and condescending, if she planned to stop the traffic all by herself.

'And the fact that it's illegal?'

'What's illegal?'

'To throw rocks through windows, Paola.'

'And it's not illegal to rape ten-year-olds?'

Brunetti had stopped the conversation then, and in retrospect he had to admit it had been because he had no answer to give her. No, it seemed, in some places in the world it was not illegal to rape ten-year-olds. But it was was illegal, here in Venice, in Italy, to throw rocks through windows, and that was his job: to see that people did not do it or, if they did, that they were arrested. illegal, here in Venice, in Italy, to throw rocks through windows, and that was his job: to see that people did not do it or, if they did, that they were arrested.

The train pulled into the station and came to a slow stop. Many of the pa.s.sengers getting down on to the platform carried paper-wrapped cones of flowers, reminding Brunetti that today was the first of November, the day of the dead, when most citizens would go out to the cemetery to lay flowers on the tombs of their departed. It was a sign of his misery that he welcomed the thought of dead relatives as a comfortable distraction. He wouldn't go; he seldom did.

Brunetti decided to walk home rather than go back to the Questura. Eyes that see not, ears that hear not; he walked through the city blind and deaf to its charms, playing and replaying the conversations and confrontations that had resulted from Paola's original explosion.

One of her many peculiarities was that she was a peripatetic tooth-brusher, would often walk around the apartment or into their bedroom while she cleaned her teeth. So it had seemed entirely natural to him that she had been standing at the door of their bedroom three nights ago, toothbrush in hand, when she had said, entirely without prelude, 'I'm going to do it.'

Brunetti had known what she meant, but had not believed her, so he had done no more than glance up at her and nod. And that had been the end of it, at least until the call had come from Ruberti to disturb his sleep and now his peace.

He stopped in the pasticceria pasticceria below their house and bought a little bag of below their house and bought a little bag of fave, fave, the small round almond cakes that were found only at this time of year. Chiara loved them. Following fast upon that thought, he found himself considering how this could be said to be true of virtually every edible substance in existence, and with that memory came the first release from tension that Brunetti had experienced since the night before. the small round almond cakes that were found only at this time of year. Chiara loved them. Following fast upon that thought, he found himself considering how this could be said to be true of virtually every edible substance in existence, and with that memory came the first release from tension that Brunetti had experienced since the night before.

Inside the apartment all was calm, but in the current climate that didn't mean much. Paola's coat hung on a hook beside the door, Chiara's beside it, her red wool scarf on the floor below. He picked it up and draped it over her coat, removing his own and hanging it to the right of Chiara's. Just like the three bears, he thought: Mamma, Papa Mamma, Papa and baby. and baby.

He pulled open the paper bag and dropped a few fave fave into his open palm. He tossed one into his mouth, then another, and finally two more. With a sudden flash of memory he remembered, decades ago, buying some for Paola when they were university students and still caught up in the first glow of love. into his open palm. He tossed one into his mouth, then another, and finally two more. With a sudden flash of memory he remembered, decades ago, buying some for Paola when they were university students and still caught up in the first glow of love.

'Aren't you tired of people talking about Proust every time they eat a cake or biscuit?' he'd asked as if he were graced with some open window to her mind.

A voice from behind startled him and brought him back from reverie. 'Can I have some, Papa?' Papa?'

'I got them for you, angel,' he answered, reaching down and handing the bag to Chiara.

'Do you mind if I eat just the chocolate ones?'

He shook his head. 'Is your mother in her study?'

'Are you going to have an argument?' she enquired, hand poised above the neck of the open bag.

'Why do you say that?' he asked.

'You always call Mamma Mamma "your mother" when you're going to have an argument with her.' "your mother" when you're going to have an argument with her.'

'Yes, I suppose I do,' he agreed. 'Is she there?'

'Uh huh,' she answered. 'Is it going to be a big one?'

He shrugged. He had no idea.

'I'd better eat all of these, then. In case it's going to be.'