Uniform Justice cgb-12 Page 8

  detected signs of the second.

  "But you see that only now?" he asked, offering her the briefest of

  recitativi as a means of prompting the aria.

  "We used to see them, my friends and I, swarming around the city in

  their capes, and we thought they were the most exciting, wonderful boys

  in the world. Whenever one of them spoke to one of us, it was as

  though the heavens had opened to allow a god to descend. And then one

  of them .. ." she began. Then, seeking the proper words, she changed

  her mind and went on, "I began going out with one of them."

  "Going out?" he inquired.

  "For a coffee, for a walk, just to go down to the Giardini to sit on a

  bench and talk." With a rueful smile, she corrected herself. To

  listen, that is." She smiled across at him. "I believe one could

  employ a new noun here, sir: a listen, instead of a conversation.

  That's what I had whenever we met: a listen."

  "Perhaps it was a quicker way for you to get to know him Brunetti

  suggested drily.

  "Yes," she said brusquely. The got to know him."

  He didn't know quite what question to ask. "And what was it that makes

  you say those things about him?"

  "That he was a snob and a Fascist and a bully?"

  "Yes."

  "You know Barbara, don't you?" she asked, mentioning her older

  sister.

  "Yes."

  "She was in medical school at the time, living in Padova, so I didn't

  see much of her except on the weekends. I'd been going out with Renzo

  for about three weeks when she came home one weekend, and I asked her

  to meet him. I thought he was so wonderful, so clever, so thoughtful."

  She snorted at the memory of her own youth and went on. "Imagine that,

  thoughtful. At eighteen." She took a deep breath and smiled at him,

  so he knew that this story was going to have a happy ending.

  "Whenever we were together, he talked about politics, history, all

  those things I'd heard Barbara and my parents talk about for so long.

  Nothing he said sounded much like what they said. But he had dark blue

  eyes, and he had a car at home, in Milano, a convertible." Again, she

  smiled at the memory of the girl she had been, and signed.

  When she seemed reluctant to continue, he asked, "And did Barbara meet

  him?"

  "Oh yes, and they hated one another after three words. I'm sure he

  thought she was some sort of Communist cannibal, and she must have

  thought he was a Fascist pig." She smiled again at him.

  "And?"

  "One of them was right."

  He laughed outright and asked, "How long did it take you to realize

  it?"

  "Oh, I suppose I knew it all along, but he did have those eyes. And

  there was that convertible." She laughed. "He carried a photo of it

  in his wallet."

  At first, it was difficult for Brunetti to picture a Signorina Elettra

  capable of this folly, but after a moment's reflection, he realized

  that it didn't surprise him all that much.

  "What happened?"

  "Oh, once Barbara started on him, when we got home, it was as if how do

  they describe it in the Bible? as if "the scales fell from my eyes"?

  Well, it was something like that. All I had to do was stop looking at

  him and start listening to what he said and thinking about it, and I

  could see what a vicious creep he was."

  "What sort of things?"

  "The same things people like him are always saying: the glory of the

  nation, the need to have strong values in the family, the heroism of

  men in war." She stopped here and shook her head again, like a person

  emerging from rubble. "It's extraordinary, the sort of things a person

  can listen to without realizing what nonsense it is."

  "Nonsense?"

  "Well, when the people who say it are still children, I suppose it's

  nonsense. It's when adults say it that it's dangerous."

  "What became of him?"

  "Oh, I don't know. I imagine he graduated and went into the Army and

  ended up torturing prisoners in Somalia. He was that kind of

  person."

  "Violent?"

  "No, not really, but very easily led. He had all of the core beliefs.

  You know the sort of things they say: honour and discipline and the

  need for order. I suppose he got it from his family. His father had

  been a general or something, so it's all he'd ever been exposed to."

  "Like you, only different?" Brunetti asked, smiling. He knew her

  sister, and so he knew what the politics of the Zorzis were.

  "Exactly, only no one in my family has ever had a good

  word to say about discipline or the need for order." The pride with

  which she said this was unmistakable.

  He started to ask another question, but she got to her feet, as though

  suddenly conscious of how much she had revealed, and leaned forward to

  place the file on his desk. That's what's come in, sir," she said with

  a briskness that was strangely dissonant with the easy familiarity of

  their conversation up to that point.

  Thank you," he said.

  "It should all be clear, but if you need any explanation, call."

  He noticed that she didn't tell him to come down to her office or to

  ask her to come up to explain. The geographical limits of their

  formality had been reestablished. |

  "Certainly," he said, and then repeated, as she turned i toward the

  door, Thank you."

  The folder contained photocopies of newspaper articles about Fernando

  Moro's careers as doctor and politician. The first seemed to have led

  to the second: he had first caught the public eye about six years ago,

  when, as one of the inspectors commissioned to examine the quality of

  hospital care in the Veneto, he had submitted a report calling into

  question the statistics issued by the provincial government, statistics

  which boasted one of the lowest patient to doctor ratios on the

  continent. It was the Moro Report which indicated that the low figure

  resulted from the inclusion in the statistics of three new hospitals,

  facilities which were planned to provide medical care at the highest

  level. Money had been allocated for their construction, and that money

  had been spent, and thus the statistics included these hospitals and

  factored in all of the services they were planned to provide. The

  resulting figures were a three-day marvel, for the Veneto was thus

  shown to have the best health care in Europe.

  It was Fernando Moro's report that pointed out the

  inconvenient fact that those three hospitals, however grandiose their

  plans, however extensive their staffs, and however varied the services

  they were meant to provide, had never actually been built. Once their

  services were subtracted from the tabulations, the health care provided

  to the citizens of the Veneto fell to where its patients were

  accustomed to judging it to be: somewhat below that of Cuba, though

  certainly above that of Chad.

  In the aftermath of the report, Moro had been lauded as a hero by the

  press and had become one in the popular mind, but he found that the

  administration of the hospital where he worked had decided that his

  man
y talents would be better utilized if he were to take over the

  administration of the old people's home attached to the hospital. His

  protest that, as an oncologist, he would be better employed in the

  hospital's oncology ward was brushed aside as false humility, and his

  lateral transfer was confirmed.

  This in its turn led to his decision to attempt to achieve public

  office before his name dropped from public memory; perhaps a tactical

  decision, but a no less successful one for that.

  Moro had once remarked that his long familiarity with terminal illness

  was perhaps the best preparation he could have had for a career in

  Parliament. Late at night and only when among old and trusted friends,

  he was rumoured to expand upon that metaphor, a fact which was not long

  in filtering back to his fellow parliamentarians. This might well have

  affected the nature of the committees to which he was appointed.

  As he read the newspaper articles, all purporting to be neutral

  presentation of fact but all tinted by the political affiliation of the

  particular paper or journalist, Brunetti realized that he was colouring

  the articles with the hues of his own memory. He had known, or at

  least heard, about Moro for years, and as he tended to share the man's

  political

  leanings, he knew he was prejudiced in the man's favour and that he

  presupposed his honesty. He knew just how dangerous this sort of

  thinking was, especially for a policeman, yet Moro was hardly a

  suspect: the totality of his grief excluded him from any suspicion of

  involvement in his son's death. "Or else I've never had a son; or else

  I've never had a soul Brunetti caught himself whispering out loud.

  He looked up at the door, embarrassed to have been so distracted by his

  thoughts, but no one was there. He continued reading: the other

  articles merely repeated the essential information contained in the

  first few. Regardless of how insinuating the tone of some of the

  journalists, no matter how carefully they constructed their specious

  explanations of Moro's behaviour, not even the dullest reader could

  doubt the man's integrity.

  The tone of innuendo became even stronger in some of the articles

  dealing with Moro's sudden withdrawal from Parliament, a decision he

  refused to attribute to anything other than 'personal reasons'. The

  first article, written by one of the best-known apologists of the

  Right, raised the rhetorical question of the sort of connection that

  might exist between Moro's resignation and the arrest, two weeks

  before, of one of the last members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. "None,

  probably," Brunetti found himself whispering again, as had become his

  annoying habit when reading this particular adornment of the free

  press.

  The shooting of Moro's wife was mentioned in two small articles,

  neither of which did more than report the barest facts of the case. The

  second article, however, provided the name of the people with whom she

  was staying at the time of the shooting.

  He picked up the phone and dialled 12, then asked for the number of

  Giovanni Ferro in Siena or in the province of Siena. There were two,

  and he took down both numbers.

  He dialled the first number and a woman answered.

  "Signora Ferro?"

  Who's calling, please?"

  This is Commissario Guido Brunetti, in Venice/ he said.

  He heard a startled gasp and then she asked, voice tight and fast and

  apparently beyond her control, Is it Federica?"

  Tederica Moro?" he asked.

  The woman was evidently too shaken to do more than answer, "Yes."

  "Signora, nothing's happened to her, please believe me. I'm calling to

  ask about the incident two years ago." She said nothing, but Brunetti

  could hear her rapid breathing on the other end of the line. "Signora,

  can you hear me? Are you all right?"

  There was another long silence, and he was afraid she was going to hang

  up or already had, but then her voice came back, "Who did you say you

  were?"

  "Commissario Guido Brunetti. I'm with the police in Venice, Signora."

  Again, silence. "Signora, can you hear me?"

  "Yes," she said, The can hear you." There was another long pause, and

  then the woman said, "I'll call you back', and was gone, leaving

  Brunetti with the memory of her terror and the strong aspirants of her

  Tuscan speech.

  And indeed, thought Brunetti, as he replaced the receiver, why should

  she believe that he was who he said he was? There was no way to prove

  it, and the call was being made about a woman who had been shot and

  whose assailant, presumably, had never been found by the police

  Brunetti claimed to represent.

  The phone rang after a few minutes. He picked it up on the first ring

  and gave his name.

  "Good/ she said. "I wanted to be certain."

  That's very wise of you, Signora/ he said. The hope you're reassured

  that I am who I said I was."

  "Yes/ she agreed, then went on, "What do you want to know about

  Federica?"

  "I'm calling about the shooting because there's a case it might be

  related to. The newspapers said that she was staying with you and your

  husband when it happened."

  "Yes."

  "Could you tell me something more about it, Signora?"

  Yet again there was a long pause, and then the woman asked, "Have you

  spoken to her?"

  "Signora Moro?"

  "Yes."

  "No, I haven't, not yet." He waited for her to speak.

  "I think you should talk to her Signora Ferro said.

  There was something in the way she said the last word that warned

  Brunetti not to dispute this. "I'd very much like to be agreed

  amiably. "Could you tell me where I might find her?"

  "Isn't she there?" the woman asked, the nervousness flooding back into

  her voice.

  He adopted his most soothing tone. "You're the first person I've

  called, Signora. I haven't had time to try to locate Signora Moro." He

  felt like an explorer on a glacier who suddenly sees an enormous

  crevasse yawn open in front of him: so far he had said nothing about

  the death of Signora Moro's son and to do so at this point would be

  impossible. "Is she here with her husband?"

  Her voice became bland and noncommittal. "They're separated," she

  said.

  "Ah, I didn't know that. But is she still here in Venice?"

  He could all but follow her thoughts as she considered this. A

  policeman would find her friend; sooner or later, he'd find her. "Yes/

  she finally answered.

  "Could you give me the address?"

  Slowly she answered: "Yes, wait while I get it, please." There was a

  soft tap as she set the phone down, then a long

  silence, and then the woman was back. "It's San Marco 2823," she said,

  then gave him the phone number, as well.

  Brunetti thanked her and was considering what else he could ask her

  when the woman said, "What you need to do is let the phone ring once

  and then call back. She doesn't want to be disturbed."

  "I can understand that, Signora/ he said, the memory of Ernesto Moro's


  limp body suddenly appearing to him like the ghost of one of Ugolino's

  sons.

  The woman said goodbye and hung up, leaving Brunetti, he realized, in

  possession of little more information than he had had before he made

  the call.

  He was aware of how dark his office had become. The late afternoon sun

  had faded away, and he doubted that he could any longer see the numbers

  on the phone clearly enough to dial them. He walked over to the switch

  by the door and turned on the light and was surprised by the

  unaccustomed order he had established on his desk while talking to

  Signora Ferro: a stack of folders sat at the centre, a piece of paper

  to one side, a pencil placed across it in a neat horizontal. He

  thought of the obsessive neatness of his mother's house in the years

  before she- lapsed into the senility in whose embrace she still lay,

  and then the explosion of disorder in the house during the last months

  before she was taken from it.

  Seated at his desk again, he was suddenly overcome by exhaustion and

  had to fight the impulse to lay his head on the desk and close his

  eyes. It had been more than ten hours since they had been called to

  the school, hours during which death and misery had soaked into him