People hurried towards them, most of them keeping to the left but some swerving closer to the water to get past faster and arrive a few seconds earlier at the buses that would take them to their homes on the mainland.
They passed the taxis bobbing in the water. Finally Vianello said, ‘I suppose I can understand him. After all, the calli aren’t lined with whores, and we don’t get called to go out to the Chinese factories and arrest everyone. Or their whorehouses, for that matter.’
‘And we don’t have drunk drivers,’ Brunetti offered.
‘That’s for the Polizia Stradale, Guido,’ Vianello said with false reproach.
Undeterred, Brunetti added, ‘Or arson. People don’t set fire to factories.’
‘That’s because we don’t have any factories any more. Only tourism,’ said a dispirited Vianello, quickening his steps at the sound of the approaching vaporetto. The Inspector flashed his warrant card at the uniformed young woman on the boat landing.
The gate slid shut just behind them and they went inside to sit. Neither of them spoke until they passed under the Scalzi bridge, when Vianello said, ‘You think he’s jealous?’
On the left, the church of San Geremia slid towards them, and after a moment they could see, ahead of them on the right, the columned façade of the Natural History Museum.
‘He’d be crazy if he weren’t, don’t you think?’ Brunetti asked.
Only when he reached the door to his apartment did Brunetti realize how profoundly tired he was. He felt like a billiard ball that had been sliding around all day, first to this side and then to that. He’d learned too much and travelled too much, and now all he wanted to do was sit quietly and eat his dinner while listening to his family discuss subjects that had nothing to do with crime or death. He wanted a peaceful, uncontentious evening.
However much this might have been Brunetti’s wish, it was not that of his lady wife, something he realized at the first sight of her and by the greeting she gave him when he went into her study.
‘Ah, there you are,’ she said with a broad smile that was perhaps too graced with teeth. ‘I want to ask you a legal question.’
Brunetti sat on the sofa, and only then did he say, ‘After eight at night, I function only as a private legal consultant and expect to be paid for my time and for any information I might provide.’
‘In prosecco?’
He kicked off his shoes and extended himself to his full length on the sofa. He pummelled a pillow until its shape suited him, and lay back. ‘Unless it is a serious or a non-rhetorical question, in which case I am to be paid in champagne.’
She removed her glasses, placed them on the open pages of the book she had been reading, and left the room. Brunetti closed his eyes and let his mind wander through the day in search of something restful he could contemplate until Paola’s return. He found himself remembering the teddy bear in Teo’s hand, its stomach fur rubbed or chewed away by childish adoration. Brunetti emptied his mind of everything else and considered the bear, which led him to the bears his children had loved and then to the one he could still remember having, though where he came from and where he went were mysteries long removed from his memory.
The clink of glass on glass brought him back from childhood to adult life. The fact that his eyes opened to a bottle of Moët in the hand of his wife did a great deal to ease the transition.
She filled the second glass and came towards the sofa. He pulled back his feet to give her room and took the glass she offered him. He held it toward her and joyed in the sound the glasses made as they touched, then took the first sip. ‘All right,’ he said as she sat down beside him, ‘tell me.’
She shot him a look, tried to inject it with surprise, but when his expression remained unmoved, she abandoned the attempt and drank some of her wine. She pushed herself back in the sofa and let her left hand fall on to his calf. ‘I want to know whether it’s a crime to know that something illegal is going to take place and not report it.’
He took another sip of champagne, decided not to try to distract her with compliments for it, and considered her question. In similar manner to that with which he had conjured up Teo’s teddy bear, though casting his net much farther into the past, he ran through those elements of criminal law he had studied at university.
‘Yes and no,’ he finally said.
‘When is it a yes?’ she asked.
‘For example, if you are some sort of public official, you have to inform the authorities.’
‘And ethically?’ she asked.
‘I don’t do ethical,’ Brunetti said and returned to his champagne.
‘Is it right to stop a crime from being committed?’ she asked.
‘You want me to say yes?’
‘I want you to say yes.’
‘Yes.’ Then Brunetti added, ‘Ethically. Yes.’
Paola considered this in silence, then got up and went over to fill both of their glasses. Still silent, she came back and handed him his and sat down again. Out of the habit of decades, her left hand returned to his leg.
Sitting back in the sofa she crossed her legs, then took another sip of champagne. Looking at the painting on the far wall, the portrait of an English naturalist holding a tufted grouse they had found years ago in, of all places, Seville, she said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what this is all about?’
He looked at his wife, not at the naturalist and not at the tufted grouse, and said, ‘No, I’m not.’
‘Why?’
‘In the immediate sense, because I’ve had a long day and I’m very tired, and I don’t have room in my brain or in my sensibility for anything that might lead to trouble. And from the way you ask, I suspect that possibility exists.’
‘And in the larger sense or longer sense, why don’t you want to hear about it?’ she asked.
‘Because if it does lead to trouble, I’ll learn about it sooner or later, so there’s no need for you to tell me about it now.’ He leaned forward and placed his hand on hers. ‘I really can’t do this now, Paola.’
She turned up her palm, gave his a strong squeeze, and said, ‘Then I’ll go and start dinner, shall I?’
18
BRUNETTI WOKE A few times in the night, thinking about what Paola had asked him and trying to imagine what it might mean, what she was up to, for he knew she was up to something. He knew the signs from long exposure and long experience: once she started on one of what he thought of as her missions, she grew intense, sought specific information rather than concepts or ideas, and seemed to lose her sense of irony and humour. Over the years, she had had attacks of zeal, and they had often led to trouble. Brunetti sensed that another one was on the way.
Each time he woke, he had but to sense the presence of the inert lump beside him to marvel anew at her gift of plunging into sleep, no matter what was happening around her. He thought of the nights he had spent lying awake and worrying about his family or his job or his future or the future of the planet, or simply kept awake by the inability to digest his dinner. While beside him rested a monument to peace and tranquillity, motionless, barely breathing.
He woke again a bit before six and decided it was useless to try to go back to sleep. He went down to the kitchen and made himself coffee, heated milk to pour into it, and went back to bed.
Having finished the Agamemnon and in need of a break before continuing that familiar family saga, Brunetti did what he often did in such circumstances: he picked up the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and, much in the way devout Christians were said to consult the Bible, opened it at random. It was rather like playing a slot machine, he had to admit: sometimes what came up was sententious pap that led to nothing and certainly provided no riches. But sometimes the words came at him like a stream of coins, flooding out of the trough in the slot machine and splashing across his feet.