Suffer the Little Children (5 page)

At the last name, Brunetti noticed the man's face twist in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut to avoid showing whatever emotion it was he felt, then turned his head away, eyes still closed.

‘What happened to him?' Brunetti asked.

Damasco shook his head as if wanting to shake away both the question and the reason for it. ‘It's your business to find that out, Commissario. My concern is treating the physical consequences.'

Damasco saw how surprised the other two were by his abruptness and led them away from the bed. At the door, he said, ‘Dottoressa Cardinale called me at about two this morning. She said that there was a man in the emergency room – she told me who it was, Gustavo Pedrolli, one of our colleagues – who had been brought in by the Carabinieri. He had been hit behind the left ear, by something hard enough to have caused a fracture of the skull. Luckily, the skull is thick there, so it's only a hairline fracture, but still it's a serious injury. Or can be.

‘When I got here about twenty minutes later, there were two Carabinieri guarding the door. They told me the injured man had to be kept under guard because he had assaulted one of their colleagues when they tried to arrest him.' Damasco closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in an indication of how credible he found this explanation.

‘Soon after that, my colleague in Pronto Soccorso called to tell me that this man, this “assaulted” man, had nothing more than a
displaced cartilage in his nose, so I'm not willing to believe he was the victim of a serious assault.'

Curious, Brunetti asked, ‘Is Dottor Pedrolli the sort of man who would react like this? So violently?'

Damasco started to speak but appeared to reconsider, then said, ‘No. A naked man doesn't attack a man with a machine-gun, does he?' He paused and then added, ‘Not unless he's defending his family, he doesn't.' When he saw that he had their attention, he went on, ‘They tried to stop me from coming in here to see my patient. Perhaps they thought I'd try to help him escape through a window or something: I have no idea. Or help him concoct some sort of story. I told them I'm a doctor, and when I demanded the name of their commanding officer, they let me in, though the one in charge insisted that the other stay in here with me while I examined Gustavo.' He added, not without pride, ‘But then I threw him out. They can't do that here.'

The way Damasco spoke the last word struck a responsive chord in Brunetti. No, not here, and certainly not without asking permission of the local police. Brunetti saw no sense, however, in mentioning this to Damasco and so limited himself to saying, ‘The way you spoke to him, Dottore,' Brunetti began, ‘made it sound like your patient's unable to speak. Could you tell me more about that?'

Damasco glanced away, as if looking for the answer to this question on the wall. Finally he
said, ‘He seems to want to speak, but no words come out.'

‘The blow?' Brunetti asked.

Damasco shrugged. ‘It could be.' He looked at the two men one by one, as if judging how much he should tell them. ‘The brain's a strange thing, and the mind's even stranger. I've been working with the one for thirty years, and I've learned something about the way it works, but the other is still a mystery to me.'

‘Is that the case here, Dottore?' Brunetti asked, sensing that the doctor wanted to be asked.

Again, the shrug, and then Damasco said, ‘For all I know, the blow isn't the cause of the silence. It could be shock, or it could be that he's decided not to speak until he has a clearer idea of what's going on.' Damasco reached up and rubbed at his face with open palms.

When he lowered his hands, he said, ‘I don't know. As I say, I work with the physical brain, the neurons and synapses, and the things that can be tested and measured. All the rest – the non-physical stuff, the mind, if you will – I leave that to other people.'

‘But you mention it, Dottore,' Brunetti said, keeping his voice as low as the doctor's.

‘Yes, I mention it. I've known Gustavo for a long time, so I know a little about the way he thinks and reacts to things. So I mention it.'

‘Would you be willing to expand on that, Dottore?' Brunetti asked.

‘About what?'

‘About the way your patient thinks and reacts?'

Damasco turned his full attention to Brunetti, and his consideration of the question was as clear as it was serious. ‘No, I don't think I can, Commissario, except to say that he is rigorously honest, a quality which, at least professionally, has sometimes worked to his disadvantage,' he said, then paused, as though listening to his own words. Then he added, ‘He's my friend, but he's also my patient, and my responsibility is to protect him as best I can.'

‘Protect him from what?' Brunetti asked, choosing to ignore for the moment Dottor Damasco's observations about the consequences of his friend's honesty.

Damasco's smile was both natural and good-natured as he said, ‘If from nothing else, Commissario, then from the police.' He turned away and walked over to the figure on the bed. Glancing back, he said, ‘I'd like to be left alone with my patient, gentlemen, if you don't mind.'

AS BRUNETTI AND
Vianello left the room, they saw that Marvilli was still there, propped against the wall, his arms and legs crossed, as he had been when Brunetti first saw him.

‘What did the doctor have to say?' Marvilli asked.

‘That his patient can't talk and that it's caused by a blow to his head,' Brunetti said, opting to provide only one of the possibilities the doctor had offered. He allowed the Captain to consider this before asking, ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?'

Marvilli's eyes shot up and down the corridor, as if checking for unsympathetic listeners, but there was no one in sight. He uncrossed his legs and unfolded his arms, then pushed up his
sleeve and looked at his watch. ‘The bar's still not open, is it?' he asked, suddenly sounding more tired than wary. Then he added, ‘The machine's broken. And I'd really like a coffee.'

‘Sometimes the bar downstairs opens early,' Vianello said.

Nodding by way of thanks, Marvilli started to walk away, not waiting to see if the policemen would follow. He passed through the door into the Department of Dermatology, and Brunetti was too surprised and too slow to call him back. ‘Come on,' said Vianello, turning in the opposite direction. ‘He'll find it eventually.'

Downstairs, as they approached the open door of the bar, they heard the rasping noise of the coffee grinder and the hiss of the espresso machine. As they walked in, the barman started to object, but when Brunetti identified them as police, he agreed to serve them. The two men stood at the bar, stirring sugar into their coffees, waiting for Marvilli. Two attendants in blue smocks entered and ordered
caffè coretto
, one with a stiff shot of grappa and the other with Fernet-Branca. They drank quickly and left without paying, though Brunetti watched the barman take a notebook wedged beside the cash register, thumb through it, and write in it briefly.

‘Good morning, Commissario,' a soft voice said from behind him, and he turned to see Dottor Cardinale.

‘Ah, Dottoressa,' Brunetti said, making room for her at the bar. ‘May I offer you a coffee?' he
asked, making his voice loud enough for the barman to hear.

‘And save my life,' she said, smiling. She set her doctor's bag on the floor. ‘The last hour is the worst. Usually no one comes in, and by then I've started to think about coffee. I suppose that's what it's like if you're stranded in the desert,' she said. ‘All you can think of is that first sip, the first taste of it saving your life.'

Her coffee came and she poured three sugars into it. Seeing the looks on the policemen's faces, she said, ‘If I saw my patients doing this, I'd scream at them.' She swirled the cup around a few times, and Brunetti had the feeling she knew exactly how many times to swirl it before it would be cool enough to drink.

With one gulp, she downed the coffee, set the cup back in the saucer, looked at Brunetti and said, ‘I am saved. I am human again.'

‘Dare you risk another?' Brunetti asked.

‘Not if I want to sleep when I get home,' she said, ‘but thank you for the offer.'

She bent to pick up her bag and Brunetti said, ‘How badly was that policeman hurt, Dottoressa?'

‘Aside from his pride, not very much at all, I'd say.' She hefted the bag, adding, ‘If he'd been hit really hard, the bone would have been broken or the cartilage knocked entirely out of place. This was nothing more than if he'd walked into a door. That is, if he was standing very near.'

‘And Dottor Pedrolli?' Brunetti asked.

She shook her head. ‘I told you:
neurologia
is
not something I know much about. That's why I called Dottor Damasco.'

Over her shoulder, Brunetti saw Marvilli. The Captain, not bothering to conceal his irritation at having got lost, came up to the bar and ordered a coffee.

Dottoressa Cardinale shifted her bag to her left hand, shook hands with Brunetti and then leaned forward to shake Vianello's. ‘Thanks again for the coffee, Commissario,' she said. She smiled at Marvilli and extended her hand. After only a moment's hesitation, he relented and took it.

The doctor went out into the corridor and looked back into the bar. She waited for Marvilli to turn and look at her. With an enormous smile, she said, ‘Great boots, Captain,' turned, and was gone.

Brunetti kept his eyes on his coffee, finished it, and set down the cup quietly in its saucer. Seeing that they were the only customers in the bar, he turned to Marvilli. ‘Do you think you could tell me a bit more about this operation, Captain?'

Marvilli took a sip and set down his cup before saying, ‘As I told you before, Commissario, the investigation has been going on for some time.'

‘Since when?' Brunetti asked.

‘As I told you: almost two years.'

Vianello set down his cup perhaps a bit too loudly and asked the barman for three more coffees.

‘Yes, Captain, you told me that,' answered Brunetti. ‘But what I meant was what event triggered the investigation, especially this part of it?'

‘I'm not sure I can tell you that, Commissario. But I can say that the action here was only part of a series of actions in other cities that took place last night.' He pushed his cup away and added, ‘Beyond that, I'm not sure what I can tell you.'

Brunetti resisted the impulse to point out that one of the ‘actions' had put a man in hospital. ‘Captain,' he said softly, ‘I, however,
am
sure that I'm at liberty to arrest you – or whichever of your men struck Dottor Pedrolli – for assault.' Brunetti smiled and added, ‘I'm not going to, of course, but I mention it as an example of how we need not feel ourselves bound by what we are or are not at liberty to do.' He flirted with the idea of suggesting that the Captain's boots were enough to cause him to charge him with impersonating a cavalry officer, but good sense prevailed.

He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it in. Stirring gently and keeping his eyes on his spoon, he continued in an entirely conversational tone, ‘In the absence of any information about this operation of yours and thus entirely unsure if your men had any right to carry it out in this city, Captain, I'm left with no choice but to protect the safety of the people of Venice. Which is my duty.' He looked up. ‘That's why I would like more information.'

Wearily, Marvilli reached for his second coffee
and pushed his empty cup and saucer across the bar. He pushed so hard that they slid off the other side and clattered, without breaking, into the sink below. ‘Sorry,' he said automatically. The barman retrieved the cup and saucer.

Marvilli shifted his attention to Brunetti and asked, ‘And if all this is only a bluff, Commissario?'

‘If that's your response, Captain,' Brunetti said, ‘I'm afraid I'll have to lodge an official complaint about the excessive violence used by your men and request an official investigation.' He put down his cup. ‘In the absence of a warrant from a judge authorizing your entry into Dottor Pedrolli's home, your men remain guilty of assault.'

‘There's a warrant,' Marvilli said.

‘Issued by a judge in this city?'

After a long pause, Marvilli said, ‘I don't know that the judge is from this city, Commissario. But I know there is a warrant. We would never have done something like this without one – not here and not in the other cities.'

That was certainly likely enough, Brunetti agreed. The times when the police could break in anywhere without a warrant were not upon them, not yet. After all, this was not the United States.

In a voice into which he put all the tiredness of a man woken long before his usual time and out of patience with what had happened since then, Brunetti said, ‘If we can both stop being tough guys, Captain, perhaps we could walk
back to the Questura together, and you could tell me along the way just what's going on.' He dug out a ten-Euro note and placed it on the bar then turned towards the door.

‘Your change, Signore,' the barman called after him.

Brunetti smiled at him. ‘You saved the Dottoressa's life, remember? That's beyond price, I'd say.' The barman laughed and thanked him, and Brunetti and Vianello headed down the corridor towards the entrance hall. A thoughtful Marvilli followed.

Outside, Brunetti felt the growing warmth of the day and observed that the pavement was damp in places: he could not remember if it had been raining when he had arrived at the hospital; while inside he had not been aware of rain. There was no sign of it now, and the air had been washed clean, presenting them with one of those pellucid days that early autumn gives the city, perhaps as consolation for having stolen the summer. Brunetti was tempted to walk down to the end of the canal to see if the mountains were visible beyond the
laguna
, but he knew that would most likely provoke Marvilli, so he abandoned the idea. If he waited until the afternoon, smog and gathering humidity would have obscured the mountains again, but perhaps tomorrow they would be visible.