‘So?’
‘So they want me to do it.’
Brunetti found no words. He looked across at his friend, who continued to study his hands. Finally Brunetti said, ‘That’s crazier.’
‘That’s what I told them, too.’
‘Lorenzo,’ Brunetti said, ‘I don’t want to have to sit here and prise this out of you. What are you going to do?’
‘I thought about this while I was listening to her — some way to see what she’s doing — but the only idea I could come up with involves you. Sort of.’
‘Involves me how?’
‘I need you to let me do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Ask some of the guys if they’ll help me.’
‘Help you follow your aunt?’
‘Yes. I thought Pucetti would be willing to do it if I asked him.’ Vianello looked across at Brunetti, face tense. ‘If they did it in their free time, when they’re not working, then there wouldn’t be anything illegal about it, not really.’
‘They’d just be taking a walk through the city, minding their own business,’ Brunetti snapped. ‘Just happening to be going in the same direction as the little old lady with all that cash in her purse.’ He felt a rush of indignation. Had the police been reduced to this?
‘Guido,’ Vianello said, voice dead level. ‘I know how it appears and what it sounds like, but it’s the only way to find out what she’s doing with it.’
‘And if she’s been lying to you all, and she ends up going down to the Casinò to lose it all in the slot machines?’ Brunetti demanded.
Vianello surprised him by taking him seriously. ‘Then we can get her barred from the Casinò.’
Brunetti changed his tone and asked, ‘And if she goes in somewhere and comes out without the money? Then what? You and your cousins go in and beat up whoever has the money and take it back?’
‘No,’ Vianello said calmly. ‘Then perhaps we see if there are any more little old ladies going into the same address with cash in their purses.’
Surprise stopped Brunetti from answering immediately, and when he did speak, all he could say was, ‘Oh my, oh my, oh my.’ And then, ‘Is that what you think?’
‘I don’t know what I think,’ Vianello answered. ‘But my aunt is no fool, so whoever is convincing her to give them money — if that’s what’s happening, and she’s not losing it all on the slot machines — is also not a fool, so it’s a fair bet that she’s not the only one involved in this.’
Brunetti pushed himself out of the booth and went over to the counter, where he got two more glasses of mineral water and took them back to Vianello. He set the glasses down and slipped back into his seat.
‘There’s a way we can do it officially,’ Brunetti said.
‘How?’
‘Isn’t Scarpa running the training classes for new officers?’
‘Yes, but I don’t see. .’
‘And one of the things they’re supposed to learn, if they’re not Venetian, is how to follow someone in the city.’
Flawlessly, Vianello picked it up and ran. ‘And since Scarpa isn’t Venetian, he hasn’t got an idea of how to do it.’
‘Which means,’ Brunetti concluded, ‘that he has to let the Venetians show them how to do it.’
Vianello picked up his glass and raised it to Brunetti. ‘I know it’s wrong to toast with water, but still. .’ He drank some and set the glass on the table.
‘And so all we’ve got to do,’ Vianello began, heartening Brunetti with his casual use of the plural, ‘is ask Signorina Elettra to see that the right Venetians are assigned to lead the detail. It won’t make any difference to Scarpa: he distrusts and dislikes us all equally.’
Vianello turned towards the counter and waved a hand in Bambola’s direction. ‘Would you bring us two glasses of prosecco, please?’
6
Not only was it too hot to think about crossing the city to go home for lunch; it was too hot to think about eating. Brunetti went back to the Questura with Vianello, saying he would speak to Signorina Elettra about the schedule for Scarpa’s orientation classes, but when he got to her office, she was gone. He went back to his own and called Paola, who sounded almost relieved to learn he would not be coming home.
‘I can’t think about food until the sun goes down,’ she said.
‘Ramadan?’ Brunetti inquired lightly.
She laughed. ‘No! But the sun comes into the living room in the afternoon, so I have to hide in my study most of the day. It’s too hot to go out, so all I can do is sit and read.’
For most of the academic year, Paola spoke longingly of the summer vacation, when she looked forward to sitting in her study and reading. ‘Ah, poor you,’ Brunetti said, just as if he meant it.
‘Guido,’ she said in her sweetest voice, ‘it takes a liar to recognize another one. But thank you for the sentiment.’
‘I’ll be home after sunset,’ he said, quite as though she had not spoken, and replaced the phone.
Talk of food had made Brunetti feel something akin to hunger but nothing strong enough to cause him to risk leaving the building to go in search of food. He opened his drawers one after another but found only half a bag of pistachios he could not remember having seen before, a packet of corn chips, and a chocolate bar, with hazelnuts, that he had brought to the office last winter.
He prised open one of the pistachios, put it in his mouth and bit down, only to make contact with something the consistency of rubber. He spat it into his palm and tossed it and the rest of the bag into the wastepaper basket. By comparison, the corn chips were excellent, and he enjoyed them. It was good, he told himself, to eat lots of salt in this heat. These would protect him, he was sure, at the Equator.
When he tore open the chocolate bar, he noticed that it was covered with a thin white haze, the chocolate equivalent of verdigris. He took out his handkerchief and rubbed the bar vigorously until it looked like chocolate again: dark chocolate with hazelnuts. His favourite. He whispered ‘Dessert’, and took a bite. It was perfect, as smooth and creamy as it would have been six months before. Brunetti marvelled at this fact as he finished the bar, then lowered his head to look in the back of the drawer in hope that there might be another one, but there was not.
He glanced at his watch and saw that it was still lunchtime. That meant the squad room computer might be free for him to use. As he entered, he saw Riverre at the desk he shared with Officer Alvise, just pulling on his jacket.
‘You on your way to lunch, Riverre?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, trying to salute, but with his arm caught in his sleeve, he made a mess of it.
Brunetti followed the path of habit and ignored what had just happened. ‘Could you stop at Sergio’s on your way back and bring me some tramezzini?’
Riverre smiled. ‘Sure thing, Commissario. Anything special you’d like?’ When Brunetti hesitated, Riverre suggested, ‘Crab? Egg salad?’
In this heat, those were probably the two most likely to go off, but Brunetti said only, ‘No, maybe tomato and prosciutto.’
‘How many, sir? Four? Five?’
Good Lord, what did Riverre think he was? ‘No, thanks, Riverre. Two ought to be enough.’ He reached into his pocket for his wallet, but the officer held up both hands, like a Christian catching sight of the devil. ‘No, sir. Don’t even think of it. You’ll insult me.’ He started towards the door, calling back over his shoulder, ‘I’ll get you some mineral water, too, sir. Got to drink a lot in this heat.’
Brunetti called his thanks after Riverre’s retreating back, then said under his breath, in English, though he was never entirely certain of the context in which this phrase was meant to be used: ‘From the mouths of babes.’