pushed himself to his knees and disappeared in the direction from which he had come.
Again the screen darkened. Almost immediately a number of people in white uniforms appeared. With breathtaking speed, they picked up the women, placed them on to gurneys, and hurried back inside. The screen darkened.
‘How long did it take them to come to get them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Two minutes and forty seconds,’ Griffoni answered. ‘It’s at the bottom of the screen.’
‘I’ll never say a bad word about the hospital again,’ Brunetti said. Then he asked, ‘I saw the photo of her face. Who could do that to someone?’
Griffoni shrugged. ‘I’d like to go back to the hospital to see what I can find out.’
Instinctively, Brunetti asked, ‘Would you like me to go with you?’
‘Isn’t that out of your way?’ Griffoni asked. It wasn’t a yes, but it certainly wasn’t a no.
‘Not really, not if I go through Campo Santa Marina,’ he answered.
She studied her palm, and it apparently decided the issue for her. ‘We could go now. I’m not doing anything, and the Vice-Questore’s left for the day.’ Before Brunetti could ask, Griffoni said, ‘Foa told me he’s been invited to some sort of event by one of those foreign charities that wants to save the city.’
Brunetti was familiar with these organizations but doubtful that anyone had much of a chance of saving the city. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘they go to expensive restaurants, and that gives people work, and that’s all to the good.’
As if reading his mind, Griffoni gave one of those smiles of hers that seemed to use only the upper part of her face. Her mouth remained straight in disapproval, but her eyes registered delight in absurdity. ‘It’s a dinner for important Venetians, to explain to them the urgent need to save the city,’ she remarked.
‘From?’ Brunetti asked, already making a list, starting with the pollution caused by the planes of the people who came to the charity dinner.
‘I think that will be revealed this evening,’ she answered.
It came to Brunetti to ask, ‘How is it that Foa knows about this?’
‘He has to take the Vice-Questore to the first meeting, then return later to take him home from dinner.’
Brunetti’s mind fled to the notice he had been reading about the improper use of ministry cars to take officials to non-work-related events. Patta was safe: there had been no mention of boats. Cheered by that thought, he got to his feet, saying, ‘Come on, Claudia, I’ll walk you as far as the hospital.’
This time, both halves of her face smiled.
4
By the time they emerged from the Questura, the day had definitely abandoned any idea of warmth. Griffoni, who was Neapolitan, never left a building without carrying at least one more layer of clothing: today a caramel-coloured suede jacket hung over her arm that looked, to Brunetti, far more edible than the sandwich he’d had the day before.
‘Did you get that in Naples?’ he asked as she pulled it on and zipped it halfway.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ Brunetti said. ‘If I thought it would fit me, I’d knock you down and steal it.’
‘Too much time spent with criminals, I’d say,’ she answered, then added, ‘My uncle has a shop.’
Brunetti threw his head back and laughed out loud.
Uncertain whether to be offended or not, Griffoni asked, ‘What’s that about?’
Still giving the occasional gasp of quiet laughter, Brunetti said, ‘I have a Neapolitan friend – maybe he’s my best friend – and if I ever admire anything, he has an uncle or an aunt or a cousin who just happens to know where to get me one. At a very friendly price.’
‘Things that fell off a truck?’ she asked.
That set Brunetti off laughing again. When he could control himself, he said, ‘He actually told me that once. It was a pair of tennis shoes my son wanted, white, with the signature of some American tennis player, or basketball hero, on the side, and we’d had no peace in the house for a month. I told Giulio about it, when we were talking about our kids; all he did was ask what size Raffi wore. The next day UPS delivered a pair for him, with a note inside saying they’d fallen off a truck.’ He broke off to laugh again.
‘And you kept them? I mean, your son kept them?’
‘Of course he did,’ Brunetti said. ‘If I’d sent them back, Giulio would have sulked for the rest of the year.’
Griffoni and he resumed walking, amiable together, she silent for a moment, considering this. Finally she said, ‘Well, he is Neapolitan.’
‘So?’
‘How else would he respond to an insult like that?’
Brunetti stopped and turned to face her. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Who?’
‘Giulio. Giulio D’Alessio. My friend.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Griffoni asked, ‘Is his father Filippo?’
Brunetti stared at her, working at keeping his mouth closed. After a moment, he said, ‘Yes.’
‘My father knows him. The father, that is.’
Brunetti put his hands to his ears and began to walk around in a tight circle, saying, ‘My God. It’s a plot. I’m surrounded by them.’
‘Neapolitans?’ she asked, putting her hand on his arm to stop him.
Brunetti paused, then moved to face her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Friends.’
Griffoni put her hand on his shoulder and pushed him away, saying, ‘You really are a fool, Guido.’ Brunetti was astonished by how much she sounded like Paola, who used the same word to reprove him for his worst flights of fancy. He knew enough, however, not to make this comparison to Griffoni.
He returned to his business-as-usual voice and asked, ‘While we’re walking, tell me what else you’ve found out.’
From her bag, she took a dark brown silk scarf and wrapped it around her neck. ‘I don’t know how you stand this weather,’ she said, suggesting that Brunetti had wished it on both of them. Then, as though the sentences were related, she added, ‘They were seen in Campo Santa Margherita on Saturday night. The girl who called to say she saw them remembered them because, when one of them said her name was Lucy, she remembered that her mother always sang a song with that name in it.’
‘Is that all?’ Brunetti asked. Surely, he thought, someone else must have seen them. They had to be in a hotel, a B&B, staying with friends: someone must have noticed their absence or found that they hadn’t slept in their beds.
‘This girl who called said she thought they started to talk to two men. But then she saw some classmates and went over to talk to them and forgot about the Americans until this morning, when she saw the name, “Lucy” in the headline on the Gazzettino.’ He had seen it, too: ‘Lucy and Jojo. Who are they?’
Brunetti was just about to ask if Griffoni had any news about the young woman in the hospital in Mestre, but then they turned left into Barbaria delle Tole: the Ospedale was only a few minutes away.
The lateral wall of the Basilica appeared on their right, and then they were in the campo. The façade of the Ospedale looked down upon them, and as they moved diagonally towards the entrance, the façade of the Basilica slid into view. Griffoni’s steps slowed and her head turned from building to building, as though she’d been asked to give a prize to one of them and couldn’t decide. Most days the Basilica – its majesty unmatched