Suffer the Little Children (21 page)

‘But just touch one of them,' Vianello went on, heated now, ‘and you've got the
animalisti
screaming about cruelty to animals and our responsibility to all God's little creatures.' He threw up his hands in disgust or confusion. Brunetti was about to mention his surprise that such talk could come from the Questura's own paragon of all things environmental, when his eye shifted to the façade of the Basilica and those absurdly asymmetrical cupolas, the whole lopsided glory of it.

Brunetti stopped walking and put his hand up to quiet Vianello. In an entirely different voice, almost solemn, he asked, ‘We're lucky, aren't we?'

Vianello glanced aside at Brunetti and then followed his gaze to San Marco and the flags whipping in the breeze, the mosaics above the doors. The Inspector stood there for some time, looking at the church, then glanced to the right, across the water and towards San Giorgio with its ever-vigilant angel. In an entirely uncharacteristic gesture, Vianello raised his free arm and moved it in an arc that encompassed the buildings around them as well as those across the water, then he turned to Brunetti and patted his arm, quickly, twice. For a moment, Brunetti thought the Inspector was going to speak, but he remained silent and moved away towards the Riva degli Schiavoni and the sun-splashed walk down to the Questura.

They decided to stop and have lunch on the way but would not do so until they had put
at least two bridges between themselves and San Marco. Vianello knew a small trattoria on Via Garibaldi, where they had penne with a sauce of peppers, grilled
melanzane
, and
pecorino affumicato
, followed by a baked roll of turkey breast filled with herbs and pancetta.

During the meal, Vianello attempted to explain the basic operating principles of the computer but was forced to abandon the attempt halfway through the pasta. He was reduced to saying, ‘She'll have this guy look at it, and then we'll see what's possible.'

Neither wanted dessert, even though the owner swore that the pears in the cake came from his own trees on Burano. Brunetti signalled for coffee, his mind still on the tangible reality of the pharmacy. ‘No normal person did that,' he said with no prelude.

‘Vandals aren't normal people,' answered Vianello. ‘Neither are drug addicts.'

‘Come on, Lorenzo, think about what we saw there. It's not a couple of kids on a railway bridge with a can of spray paint.' The coffee came and Brunetti spent a great deal of time stirring sugar into it, recalling the scene inside the pharmacy.

Vianello finished his own coffee and set down the cup. ‘All right,' he said, ‘I agree. But why would someone want to do a thing like that? If anything, the doctors he's involved with would do anything to keep us from paying attention to him, or to them.'

‘Are we agreed,' Brunetti asked, ‘that it's not
a coincidence, that he's not just any pharmacist or any store chosen at random?'

Vianello let out a puff of air to show how unlikely he considered this.

‘Then why?' Brunetti asked.

‘Let's hope Elettra's friend can tell us that,' Vianello said and raised his hand to call for the bill.

AUTUMN ADVANCED. THE
days grew shorter, and after the clocks went back, they grew shorter still. As happened every year, Paola grew snappish during the first days when darkness arrived sooner, causing her husband and children to keep their heads down until her usual spirits returned, when family life would revert to normal.

Brunetti had transferred his professional attention to his ongoing cases, and the eye he kept on the Pedrolli case grew increasingly inattentive. Though he twice called the social services, he was unable to discover the whereabouts of the child. The reports he wrote grew shorter and then ceased entirely for lack of information, but still he could not banish
Dottor Pedrolli from his mind. Weary of the need to seek information indirectly and always having to find arcane ways to induce people to divulge what they knew, Brunetti checked his notebook for the number of Marvilli's office and dialled it.

‘Marvilli.'

‘Captain, this is Brunetti. I'm calling about Dottor Pedrolli.'

‘I'm afraid you might be too late, Commissario.'

‘Why is that?'

‘The case has been pretty much closed.'

‘Could you tell me what that means, Captain?'

‘That all of the major charges against him have been dropped.'

‘Leaving which ones?'

‘Only falsification of a state document.'

‘The birth certificate?'

‘Yes. It's unlikely to get him anything more than a fine.'

‘I see.'

‘Is that all, Commissario?'

‘No. I have only one question, really: it's why I called you.'

‘I'm not sure I can answer any other questions about this case, Commissario.'

‘Mine is a simple one, Captain, if you'd hear it.'

‘Very well.'

‘How is it that you knew about Pedrolli in the first place?'

‘I thought I told you that.'

‘No, Captain, you didn't.'

‘The documents I was given before the operation referred to an anonymous phone call.'

‘An anonymous phone call? You mean someone can call and make an accusation, and the Carabinieri . . . they will respond?'

‘I think I know what you stopped yourself from saying, Commissario: that the Carabinieri will break into a person's home in response to an anonymous phone call? . . . Are you still there, Commissario?'

‘Yes, I am, Captain. Let me repeat my question, if I may.'

‘Of course.'

‘Could you tell me why you chose to respond to this particular call in the way you did?'

‘Even with your graceful rephrasing, Commissario, I'm not sure I should answer that question, especially now that it looks as if very little, if anything, will come of the whole thing.'

‘I'd be very grateful if you would, Captain. More to satisfy my personal curiosity than anything else. If the charges have been dropped, then . . .'

‘You sound like you mean that, Commissario, about your personal curiosity.'

‘I do.'

‘Then I can tell you that the person who made the call – at least according to the report I read – provided certain information that added credibility to his claim that the Pedrolli adoption was illegal.'

‘“His?”'

‘The report I read referred to a man.'

‘I'm sorry to have interrupted you, Captain.'

‘It's nothing . . . Apparently, he gave the name of the woman, the name of the hospital where the child was born, and the probable date of birth. He also mentioned that money had changed hands.'

‘And was this enough?'

‘Enough for what, Commissario?'

‘To convince you that the caller was telling the truth?'

‘My guess, Commissario – and it is only a guess – is that the fact that he knew the woman's name and the other details was enough to convince my colleagues to investigate the accusation or at least to see if this woman's name was on the birth certificate of Dottor Pedrolli's child and if it was, to go and question her about the circumstances.'

‘How long did it take them to do that?'

‘Do what, Commissario?'

‘Question her.'

‘I don't remember exactly, but I think the call came in about a week before we . . . before we went to Dottor Pedrolli's. As it turned out, the Verona command was working on similar cases at the same time. It seems they aren't related; that is, Pedrolli's isn't related to the others.'

‘So it was just bad luck for Pedrolli?'

‘Yes, I suppose you could say that, Commissario.'

‘And convenient for you, as well?'

‘If you'll allow me to say this, Commissario, you sound as if you think we'd do something like that without being sure.'

‘I'm afraid you're right, Captain.'

‘We don't do these things rashly, Commissario. And for what it's worth, I have a child, a girl. She's only one.'

‘Mine are older.'

‘I don't think that changes anything.'

‘No, probably not. Is there any news of him?'

‘Dottor Pedrolli?'

‘The baby.'

‘No, there isn't. And there can't be: you must know that. Once a child is in the care of the social services, we're not given any further information.'

‘I see . . . Tell me one last thing, Captain, if you will.'

‘If I can.'

‘Is there any way that Dottor Pedrolli could ever . . .?'

‘See the baby?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's not likely. I'd say impossible. The boy isn't his, you see.'

‘How do you know that, Captain? If I might ask.'

‘May I say something without risk of offending you, Commissario?'

‘Yes. Certainly.'

‘We're not a gang of jackbooted thugs here, you know.'

‘I hardly meant to suggest . . .'

‘I'm sure you didn't, Commissario. I simply wanted to make this clear, first.'

‘And second?'

‘To tell you that, before the operation was authorized, the mother of the baby testified that the child was her husband's and not that of the man whose name was on the birth certificate.'

‘So she could get her child back?'

‘You have a very idealised vision of motherhood, Commissario, if I might make that observation. The woman made it clear that she did not want the baby back. In fact, this is one of the reasons my colleagues in Cosenza believed her.'

‘Will it affect her chances of being allowed to stay here?'

‘Probably not, no.'

‘Ah.'

‘“Ah”, indeed, Commissario. Believe me, the baby's not his. We knew that before we went in there that night.'

‘I see. Well, then . . . thank you very much, Captain. You've been very helpful.'

‘I'm glad to learn you think so, Commissario. If it would put your mind at rest, I could send you a copy of our report. Shall I email it to you there?'

‘It would be a great kindness.'

‘I'll do it now, Commissario.'

‘Thank you, Captain.'

‘You're welcome.
Arrivederci
.'

‘
Arrivederci, Capitano.
'

A copy of the deposition arrived less than an hour later. It had been made by the Albanian woman whose name was on the birth certificate of Pedrolli's son. It had been signed four days before the Carabinieri raid and had been compiled over two days of testimony. She had been located by a simple computer search, in Cosenza, where she had, two days after registering the birth of her child to an Italian father, been granted a
permesso di soggiorno
. When questioned, she originally maintained that her child had been sent back to Albania to live with his grandparents. It was, she insisted, sheer coincidence that her husband, also Albanian and illegally resident in Italy, had bought a car two days after she was released from the hospital: he had been working as a mason, she explained, and had been saving money for months in order to buy the car. Nor was there any connection between her son's disappearance and the three months' deposit her husband had paid on an apartment the same day he bought the car.

Later in the questioning, she began to insist that the Italian man, whose name she could not remember and whom she had a certain difficulty in describing, was the father of the child, but when she was threatened with arrest and deport ation unless she told the truth, she changed her story and claimed that an Italian man who said his wife was unable to have a child had contacted her in the weeks just before she gave birth. Her first version suggested that the man had found her on his own; no one had
introduced him to her. But when the possibility of extradition was mentioned to her again, she said that he had been introduced to her by one of the doctors in the hospital – she could not remember which – who said that the man who wanted to talk to her was also a doctor. After the child was born, she had agreed to let the doctor's name be on the birth certificate because she believed her son would have a better chance at a decent life if he were raised as an Italian, in an Italian family. She finally admitted that the man had given her some money, but as a gift, not a payment. No, she could not remember how much it had been.

The woman and her husband were now under house arrest, though the husband was allowed to continue to work: the question of her
permesso di soggiorno
was being examined by a magistrate. When he finished reading, Brunetti was left wondering why whoever had questioned her had so easily accepted her explanation of how Pedrolli had contacted her: he might just as easily have descended from a cloud. ‘Had been introduced to her by one of the doctors in the hospital,' the woman had stated. But which one? And for what reason?

At a certain point, Brunetti realized that – in a manner frighteningly reminiscent of Bianca Marcolini – the woman had expressed no interest in the child or in what had happened to him. He slipped the papers into his desk drawer and went home.

Before dinner Brunetti managed to return to the travels of the Marquis de Custine. With the French aristocrat as guide and companion, he found himself in St Petersburg, contemplating the Russian soul, which de Custine observed was ‘intoxicated with slavery'. Brunetti let the open book fall to his lap as he considered these words and was brought out of his reverie by Paola, who sat down beside him.

‘I forgot to tell you,' she said.

Brunetti dragged himself back from the Nevsky Prospekt and said, ‘Tell me what?'

‘About Bianca Marcolini.'

‘Ah, thank you,' he said.

‘I asked around, but not a lot. Most people know the name because of the father, of course.'

Brunetti nodded.

‘I asked my father about him. I told you he knew him, didn't I?'