Suffer the little Children

by Donna Leon

  Shoplifting, was Brunetti's immediate unspoken thought, but then he realized that a pharmacist was unlikely to have information about that.

  'Well,' temporized Pucetti, 'it's really maybe her husband.'

  Vianello sighed audibly, and Pucetti said, 'She's been into the Pronto Soccorso five times in the last two years.'

  Neither of them said anything.

  'The first time was a broken nose’ said Pucetti, opening the file and running his finger down the first page. He flipped it over and started down the second. 'Then, three months later, she was back with a very bad cut on her wrist. She said she cut it on a wine glass that fell into the sink.'

  'Uh huh,' Vianello muttered.

  'Six months passed, and then she was back with two broken ribs.'

  'Fell down the stairs, I suppose?' Vianello offered.

  'Exactly,' answered Pucetti. He flipped over another page and said, 'Then her knee: torn ligaments: tripped on a bridge.'

  Neither Brunetti nor Vianello said anything. The sound of the next page turning was loud in the silence from the two men.

  'And then, last month, she dislocated her shoulder.'

  'Falling down the stairs again?' asked Vianello.

  Pucetti closed the file. It doesn't say’

  'Are they residents?'" Brunetti asked.

  They have an apartment, but they come as tourists,' Pucetti answered. 'She pays her hospital bills in cash’

  'Then how'd she get on his computer?' Brunetti asked.

  'She went into the pharmacy to get painkillers the first time’ Pucetti said.

  'Quite a lot of them, it would seem’ Vianello muttered.

  Ignoring Vianello's remark, Pucetti completed his explanation, 'And so she's in his computer’

  Brunetti considered the wisdom of pursuing this but decided against. 'Let's begin with Venetians or, at least, Italians, and see if we can get anyone to speak to us. If they realize we know whatever it is he's been blackmailing them about, then they might tell us. And we might find out who broke into his pharmacy, as well’

  "There's the blood samples’ Vianello said, reminding them but not sounding at all optimistic that any results would be ready yet. 'It might be easier if we could match that sample with the blood type of someone in the files. They've been with Bocchese since the break-in.'

  'Or in some lab’ Brunetti said. He grabbed the phone and dialled Bocchese's number. The technician answered.

  'Those blood samples?' Brunetti said.

  'Thank you, Dottore, for asking. I'm fine. Glad to hear you are, too’

  'Sorry, Bocchese, but we're in something of a hurry here.'

  'You're always in a hurry, Commissario. We scientific types know how to take life more easily. For example, we have to wait for specimens to come back from laboratories, and that teaches us the virtue of patience.'

  'When will they be back?'

  'The results should have been here yesterday’ Bocchese said.

  'Can you call them?'

  'And ask them what?'

  To tell you whatever they found in the blood.'

  'If I call them and they have it, they can just as easily send me the information by email.'

  'Would you call them’ Brunetti said in a voice he struggled to keep as placid and polite as he could, 'and ask them if they'd send you the results?'

  'Of course. I'd be delighted. Shall I call you back if I get anything?'

  'You are kindness itself’ Brunetti said.

  Bocchese snorted and hung up.

  Neither of the others bothered to ask, both aware of the sovereign truth that Bocchese worked at a rhythm set by and known only to himself.

  Brunetti replaced the phone with studied patience. 'The ways of the Lord are infinite’ was the only thing he could think of to say.

  'How shall we do this?' Vianello asked, displaying no apparent interest in the ways of the Lord.

  'Do you know any of the people on the list?' Brunetti asked.

  Vianello nodded and picked up one of the files. Pucetti searched until he found the file he was looking for.

  'Let me have a look’ Brunetti said. He took the list of names and read through it, recognizing two, a young woman colleague of Paola's he had met once and a surgeon at the hospital who had operated on the mother of a friend of his.

  Given the time, they agreed that the best thing they could do now was for each of them to call the people they knew and arrange appointments for the following day. Brunetti went up to his office and read through the files. Dottor Malapiero had first been prescribed L-dopa three years before. Even Brunetti recognized this as the drug most commonly used against the first symptoms of Parkinson's.

  As for Paola's colleague, Brunetti had met Daniela Carlon once, a chance meeting, when he and Paola had joined her for a coffee and a conversation that had turned out to be far more pleasant than he had anticipated. The immediate prospect of listening to a professor of English literature and a professor of Persian was not one that had at first thrilled Brunetti, but the discovery that Daniela had spent years in the Middle East with her husband, an archaeologist still working in Syria, had changed that. Soon, they were talking about Arrian and Quintus Curtius, while Paola looked on silently, upstaged for once in the discussion of books but not at all troubled by that fact.

  According to her records, Daniela Carlon had been hospitalized for an abortion two months before, the foetus in its third month. And according to what Brunetti remembered of their conversation, which had taken place shortly before, her husband had been in Syria for the previous eight months.

  Brunetti chose to do the easy call first and learned from the doctor's wife that Dottor Malapiero was in Milano and would not be back for two days. He left no message and said that he would call again.

  Daniela answered the phone and, after her initial confusion that Brunetti had called, and not Paola, asked, 'What is it, Guido?'

  'I'd like to talk to you’

  The pause that followed stretched out until it was too long and embarrassingly significant.

  ‘It’s about work’ Brunetti added awkwardly.

  ‘Your work or mine?'

  'Mine, unfortunately’

  'Why unfortunately?' she asked.

  This was exactly the situation Brunetti had wanted to avoid, having the conversation on the telephone, where he could not observe her responses or weigh her expressions as they spoke.

  'Because it has to do with an investigation.'

  'A police investigation?' she asked, making no attempt to disguise her astonishment. 'What have I got to do with a police investigation?'

  ‘I’m not at all sure; that's why I'd like to discuss this in person’ Brunetti said.

  'And I'd like to discuss it now’ she said, her voice suddenly hard.

  'Perhaps tomorrow morning?' he suggested.

  'I'm not free tomorrow morning’ she said, offering no details. When Brunetti said nothing, she went on, 'Look, Guido, I have no idea why the police might want to talk to me, but I'll admit that I'm curious.'

  Brunetti knew when a person would not concede. 'All right’ he said. 'It's about your medical records.'

  'What about my medical records?' she asked coolly.

  'They say that you terminated a pregnancy three months ago.' ‘Yes.'

  'Daniela’ he began, feeling himself like a suspect, 'what I want to know is if anyone ...'

  'Knows about this?' she completed the question for him, her voice blistering with rage. 'Other than that creepy little pharmacist, that is?'

  Brunetti felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He fought to keep control of his voice and said, 'He called?'

  'He called Luca's mother. That's who he called’ she shouted down the phone, all restraint gone. 'He called her and asked if she knew what her daughter-in-law had done, if she knew that her daughter-in-law had been in the hospital and had destroyed a baby, that she had been pregnant.'

  Brunetti's fingers tightened on the phone. She started to c
ry, and Brunetti listened to her sobbing for more than a minute.

  Finally he said, ‘Daniela, Daniela, can you hear me? Is there anything.. .' The only response was the continued sound of her sobbing. Brunetti thought of calling Paola and asking her to go to Daniela's home, but he did not want to involve Paola in this, did not want her to know he had made this call and done what he had done.

  After some time, Daniela stopped crying and Brunetti listened to her sniff, then to the strangely comforting sound of her blowing her nose, then her voice returned. It was .. ‘

  'I don't want to know,' Brunetti said, too loudly. 'I don't want to know anything about it, Daniela. If s none of my business and none of the police's business.'

  'Then why are you calling me?' she demanded, still angry but at least no longer in tears.

  ‘I want to know what Dottor Franchi wanted.'

  'God knows what he wanted,' she said angrily. 'That everyone should be a quiet little castrato, just like him.'

  'Did he call you?'

  ‘I just told you: he called my mother-in-law. No, he didn't call me. He called her. Can I make that any clearer?'

  'Did he ask for money?'

  'Money?' she asked and then started to laugh, a strange sound hard to distinguish from her crying. After a time she stopped and said, 'No, he didn't want anything, no money, no sex, no anything. He just wanted the sinner to be punished’

  ‘I’m sorry, Daniela,' he said, meaning that he was sorry both for her pain and for having asked her about it.

  ‘I’m sorry too’ she answered. Is that enough?' she asked.

  .'Yes, it is’

  'You don't want to know anything about it?'

  'I told you: it's none of my business’

  'Then goodbye, Guido. I'm sorry we had to talk about this’

  'I am, too, Daniela’ he said and put down the phone.

  24

  Her voice broke him. Brunetti set the receiver down softly, as if afraid it would break, too. He got to his feet and, with the stealth of a burglar, went down the stairs and outside. The rain had cleaned the streets a few days previously, but already the grit and dirt had returned; he felt them underfoot, or perhaps that was his imagination and the streets were clean and the only dirt came from the things his work made him privy to. People passed him, looking entirely normal and innocent and untouched; some of them looked quite happy.

  It was as he was walking into Campo Santa Marina that he realized his body had contracted into something that felt like a long, tight knot. He stopped at the edicola and stood quietly for a while, looking at the covers of the magazines on display through the glass, all the while rolling his shoulders in an attempt to loosen them. Tits and ass. Paola had again observed, months ago, that he should spend a day counting the times he saw tits and ass: in the newspapers, in magazines, in ads on the vaporetti, on display in every kind of shop window. It might help him understand, she suggested, the attitude of some women towards men. And here he found himself contemplating evidence, though, strangely enough, he was comforted by the sight of all that lovely flesh. How lovely tits were; how his hand longed to touch that well-curved ass. How much better than what he had just heard, the narrow life-denying nastiness of it. So let there be tits and let there be ass and let them lead people to make small children and to love them.

  The thought of having children brought Daniela Carlon back into his mind, though he would rather not have thought about what she had told him. Over the years, he had come to believe that he could have only a second-class opinion about abortion and that his gender deprived him of a vote on the subject. This in no way affected his thoughts or his visceral feelings, but the right to a decision belonged to women on this one, and it behove him to accept this and keep his mouth shut. On the other hand, this was only theory and had little relevance to the raw pain he had heard in her voice.

  He felt something against his leg and he looked down to see a mid-sized brown dog sniffing at his shoe, rubbing its flanks contentedly against his calf. It looked up at him, seemed to smile, and returned to his shoe. At the other end of its lead was a young boy, only a little bit taller than the dog.

  'Milli, stop that’ he heard a woman's voice call, and then she came up to the boy and took ^ the lead from his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Signore, but she's still a puppy.'

  'And loves shoes?' Brunetti asked, his good spirits lifted by the appealing absurdity of the situation.

  She laughed, and he saw that her teeth were perfect in her well-tanned face. It seems so,' she said. She extended her hand to her son and said, 'Come on, Stefano. Let's take Milli home and give her a treat.'

  The boy extended his free hand and, with some reluctance, she gave him back the lead.

  The dog must have sensed the tremors of the change of command, for she scampered off, tossing her back legs high in the air in the manner of small dogs, though she ran off slowly enough to allow the boy to be towed after her without danger of his falling.

  His heart lifted and remained that way for a moment until his thoughts scampered on and found themselves faced with Dottor Franchi. What was it that Pedrolli had called him, 'exquisitely moral'? To form such a judgement, Pedrolli must have heard talk or, just as likely, listened to the pharmacist as he spoke about his clients or the wider world, or whatever subject would enable a listener to form that opinion of him. Thinking back, Brunetti remembered the startled look Signora Invernizzi had given Franchi when he had remarked on the drug addicts' inability to help themselves.

  Was he a chameleon, then, Dottor Franchi, keeping his judgements to himself when he thought they might offend someone whose good opinion he sought, only to reveal them to those he considered his inferiors? In Brunetti's experience, it was not uncommon for people to behave in this fashion. Was this one of the reasons why people married, then, to free themselves to say what they thought and thus spare themselves the terrible exhaustion of leading a double life? Then what of Bianca Marcolini: what life could she lead if any day, any moment, her husband were to discover what her father had done at her urging? It had been so easy to lead Marcolini into boasting about his phone call; surely, she must have known that, sooner or later, her husband would learn what had actually happened. No, not what had happened, but why it had happened. The bolt struck Brunetti then: Pedrolli would never learn what had happened to the child, only why it had.

  He became aware that the tension had returned to his shoulders and that he was still standing in front of the edicola, gazing open-mouthed at the naked bodies on the covers of the magazines. In a chill moment of lucidity, he saw what Paola meant they were there, on display, these young women, naked and undefended and inviting any attention a man might please to give them.

  Trapped, his eyes moved to the left and fell on a column of bright-coloured covers, each of which displayed a bare-breasted woman in a posture of submission: some bound with straps, some with ropes, and some with chains. Some looked frightened; some looked happy; they all looked excited.

  He pulled his eyes away and looked at the facade of Palazzo Dolfin. 'She's right,' he said under his breath.

  ‘You going to stand there all day talking to yourself?' he heard someone ask in a loud, angry voice. He drew his attention away from the building and turned. The news vendor was standing less than a metre from him, his face red. Again he asked, 'You going to stand there all day? What’s next, you put your hands in your pockets?'

  Brunetti raised a hand to defend himself, to explain, but then he let it drop and walked away, out of the campo and towards his home.

  He had heard that people who had pets often found them at the door of their homes when they returned from work, that animals had some sixth sense that alerted them to the approach of what they no doubt thought of as their pet humans. When he reached the top of the steps and began to hunt for his keys, the door opened to reveal Paola, just inside. He could not disguise his joy at seeing her.

  'Bad day?' she asked.

  'How did you know?'

&nb
sp; 'I heard you coming up the stairs and it sounded like the tread of a weary man, so I thought it might help if I opened the door and told you how it lifts my heart that you are here’

  'You know, you're right about the tits and ass in magazines,' he blurted out.

  She tilted her head to one side and studied his face. 'Come in, Guido. I think you might need a glass of wine.'

  He smiled. ‘I capitulate to you about something we've argued about for decades, and all you can do is offer me a glass of wine?' he asked.

  'Why, what did you want instead?'

  'How about some tits and ass?' he asked, making a grab for her.

  After dinner, he trailed her down to her study. He had drunk little wine with dinner and had no desire now save to sit and talk and listen to what she might have to say about something he still did not know how to refer to: the Pedrolli disaster was perhaps as good as he could manage.

  'The pharmacist in Campo Sant'Angelo?' she asked when he had finished telling the story -in what he hoped was a chronological, but what he feared was a garbled, manner.

  Brunetti sat beside her, his arms folded across his chest. 'You know him?'

  'No. It's out of the way for me. Besides, it's one of those campi where you don't think of stopping, isn't it? You just walk across it on your way to Accademia or Rialto: I've never even bought one of those cotton shirts from the place by the bridge’

  Brunetti's inner map focused on the campo, viewed first from the entrance from the bridge and then from Calle della Mandola. A restaurant where he had never eaten, an art gallery, the inevitable real estate agency, the edicola with the chocolate Labrador.

  He was summoned from these cartographical considerations by Paola, who asked, 'You think he'd do that? Call and tell people about his clients?'

  'I used to think there were limits to what people were capable of doing,' Brunetti said. 'But I don't think that any more. Given the right stimuli, we're all probably capable of anything.' He listened to that statement echo, realized die extent to which it was a response to the events of the day, and said quickly, 'No, that's not right, is it?'