Donna Leon - Fatal Remedies

He had read the Interpol reports on the subject, seen how the estimates of the numbers involved, both as clients and as – he could find no other word – victims varied by as much as half a million. He had read the numbers and part of him had always chosen to believe the lowest numbers given: his humanity would be soiled were he to accept the highest.

It was the most recent article – he thought it had appeared in Panorama – which had provoked Paola to incendiary rage. He had heard the first salvo two weeks before in Paola’s voice, which had shouted from the back of the apartment ‘Bastardi’, a sound which had shattered the peace of a Sunday afternoon and, Brunetti now feared, far more than that.

He had not had to go back to her study, for she had stormed into the living-room, the magazine a clenched cylinder in her right hand. There had been no preamble. ‘Listen to this, Guido.’

Paola had unrolled the magazine, flattened the page against her knee and straightened up to read, ‘“A paedophile, as the word says, is one who doubtlessly loves children.”‘ She stopped there and looked across the room at him.

‘And rapists, presumably, love women?’ Brunetti had asked.

‘Do you believe this?’ Paola had demanded, ignoring his remark. ‘One of the most popular magazines in the country – and only God knows how that can be – and they can print this shit?’ She glanced down at the page and added, ‘And he teaches sociology. God, have these people no conscience? When is someone in this disgusting country going to say that we’re responsible for our behaviour instead of blaming it on society or, for God’s sake, the victim?’

Because Brunetti could never answer questions like this, he had made no attempt to do so. Instead, he asked her what else the article said.

She’d told him then, her rage not at all diminished by her having to become lucid to do so. Like any good tour, the article touched all the by now famous sites: Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Manila, then brought things closer to home by regurgitating the most recent cases in Belgium and Italy. But it was the tone which had enraged her and, he had to admit, disgusted Brunetti: starting from the astonishing premise that paedophiles loved children, the magazine’s resident sociologist had gone on to explain how a permissive society induced men to do these things. Part of the reason, this sage opined, was the tremendous seductiveness of children. Rage had stopped Paola from reading further.

‘Sex-tourism,’ Paola had muttered between teeth clenched so hard that Brunetti could see the tendons in her neck pulled out from the skin. ‘God, to think that they can do it, that they can buy a ticket, sign up for a tour, and go and rape ten-year-olds.’ She had thrown the magazine to the back of the sofa and returned to her study, but it was that night after dinner that she had first proposed the idea of stopping the industry.

Brunetti had at first thought she was joking and now, in retrospect, he feared that his refusal to take her seriously might have upped the ante and driven her that fatal step from outrage to action. He remembered asking her, his voice in memory arch and condescending, if she planned to stop the traffic all by herself.

‘And the fact that it’s illegal?’

‘What’s illegal?’

‘To throw rocks through windows, Paola.’

‘And it’s not illegal to rape ten-year-olds?’

Brunetti had stopped the conversation then, and in retrospect he had to admit it had been because he had no answer to give her. No, it seemed, in some places in the world it was not illegal to rape ten-year-olds. But it was illegal, here in Venice, in Italy, to throw rocks through windows, and that was his job: to see that people did not do it or, if they did, that they were arrested.

The train pulled into the station and came to a slow stop. Many of the passengers getting down on to the platform carried paper-wrapped cones of flowers, reminding Brunetti that today was the first of November, the day of the dead, when most citizens would go out to the cemetery to lay flowers on the tombs of their departed. It was a sign of his misery that he welcomed the thought of dead relatives as a comfortable distraction. He wouldn’t go; he seldom did.

Brunetti decided to walk home rather than go back to the Questura. Eyes that see not, ears that hear not; he walked through the city blind and deaf to its charms, playing and replaying the conversations and confrontations that had resulted from Paola’s original explosion.

One of her many peculiarities was that she was a peripatetic tooth-brusher, would often walk around the apartment or into their bedroom while she cleaned her teeth. So it had seemed entirely natural to him that she had been standing at the door of their bedroom three nights ago, toothbrush in hand, when she had said, entirely without prelude, ‘I’m going to do it.’

Brunetti had known what she meant, but had not believed her, so he had done no more than glance up at her and nod. And that had been the end of it, at least until the call had come from Ruberti to disturb his sleep and now his peace.

He stopped in the pasticceria below their house and bought a little bag of fave, the small round almond cakes that were found only at this time of year. Chiara loved them. Following fast upon that thought, he found himself considering how this could be said to be true of virtually every edible substance in existence, and with that memory came the first release from tension that Brunetti had experienced since the night before.

Inside the apartment all was calm, but in the current climate that didn’t mean much. Paola’s coat hung on a hook beside the door, Chiara’s beside it, her red wool scarf on the floor below. He picked it up and draped it over her coat, removing his own and hanging it to the right of Chiara’s. Just like the three bears, he thought: Mamma, Papà and baby.

He pulled open the paper bag and dropped a few fave into his open palm. He tossed one into his mouth, then another, and finally two more. With a sudden flash of memory he remembered, decades ago, buying some for Paola when they were university students and still caught up in the first glow of love.

‘Aren’t you tired of people talking about Proust every time they eat a cake or biscuit?’ he’d asked as if he were graced with some open window to her mind.

A voice from behind startled him and brought him back from reverie. ‘Can I have some, Papà?’

‘I got them for you, angel,’ he answered, reaching down and handing the bag to Chiara.

‘Do you mind if I eat just the chocolate ones?’

He shook his head. ‘Is your mother in her study?’

‘Are you going to have an argument?’ she enquired, hand poised above the neck of the open bag.

‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.

‘You always call Mamma “your mother” when you’re going to have an argument with her.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ he agreed. ‘Is she there?’

‘Uh huh,’ she answered. ‘Is it going to be a big one?’

He shrugged. He had no idea.

‘I’d better eat all of these, then. In case it’s going to be.’

‘Why?’

‘Because dinner will be late. It always is.’

He reached into the bag and took a few fave, careful to leave her the chocolate ones. ‘I’ll try not to make it be an argument, then.’

‘Good.’ She turned and went down the corridor to her room, taking the bag with her. Brunetti followed a few moments later, stopping in front of the door to Paola’s study. He knocked.

‘Avanti,’ she called.

When he went in he found her, as he usually did when he got home from work, sitting at her desk, a pile of papers in front of her, glasses low on her nose as she read through them. She looked up at him, smiled a real smile, removed her glasses and asked, ‘What happened in Treviso?’