The Golden Egg Read Free

that she found it more absorbing. She seemed to disappear, as if she actually occupied less space in the room, a tactic which Brunetti both admired and envied.
    Patta turned and went back into his office, saying over his shoulder, ‘Come in here.’
    Brunetti’s sensibilities had grown a hard callus over the years, and he was now virtually invulnerable to Patta’s manner. Casual disregard, the absence of respect for anyone he considered an inferior: these things no longer caused Brunetti concern. Violence or its threat might have offended or angered him, but so long as Patta chose passive, rather than active, disrespect, Brunetti remained untroubled.
    â€˜Sit,’ Patta said as he walked around his desk. As Brunetti watched, the Vice-Questore crossed his legs and then, as if remembering the crease in his trousers, immediately uncrossed them. He met his subordinate’s neutral glance. ‘Do you know why I want to talk to you?’
    â€˜No, sir,’ Brunetti said with every evidence of ignorance.
    â€˜It’s about something important,’ Patta said, glancing aside after he spoke. ‘The mayor’s son.’
    Brunetti refrained from asking how the mayor’s son, whom Brunetti knew to be an untalented lawyer, could be important. Instead, he tried to look eager for the Vice-Questore’s revelations. He nodded with calculated neutrality.
    Again, Patta crossed his legs. ‘Actually, it’s a favour for his son’s fiancée. The girl – young woman – owns a shop. Well, half owns a shop. She has a partner. And the partner has been doing something that might not be entirely legal.’ Patta stopped, either to draw breath or to search for a way to explain to Brunetti how something not ‘entirely legal’ might refer to the bribery of a public official. Clam-like, Brunetti sat in his safe place and waited to see what route Patta would choose.
    The straight and narrow, as it turned out, at least in the fashion that term was understood by the Vice-Questore. ‘For some time, the partner has been persuading the vigili to ignore the tables outside the shop.’ Patta stopped, his use of the word, ‘persuading’ proof that he had exhausted his store of frankness.
    â€˜Where is this shop, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked.
    â€˜In Campo San Barnaba. It sells masks.’
    Brunetti closed his eyes and gave every appearance of searching through his memory. ‘Next to the shop with the expensive cheese?’
    Patta raised his head quickly and stared at Brunetti, as though he’d caught him trying to steal his wallet. ‘How do you know that?’ he demanded.
    Calmly, calmly, with an easy smile, Brunetti said, ‘I live near there, sir, so I pass through the
campo
often.’ When Patta said no more, Brunetti prodded, ‘I’m not sure I understand your involvement in this, Dottore.’
    Patta cleared his throat and said, ‘As I mentioned, it’s her partner who’s been dealing with the vigili, and only now has this young woman realized that he might have been inducing them to ignore the space they use in front of the shop.’
    In response to an intentionally dull look from Brunetti, Patta added, ‘It’s possible they don’t have all the permits to use that space.’
    Hearing ‘inducing’ and ‘it’s possible’, Brunetti wondered what he would have to do to make Patta use the word ‘bribe’. Hold his hand over a flame? Threaten to rip off one of his ears? And had Patta any intention of revealing the identity of the partner?
    â€˜You have friends who work there, don’t you?’ Patta asked.
    â€˜Where, sir?’ Brunetti asked, unsure whether Patta meant the office that granted the permits and, if so, why the mayor couldn’t just walk down the hall in the Commune and do his son’s dirty work for him.
    â€˜The vigili, of course,’ Patta said with a certain