Suffer the Little Children (10 page)

‘
Armed
men?' she asked.

Suddenly tired of this, Brunetti said, ‘Paola, I'll tell you everything when I see you, all right?'

‘Of course,' she answered. ‘Do you know him?'

‘No.' Having heard enough about the doctor to have formed a favourable opinion of him did not count as knowing him, Brunetti told himself.

‘Why did they arrest him?' she asked.

‘He adopted a baby a year and a half ago, and it seems now that he did it illegally.'

‘What happened to the baby?' Paola asked.

‘They took him away,' Brunetti said in a neutral voice.

‘Took him away?' Paola asked with all of her former belligerence. ‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘He was taken into care.'

‘Into care as in given back to his real mother, or into care as in put in an orphanage?'

‘The latter, I'm afraid,' Brunetti admitted.

There was a long pause, after which Paola said, as if to herself, ‘A year and a half,' and then she added, ‘God, what heartless bastards they are, eh?'

Betray the state by agreeing with her or betray
humanity by demurring: Brunetti considered the options open to him and gave the only response he could. ‘Yes.'

‘We'll talk about it when you get home, all right?' said a suddenly accommodating Paola.

‘Yes,' Brunetti said and replaced the phone.

Brunetti was relieved he had not told Paola about the other people, the ones who had been kept under surveillance for almost two years. Alvise – even Brunetti himself – had focused on that number, that year and a half that a knowing authority had allowed the new parents to keep the child. That's when a man becomes a father, Brunetti knew, or at least he remembered that it was during that first year and a half that his own children had been soldered into his heart. Had either of them been taken from him, for any reason, after that time, he would have gone through life with some essential part of himself irreparably damaged. Before that conviction could fully take shape in his mind, Brunetti realized that, had either child been taken from him at any time after he first saw them, his suffering would have been no different than if he had had them for eighteen months, or eighteen years.

Back in his chair, he resumed his consideration of the wall and of the strange fact of Patta's presence, and after another twenty minutes, Signora Marcolini let herself out into the hallway and walked over to him. She looked far more tired than when she had gone back into the room.

‘You're still here?' she said. ‘I'm sorry, but I've forgotten your name.'

‘Brunetti, Signora. Guido,' he said as he got to his feet. He smiled again but did not extend his hand. ‘I've spoken to the nurses here, and it seems your husband is very well regarded. I'm sure he'll be well taken care of.'

He expected a sharp response, and she did not disappoint. ‘That could begin by keeping the Carabinieri away from him.'

‘Of course. I'll see what I can do about arranging that,' Brunetti said, though he wondered if this would be possible. Changing the subject, he asked, ‘Can your husband understand what you say, Signora?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good.' Brunetti's grasp of the workings of the brain was rudimentary, but it seemed to him that, if the man could understand language, then there might be some likelihood of his being able to regain speech. Was there some way that Pedrolli's powers could be tested? Without language, what were we?

‘. . . away from the media,' he heard her say.

‘I beg your pardon, Signora. I didn't hear that: I was thinking about your husband.'

‘Is there any way that all of this can be kept out of the media?' she repeated.

Presumably, she meant the accusations of false adoption that would be brought against them, but Brunetti's mind flashed to the Carabinieri's brutal tactics: surely it was in the best interests of the state that those be kept from the press. But in the
event that the arrests became public knowledge – and the memory of that morning's television news interrupted to tell him that they already had – then it was in the best interests of the Pedrollis that their treatment at the hands of the Carabinieri became so, too.

‘If I were in your place, Signora, I'd wait to see how they choose to present this.'

‘What do you mean?' she asked.

‘You and your husband have erred out of love, it seems to me,' Brunetti began, aware that he was coaching a witness, even aiding a suspect. But so long as he confined himself to discussing the behaviour of the media, he saw nothing improper in anything he might say or any warning he might offer. ‘So they might decide to treat you sympathetically.'

‘Not if the Carabinieri talk to them first,' she said, displaying a remarkable clear-sightedness about the ways of the world. ‘All they've got to do is mention the wounded officer, and they'll be all over us.'

‘Perhaps not, Signora, once they learn about your husband's treatment – and yours, of course.'

At times, Brunetti worried about the growing ferocity of his contempt for the media. All a criminal had to do, it seemed to him at times, was present himself as a victim, and the howl would be heard in Rome. Plant a bomb, rob a bank, cut a throat: it hardly mattered. Once the media decided that the accused had been subjected to ill-treatment or injustice, of any sort and
however long ago, then he or she was destined to become the subject of long articles, editorials, even interviews. And here he was, all but coaching a suspect to present herself in just this way.

Brunetti hauled himself from these ideas and returned his attention to Signora Marcolini. ‘. . . back to my husband,' he heard her say.

‘Of course. Would it be possible for me to speak to you again, Signora?' he asked, knowing that he had the authority to take her down to the Questura and keep her there for hours, should he choose to.

‘I want to see a lawyer first,' she said, raising herself in Brunetti's estimation. Knowing the name of the family that was likely to surround and protect her, Brunetti had no doubt that her legal representation would be the best available.

Brunetti considered asking her about the man who had so clearly dominated Patta in the brief scene outside her husband's room, but thought it might be better to keep his knowledge of that to himself. ‘Of course, Signora,' he said, taking one of his cards from his wallet and giving it to her. ‘If there's any way in which I can help you, please call me.'

She took the card, slipped it into the pocket of her skirt without looking at it, and nodded before re-entering her husband's room.

Brunetti walked away from the ward and then from the hospital, heading back toward the Questura, musing on his last exchange with Signora Marcolini. Her concern for her husband
seemed genuine, he told himself. His thoughts turned to Solomon and the story of the two women who claimed to be the mother of the same baby. The real mother, for love of her son, renounced all claim to him when faced with Solomon's decision to cut the baby in half so that each claimant could have a part, while the false claimant made no objection. The story had of course been told endlessly and had thus become one of the set pieces that had entered into the common memory.

Why, then, had Signora Marcolini displayed no curiosity about the fate of the baby?

AS SOON AS
Brunetti got back to the Questura, he decided to stop and see if Patta had returned, but when he went upstairs, he was surprised to find Signorina Elettra at work behind her desk. She looked, at first glance, like a rainforest scene: her silk shirt was wildly patterned with leaves and violently coloured birds; a pair of tiny monkey legs peeked out from under her collar. Her scarf was the red of a baboon's buttocks, contributing to the tropical effect.

‘But it's Tuesday,' Brunetti said when he saw her.

She smiled and raised her hands in a gesture acknowledging human weakness. ‘I know, I know, but the Vice-Questore called me at home
and said he was in the hospital. I offered to come in because he didn't know how long he'd be.'

Then, in a voice in which Brunetti detected real concern, she asked, ‘There's nothing wrong with him, is there?'

Brunetti smiled. ‘Ah, Signorina, you ask me a question that my sense of good taste and fair play prevent me from answering.'

‘Of course,' she said, smiling herself. ‘I fear I must use that lovely expression that American politicians use when they're caught lying: “I misspoke.”' Though her pronunciation was excellent, the word sounded dreadful to Brunetti. ‘I meant to ask why he was in the hospital when he phoned me.'

‘I saw him there about an hour ago,' Brunetti supplied. ‘He was outside the room of a man – a paediatrician named Pedrolli – who was hurt during a Carabinieri raid on his home.'

‘Why would the Carabinieri want to arrest a paediatrician?' she asked, and he watched as various possibilities played across her face.

‘It would seem that he and his wife adopted a baby boy illegally. About a year and a half ago,' Brunetti explained and went on, ‘The Carabinieri raided homes in a number of cities last night: one of them was his. They must have been informed about the baby.' As he said this, Brunetti realized that it was an inference drawn from what Marvilli – who had been singularly evasive on the subject – had said rather than a piece of information the Captain had given him.

‘What happened to the baby?' she demanded.

‘I'm afraid they took him.'

‘What? Who took him?'

‘The Carabinieri,' Brunetti answered. ‘At least that's what the one I spoke to told me.'

‘Why would they do that?' Her voice had risen, demanding a response from Brunetti, as if he were responsible for the fate of the child. When Brunetti failed to answer, she insisted, ‘Took him where?'

‘To an orphanage,' was the only answer Brunetti could give. ‘I suppose it's where they place a child until the real parents are found or the court decides what will happen to him.'

‘No, I'm not talking about that. How could they take away a child after more than a year?'

Brunetti again found himself attempting to justify what he thought unjustifiable. ‘The doctor and his wife came by the child illegally, it seems. She as much as admitted that to me when I spoke to her. The Carabinieri are interested in finding the person who organized it – the sale, whatever it was. The captain I spoke to said they're looking for a middle man who's involved in some of the cases.' He did not tell her that Marvilli had not in fact mentioned this middle man in connection with the Pedrollis.

Signorina Elettra put her elbows on her desk and lowered her head into her outspread palms, effectively hiding her face. ‘I've heard people tell Carabinieri jokes all my life, but it would never occur to me that they could be this stupid,' she said.

‘They're not stupid,' Brunetti asserted quickly but with little conviction.

She opened her hands and looked at him. ‘Then they're heartless, and that's worse.' She took a deep breath and Brunetti thought that she was summoning up a more professional manner. After a moment, she asked, ‘So what do we do?'

‘Pedrolli and his wife apparently went to a clinic – I assume it's a private clinic – in Verona. A fertility clinic, or at least one that works with problems of fertility. I'd like you to see if you can find one in Verona that specializes in fertility problems. Two of the other couples who adopted illegally were patients there.'

She said, calmer now that she had a task to focus on, ‘I suppose it shouldn't be difficult to find. After all, how many fertility clinics can there be in Verona?' He left her to it and went upstairs.

It was more than an hour later when she came to his office. He saw that she wore a green skirt that fell to mid-calf. Below it were a pair of boots that put Marvilli's to shame.

‘Yes, Signorina?' he asked when he had finished examining the boots.

‘Who would have believed it, sir?' she asked, apparently having forgiven him for his attempt to defend the Carabinieri.

‘Believed what?'

‘That there are three fertility clinics, or private clinics with specialist departments for fertility problems, in or near Verona?'

‘And the public hospital?'

‘I checked. They handle them through the obstetrical unit.'

‘So that makes four,' Brunetti observed. ‘In Verona.'

‘Extraordinary, isn't it?'

He nodded. A broad reader, Brunetti had been aware for years of the sharp decline in sperm counts among European men, and he had also followed with distress the publicity campaign that had helped defeat a referendum that would have aided fertility research. The positions many politicians had taken – former Fascists in favour of artificial insemination; former Communists following the lead of the Church – had left Brunetti battered both in spirit and in mind.

‘If you're sure they went to a clinic there, then all I'll have to do is find their medical service numbers: they'd have to give them, even for a private clinic.'

When Signorina Elettra had first arrived at the Questura, such a statement would have impelled Brunetti into an impromptu lecture on a citizen's right to privacy, in this case the sacred privacy that must exist between a doctor and his patient, followed by a few words about the inviolability of access to a person's medical history. ‘Yes,' he answered simply.

He saw that she wanted to add something and raised his chin questioningly.

‘It would probably be easier to check their phone records and see what numbers they called in Verona,' she suggested. Brunetti no longer
enquired as to how she would go about obtaining those.

He watched as she wrote down Pedrolli's name, then she looked at him and asked, ‘Does his wife use his name or her own?'