Uniform Justice (11 page)

Caught in this reflection, Brunetti didn’t notice when Patta finally turned his attention to him, nor did he hear the Vice-Questore’s first words, tuning in only towards the end: ‘… your mistreatment of his students’.

Like a scholar piecing together a coherent meaning from a fragment of text, Brunetti realized that the students must be those at the San Martino Academy, and the only person capable of using the possessive pronoun when speaking of them the Comandante.

‘I chanced into the room of one of them, and we discussed his class work. I don’t think this can be construed in any way as mistreatment, sir.’

‘Not only you,’ Patta said, overriding Brunetti and giving no indication that he had bothered to listen to his explanation. ‘One of your officers. I
was
at a dinner last night, and the father of one of the boys said your officer was very rough when he questioned his son.’ Patta allowed the full horror of this to sink in before adding, ‘The father was at school with General D’Ambrosio.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Brunetti said, wondering if the boy would go on to complain to his father should he experience rough treatment from the enemy in battle, ‘I’m sure if he had known that, he would have shown him more courtesy.’

‘Don’t try being smart with me, Brunetti,’ Patta shot back, displaying a quicker sensitivity to Brunetti’s tone than usual. ‘I don’t want your men in there, strong-arming these boys and causing trouble. These are the sons of some of the best people in the country and I won’t have them treated like this.’

Brunetti had always been fascinated by the way the police shuttlecocked back and forth between Patta and all the others who might be seen as responsible for them: when they solved a case or behaved bravely, they were Patta’s police, but all cases of misbehaviour, incompetence or negligence were clearly attributable to their behaving like the police of someone else, in this case, Brunetti.

‘I’m not sure there’s any question of their being mistreated, sir,’ Brunetti said mildly. ‘I asked an officer to speak to the other students and try to find out if the Moro boy had been behaving strangely or if he had said anything that would indicate he had been thinking about suicide.’ Before Patta could interrupt, he went
on
, ‘I thought this would help make it even clearer that the boy had committed suicide.’

‘Clearer than what?’ Patta asked.

‘Than the physical evidence, sir,’ Brunetti answered.

For a moment, he thought that Patta was about to say, ‘Good.’ Surely his face grew less tense and he, too, let out a deep breath. But all he said was, ‘Very well. Then let’s file it as suicide and let the school begin to get back to normal.’

‘Good idea, sir,’ said Brunetti, then, as if the idea had just occurred to him, ‘But what do we do if the boy’s parents aren’t satisfied?’

‘What do you mean, “aren’t satisfied”?’

‘Well, the father has a history of causing trouble,’ Brunetti began, shaking his head as if thinking of the shocking scepticism towards public institutions demonstrated in the Moro Report. ‘And so I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a report about his son’s death that left anything open to question.’

‘Do you think there’s a chance of that?’

‘Probably not, sir,’ Brunetti answered. ‘But I wouldn’t want to leave something undone that a person as difficult as Moro could point to and ask questions about. He’d be sure to make it look bad for us. And he’s certainly a person who gets his fair share of public attention.’ Brunetti stopped himself from saying more.

Patta gave all of this some thought and finally asked, ‘What do you suggest?’

Brunetti feigned surprise that he should be asked such a thing. He started to speak, stopped,
and
then went on, giving every evidence that he’d never considered this possibility. ‘I suppose I’d try to find out whether he took drugs or showed signs of depression.’

Patta appeared to consider all of this and then said, ‘It would be easier for them to bear it if they were certain, I suppose.’

‘Who, sir?’

‘His parents.’

Brunetti risked a question. ‘Do you know them?’

‘The father, yes,’ Patta said.

Because this was still not followed by an attack on the man, Brunetti dared to ask, ‘Then do you think we should go ahead like this, sir?’

Patta sat up straighter and moved a heavy Byzantine coin he used as a paperweight from one side of his desk to the other. ‘If it doesn’t take too much time, all right.’ How typically Patta was this answer: having commissioned the investigation, he had simultaneously assured that any delay would be laid at the feet of someone else.

‘Yes, sir,’ Brunetti said and got to his feet. Patta turned his attention to a thin file on his desk and Brunetti let himself out.

In the small outer office, he found Signorina Elettra at her desk, head bent over what appeared to be a catalogue. He looked closer and saw a double-page spread of computer screens.

She glanced up and smiled.

‘Didn’t you just buy one of those?’ he asked, pointing to the screen to her right.

‘Yes, but they’ve just come out with new ones, perfectly flat screens, as thin as a pizza. Look,’ she said, pointing a scarlet fingernail at one of the photos in the catalogue. Though he found her simile surreal, he had to agree it seemed accurate enough.

He read the first two lines of print and, seeing too many numbers and initials, to make no mention of a word he thought was ‘gigabytes’, he sped to the bottom where the price was given. ‘That’s a month’s salary,’ he said, in astonishment, aware that there was more than a little disapproval in his tone.

‘Closer to two,’ she added, ‘if you get the larger LCD screen.’

‘Are you really going to order it?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no choice, I’m afraid.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve already promised this one,’ she began, indicating her all-but-new computer screen as though it were a bag of old clothing she was asking the cleaning lady to dispose of, ‘to Vianello.’

Brunetti decided to let it go. ‘There seems to be some connection between the Vice-Questore and Dottor Moro,’ he began. ‘Do you think you could find out more about that?’

She had returned her attention to the catalogue. ‘Nothing easier, sir,’ she said, and turned a page.

11

VENICE, LIKE EVERY
other city in the country, was feeling the consequences of the government’s refusal to adopt an immigration policy that was related in any sane way to the realities of immigration. Among the consequences which did not affect Brunetti directly were the thousands of illegal immigrants who profited from the easygoing Italian policy and who then, in possession of Italian documents legitimizing their presence on the continent, passed to northern countries where they would be able to work with some protection under the law. There was also the resulting irritation on the part of other governments at the ease with which the Italians washed their hands of the problem by passing it on to them.

Venice, and Brunetti, had begun to feel the consequences in their own way: the number of pickpocketings had skyrocketed; shoplifting was a problem for even the smallest merchants; and no householder any longer felt that his home was safe from robbery. Since most of these cases passed through the Questura, Brunetti registered the increase, but he felt it lightly, as a person with a mild cold might discover that his temperature has increased a degree or two without feeling any real symptoms. If this increase in petty crime produced any symptoms for Brunetti himself, it was in the amount of paperwork he was obliged to initial and, presumably, read.

It was a period in which there was very little violent crime in the houses or on the streets of Venice, and so Patta, no doubt feeling withdrawal symptoms after his name had not appeared in the
Gazzettino
for more than a week, ordered Brunetti, and requested Signorina Elettra, to prepare a report providing statistics which would show the high clear-up rate of the Venetian police. The report, he stipulated, was to show that the perpetrators of most crimes were found and arrested and that, during the last year, there had been a consequent decrease in crime within the city.

‘But that’s nonsense,’ Brunetti said, when Signorina Elettra informed him of their task.

‘No more nonsensical than any other statistic we’re provided with,’ she said.

His patience short because of the time he
knew
he’d waste in preparing this report, he asked curtly, ‘Like what?’

‘Like the statistics about road fatalities,’ she said, smiling, patient in the face of his annoyance.

‘What about them?’ he asked, not really interested, yet doubtful that anything so well documented could be altered.

‘If you die a week or more after you’re injured in an accident, you didn’t die because of the accident,’ she said, almost with pride. ‘At least, not statistically.’

‘Does that mean the hospitals kill you?’ he asked, aiming towards irony.

‘That’s certainly often enough the case, sir,’ she said with every appearance of patience. ‘I’m not sure just how they list these deaths, but they aren’t counted as traffic fatalities.’

Not for an instant did it occur to Brunetti to doubt her. Her idea, however, sent his mind tumbling back to the report they had to prepare. ‘Do you think we could use this technique ourselves?’

‘You mean, if someone who is murdered takes a week to die, they weren’t murdered?’ she asked. ‘Or if a theft is reported after more than a week, then nothing was stolen?’ He nodded, and Signorina Elettra devoted herself to considering the possibility. Finally she answered, ‘I’m sure the Vice-Questore would be delighted, though I’m afraid there would be certain difficulties if we were questioned about it.’

He drew his imagination away from these
angel
flights of mathematics and back to the grim truth of the report they had to write. ‘Do you think we can do it and get the results he wants?’

Her voice grew serious. ‘I think what he wants won’t be hard to give him. All we have to do is exercise caution about the number of crimes reported.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That we count only those where people came down here or went to the
carabinieri
to fill out a formal
denuncia
.’

‘What will that achieve?’

‘I’ve told you before, Commissario. People don’t bother to report crimes, least of all pick-pocketing or burglary. So when they phone to report it but then don’t bother to come down here to fill out the papers, the crime hasn’t been reported.’ She paused for a moment, allowing Brunetti, who knew just how Jesuitical her reasoning could be, to prepare himself for the consequences towards which this must lead her. ‘And if there is no official
denuncia
– which, in a certain sense, means the act never occurred – then I see no reason why we should have to include them in our calculations.’

‘What percentage would you estimate people don’t bother to report?’ he asked.

‘I have no way of knowing, sir,’ she said. ‘After all, it’s philosophically impossible to prove a negative.’ There followed another pause, and then she said, ‘I’d guess a bit more than half.’

‘Are or aren’t reported?’ a surprised Brunetti asked.

‘Aren’t.’

This time it was Brunetti who paused for a long time before he said, ‘That’s very lucky for us, isn’t it?’

‘Indeed,’ was her response, then she asked, ‘Would you like me to take care of it, sir? He wants it for the newspapers, and they want to be able to say that Venice is a happy island, virtually free from crime, so no one is likely to question my numbers or my accounting.’

‘It is, though, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘What, a happy island?’

‘Yes.’

‘In comparison with the rest of the country, yes, I think so.’

‘How long do you think it will stay like that?’

Signorina Elettra shrugged. As Brunetti was turning to leave her office, she opened her desk drawer and took a few sheets of paper from it. ‘I didn’t forget about Dottor Moro, sir,’ she said as she handed it to him.

He thanked her and left her office. As he walked up the stairs, he saw that it explained the reason for Patta’s familiarity with Dr Fernando Moro. There was nothing unusual: Signora Patta’s mother had been a patient of Moro’s since he had returned to the practice of medicine. Signorina Elettra had not managed to provide copies of her medical records, but she had supplied the dates of her visits to Dottor Moro, twenty-seven in all during the last two
years
. At the bottom, Signorina Elettra had added, in her own hand: ‘Breast cancer.’ He checked the date of the last appointment: little more than two months ago.

As with any superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta was often the subject of speculation among those under his command. His motives for action or inertia were usually transparent: power, its maintenance and aggrandizement. In the past, however, he had proven capable of great weakness, had even been deflected from his headlong pursuit of power, but only when he acted in defence of his family. Brunetti, though often suspicious of Patta and usually deeply contemptuous of his motives, felt nothing but respect for this weakness.

Brunetti had told himself that decency demanded he wait at least two days before attempting to speak again to either of the boy’s parents. That time had passed, and he arrived at the Questura that morning with the intention of interviewing one or both of them. Dottor Moro’s home phone was answered by a machine. The phone at his practice said that, until further notice, the doctor’s patients would be seen by Doctor D. Biasi, whose office hours and phone number were given. Brunetti redialled the first number and left his name and his direct number at the Questura, requesting that the doctor call him.

That left the mother. Signorina Elettra had provided a brief biography. Venetian, like her
husband
, she had met Moro in
liceo
, then both had gone on to the University of Padova, where Moro opted for medicine, Federica for child psychology. They married when her studies were completed but didn’t return to Venice until Moro was offered a place at the Ospedale Civile, when she had opened a private practice in the city.