Donna Leon - The Girl of his Dreams

'All right,' Brunetti said, pushing himself to his feet. 'This isn't going to help us or get us anywhere, sitting here and moaning.'

'What do you suggest?'

'That we go and get a coffee and see about finding a way to get someone to watch the Fornari place.' When he saw Vianello's expression, Brunetti explained, 'I'm curious to see if anyone goes to see them.'

'Anyone like who?' asked Vianello, intrigued.

'That's what I'd like to find out. Because that might tell me why they went.'

Over coffee, the two men discussed the problem of staffing and logistics but came up with no way to keep the Fornari house under surveillance. Anyone seen lurking in a dead end calle such as that one would soon call attention to himself. They discussed and dismissed every possibility until Vianello was finally forced to ask, 'Who do you think it is that will go calling?' 'The girl's father.'

The answer appeared to surprise the Inspector. 'You think he cares?'

'No, but I think he might see it as an opportunity to get some money out of them.'

'You're assuming he knows what happened to the girl, aren't you?' Vianello asked. 'And that the Fornaris do, too.'

Before he answered, Brunetti recalled his initial visit, when Fornari's wife had seemed curious to find the police in her house, but hardly worried; and his second, when both she and her husband had given signs of great distress. They must have learned something in the ensuing time: Brunetti wanted to know what it was and who had been the bearer of that information.

A silence fell between the men as each considered the possibilities of action open to them. After some time, Brunetti said, making it sound the sort of natural everyday thing a father would do, ‘I can ask my kids.'

'Ask them what?' Vianello said, unable to disguise his astonishment.

'If they know either of their children. And what they might have heard about them.' Vianello's look was so long and serious that it made Brunetti uncomfortable.

'They're of an age,' Brunetti said, then added, 'well, close to it.'

'Thank God mine are still too young,' Vianello said with suspicious blandness.

'For what?' Brunetti asked, though he knew what was coming.

'To work for us,' the Inspector said.

Brunetti resisted the impulse to defend himself. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost three. ‘I’m going home’ he said, getting to his feet.

Vianello too had apparently said as much as he chose to say.

If anyone wants me, tell them I had to go out, all right?' he asked Vianello. 'Of course.'

Even the Chief Augur would not have been able to find a hidden message in Vianello's voice, though Brunetti knew there was one. Brunetti walked around his desk, and patted Vianello on the shoulder. Then he left the Questura and went home.

He broached the subject at dinner, between the risotto with spinach and the pork with mushrooms. Chiara -who appeared to have abandoned vegetarianism – looked somehow different that evening, said that she didn't know Ludovica Fornari but knew of her.

'Of?' Brunetti asked, placing another piece of pork on his plate.

'Even I've heard about her’ Raffi offered, then returned his attention to the bowl of carrots with ginger.

'What have you heard?' Brunetti enquired mildly.

Paola shot him a glance as sharp as it was suspicious and interrupted to ask, 'Chiara, is that my Passion Flower you're wearing?' Brunetti had no idea to what the name referred. Because Chiara was wearing a white cotton sweater, it was not likely to be an article of clothing: that left lipstick or whatever else might be applied to a face. Or perfume, though he had not been aware of any, and Paola usually never wore scent.

'Yes’ Chiara said with a certain hesitation.

‘I thought so’ Paola said with a wide smile. 'It looks very good on you.' She tilted her head to one side and studied her daughter's face. 'Probably better on you than it does on me, so maybe you'd better keep it.'

'You don't mind, do you, Mamma?' Chiara asked.

'No, no, not at all.' Looking brightly around the table, Paola said, 'There's only fruit for dessert, but I think tonight might be a good time to open the gelato season. Anyone willing to go over to Giacomo dell'Orio to get it?'

Raffi speared the remaining wheels of carrot and put them into his mouth, set his fork down, and raised his hand. 'I'll go.'

'But what about flavours?' Paola, who had never in her life shown any interest at all in the flavours of icecream she ate – so long as she got a lot of it – asked with transparently false brightness. 'Chiara, why don't you go with your brother and help him decide?'

Chiara pushed her chair back and got to her feet. 'How much?'

'Get the biggest container they have: we should begin the year with a bang, I think.' Then, to Raffi, 'Take the money from my purse. It's near the door.'

Before Brunetti could finish his dinner and in open defiance of family tradition, the children were out the door and pounding down the stairs.

Brunetti set his fork down, conscious in the silence of the sound it made as it tapped the wood of the table. 'And what was that all about, if I might ask?' he said.

'It's about not turning my children into spies’ Paola said heatedly. Then, before he could begin to defend himself, she added, 'And don't say you were just asking idle questions, making conversation over dinner. I know you too well to believe that, Guido. And I won't have it’

Brunetti looked at his plate, suddenly wondering how he had managed to eat so much, for why else would he suddenly feel so uncomfortably full? He sipped the last of his wine and set the glass back on the table.

She was right. He knew that, but it angered him to have it pointed out to him so sharply. He looked at his plate again, picked up his fork and set it across the plate, then placed the knife in a neat parallel next to it.

'And, Guido, you wouldn't have it, either, not really’ she said in a far softer voice. 'I said I knew you too well.' There was a pause, and then she said, 'You wouldn't like it if you had done it.'

He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. He picked up his plate to carry it into the kitchen. Behind her chair he stopped and put his hand on her shoulder; hers covered his immediately.

‘I hope they bring some chocolate’ he said, his appetite suddenly restored.

The next morning, Brunetti lay in bed long after Paola had got up and left to go to her early class. He considered his options, looking at the case of the Gypsy girl from a different perspective or what he thought was a different perspective. He had nothing, not really. The only tangible proof he had that the girl had not fallen to her death while leaving the scene of a robbery was the testimony of a child who claimed that his sister had been killed by the tiger man. As evidence of that, Brunetti had in his possession a single cuff link and a ring set with a piece of cheap red glass.

There were no signs of violence on the child's body other than that which would result from sliding down a terracotta roof, and the cause of death was drowning.

His judgement that the Fornaris had come into possession of some sort of guilty knowledge was entirely subjective. His original assessment – and Vianello's – had been

that Fornari's wife had been genuinely surprised by the news of the robbery.

Fornari had seemed worried when Brunetti spoke to him, but he was a businessman working in Russia: well might he look worried. His wife had seemed nervous that time, as well. So what? Their daughter had seemed entirely untroubled to meet Brunetti. But then he remembered her coughing. It had begun when he had said he was about to leave and would get Vianello. 'Inspector’ Vianello, he had said.