Drawing Conclusions Read Free

touch anything in the apartment.’
    ‘She went back to her own, sir, to make the call. I told her to stay there.’
    ‘Good. What’s her name?’
    ‘Giusti, sir.’
    ‘If you speak to the patrol, tell them I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ the officer said and hung up.
    Vice-Questore Patta looked across at Brunetti with open curiosity. ‘Trouble, Commissario?’ he asked in a tone that made Brunetti aware of how different curiosity was from interest.
    ‘Yes, sir. A woman’s been found dead in Santa Croce.’
    ‘And they called you?’ interrupted Scarpa, placing just the least hint of polite suspicion on the last word.
    ‘Griffoni’s not back from vacation yet, and I live closest,’ Brunetti answered with practised blandness.
    ‘Of course,’ Scarpa said, turning aside to say something to the waiter.
    To Patta, Brunetti said, ‘I’ll go and have a look, Vice-Questore.’ He put on his face the look of a beleaguered bureaucrat, reluctantly pulled away from what he wanted to do by what he had to do; he pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He gave Patta the chance to make a comment, but the moment passed in silence.
    Outside the restaurant, Brunetti left the business of getting there to memory and pulled out his telefonino . He dialled his home number.
    ‘Are you calling for moral support?’ Paola asked when she picked up the phone.
    ‘Scarpa has just told me we northerners don’t know anything about making wine,’ he said.
    There was a pause before she said, ‘That’s what your words say, but it sounds as if something else is wrong.’
    ‘I’ve been called in. There’s a dead woman in Santa Croce, over by San Giacomo.’
    ‘Why did they call you?’
    ‘They probably didn’t want to call Patta or Scarpa.’
    ‘So they called you when you were with them? Wonderful.’
    ‘They didn’t know where I was. Besides, it was a way for me to get away from them. I’ll go over to see what happened. I live the closest, anyway.’
    ‘Do you want me to wait up?’
    ‘No. I have no idea how long it will take.’
    ‘I’ll wake up when you come in,’ she said. ‘If I don’t, just give me a shove.’
    Brunetti smiled at the thought but confined himself to a noise of agreement.
    ‘I have been known not to sleep through the night,’ she said with false indignation, her aural radar having caught the precise nuance of his noise.
    The last time, Brunetti recalled, was the night the Fenice burned down, when the sound of the helicopter repeatedly passing overhead had finally summoned her from the deep abyss to which she repaired each evening.
    In a more conciliatory tone, she said, ‘I hope it’s not awful.’
    He thanked her, then said goodbye and put the phone in his pocket. He called his attention back to where he was walking. The streets were brightly lit: more largesse from theprofligate bureaucrats in Brussels. If he had chosen to do so, Brunetti could have read a newspaper in the light from the street lamps. Light still poured from many shop windows: he thought of the satellite photos he had seen of the glowing night-time planet as measured from above. Only Darkest Africa remained so.
    At the end of Scaleter Ca’ Bernardo, he turned left and passed the tower of San Boldo, then walked down from the bridge and into Calle del Tintor and went past the pizzeria. Next to it a shop selling cheap purses was still open; behind the counter sat a young Chinese girl, reading a Chinese newspaper. He had no idea what the current laws were about how late a shop could stay open, but some atavistic voice whispered to him about the unseemliness of engaging in commercial activity at this hour.
    A few weeks ago he had had dinner with a commander of the Frontier Police, who had told him, among other things, that their own best estimate of the number of Chinese currently living in Italy was between 500,000 and five million. After saying this, he sat back, the better to enjoy Brunetti’s astonishment.