Brunetti’s reading of the event was that it had been planned like this from the very moment of inception, planned so that the builder would get not only the original contract to construct the new pavilion but the work, later, to destroy much of what had been built in order to install the forgotten drains.
Did one laugh or cry? The building had been left unprotected after the opening that was not an opening, and vandals had already broken in and damaged some of the equipment, so now the hospital paid for guards to patrol the empty corridors, and patients who needed the treatments and procedures it was supposed to provide were sent to other hospitals, or told to wait, or told to go to private clinics. He could no longer remember how many billion lire had been spent. And nurses had to be bribed to change the sheets.
Suddenly, Flavia Petrelli appeared at the far end of the courtyard, and he watched her progress, all but imperial, across its open space. No one recognized her, but every man she passed noticed her. She had changed into a long purple dress which swirled from side to side as she walked. Over her shoulder she had draped a fur, nothing so prosaic as mink. As he watched her cross the courtyard, he was reminded of a passage he had read, years ago, that described a woman’s entrance into a hotel. So secure was she in her wealth and position that she had shrugged her mink from her shoulders without looking, certain that there would be a servant there to catch it. Flavia Petrelli had no need to read about such things in a book: she had that same absolute certainty about her place in the world.
He watched as she passed into one of the arched stairwells that led to the upper floors. She took the steps, he noticed, two at a time, a haste which was entirely at odds with both the dress and the fur.
Seconds later, she appeared at the top of the steps, and her face grew tense when she saw him outside the room. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, walking quickly towards him.
‘Nothing. A nurse came in.’
She entered the room without bothering to knock. Minutes later, the nurse emerged, carrying an armful of bedding and an enamel pan. He waited a few minutes more, then knocked on the door and was told to enter.
When he came into the room, he saw that the head of the bed had been raised minimally, and Brett was lying up, head cushioned by pillows. Flavia stood beside her and held the cup to her lips, while she drank through a straw. The effect of her face was less shocking now, either because he had had time to grow accustomed to it or because he could see that parts of it were unbruised.
He stooped down and picked up his briefcase from where he had left it and approached the bed. Brett took one hand out from under the covers and slid it across the bed towards him. He covered it briefly with his own. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘I’ll come back tomorrow, if I may.’
‘Please. I can’t explain now, but I will.’
Flavia began to object but cut herself off short. She gave Brunetti a smile that began as a professional one but surprised both of them by becoming entirely natural. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, surprising both of them again with the sincerity of her voice.
‘Until tomorrow, then,’ he said, giving Brett’s hand a squeeze. Flavia remained at the bedside while he let himself out of the room. He took the steps she had used and turned left at the bottom, into the covered portico that ran alongside the open courtyard. An old woman wrapped in an army overcoat sat in a wheelchair at the side of the corridor, knitting. At her feet three cats fought over the body of a mouse.
* * * *
Chapter Four
As he walked back towards the Questura, Brunetti found himself troubled by what he had seen and heard. She would heal, he realized; her body would become well and return to what it had been before. Signora Petrelli believed she would be all right, but his experience told him that the effects of violence such as this would linger, perhaps for years, if only as a real and sudden fear that would come on her unexpectedly. Well, perhaps he was wrong and Americans were tougher than Italians, and perhaps she would emerge the same person, but he couldn’t stifle his concern for her.
When he entered the Questura, one of the uniformed officers approached him. ‘Dottor Patta is looking for you, sir,’ he said, keeping his voice low and neutral. It seemed that everyone in the place kept their voices low and neutral when they spoke of the Vice-Questore.
Brunetti thanked him and proceeded towards the steps at the back of the building, the quickest way to his office. The intercom was ringing as he entered. He set his briefcase down on top of the desk and picked up the receiver.
‘Brunetti?’ Patta asked, quite unnecessarily, even before Brunetti could say his name. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, flicking through the papers that had accumulated on his desk in the hours he had been gone.
‘I’ve been trying to get you on the phone all morning, Brunetti. We’ve got to make a decision about the Stresa conference. Come down to my office right now,’ he ordered, then tempered it with a very grudging, ‘would you?’
‘Yes, sir. Immediately’ Brunetti hung up, leafed through the rest of the papers, opening one letter and reading it through twice. He walked over to stand by the window and again read through the report of the attack at Brett’s house, then left and went down to Patta’s office.
Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, but a low bowl overflowing with yellow freesias filled the room with a scent almost as sweet as her presence.
He knocked and waited to be told to enter. A muffled sound told him to do so. Patta was posed in the frame created by one of the large windows in his office, gazing across at the eternally scaffolded fa ç ade of the church of San Lorenzo. What little light came in managed to glimmer from the radiant points on Patta’s body: the tips of his shoes, the gold chain that ran across the front of his vest, and the tiny ruby that flickered dully in his tie-pin. He glanced at Brunetti and crossed the room to his desk. As he did, Brunetti was struck by how much his progress across the room strove to imitate Flavia Petrelli’s through the hospital. The contrast lay in her complete indifference to the effect she might be making; to Patta, that was the purpose of his every motion. The Vice-Questore took his place behind die desk and gestured to Brunetti to take a chair in front of him.
‘Where have you been all morning?’ Patta asked without preamble.
‘I went to speak to the victim of an attempted robbery,’ Brunetti explained. He kept his remarks as vague and, he hoped, as meaningless as possible.
‘That’s why we have men in uniform.’
Brunetti made no response.
Turning his attention to the business at hand, Patta asked, ‘What about the Stresa conference? Which of us is going to attend?’
Two weeks before, Brunetti had received an invitation to a conference being organized by Interpol, to be held at the resort town of Stresa on Lago Maggiore. Because it would allow him to renew friendships and contacts with police officers from the various members of the Interpol network and because the programme offered training in the latest computer techniques for the storage and retrieval of information, Brunetti wanted to attend. Patta, who knew Stresa to be one of the most fashionable resorts in Italy, possessed of a climate that invited escape from the damp chill of a late Venetian winter, had suggested that it might be better were he to go instead. But as the invitation was specifically directed to Brunetti and bore a handwritten note to him from the organizer of the conference, Patta had found it hard to convince Brunetti to renounce his right to go. With great reluctance, Patta drew the line just short of ordering him not to attend.