'Wonderful, isn't it?' she asked, and when he looked at her smile of simple delight, he saw that the years had dropped away from her.

'Yes, wonderful,' he said, and left her there in front of the store, saying 'Ciao, ciao, ciao', 'Ciao, ciao, ciao', to the bird. to the bird.

He cut through to Santi Apostoli and up Strada Nuova as far as San Marcuola, where he took the traghetto traghetto across the Grand Ca.n.a.l. The reflection from the water was so intense that Brunetti wished he had his sungla.s.ses, but who, that foggy, damp morning of early spring, would have thought such splendour had been in store for the city? across the Grand Ca.n.a.l. The reflection from the water was so intense that Brunetti wished he had his sungla.s.ses, but who, that foggy, damp morning of early spring, would have thought such splendour had been in store for the city?

On the other side, he cut to the right, then to the left, and then back to the right, following unconscious instructions that were programmed into him during decades of walking the city streets to visit friends, take girls home, get a coffee, or to do any of those thousand things a young man did without any conscious thought of destination or route. Soon he came out in Campo San Zan Degola. To the best of Brunetti's knowledge, no one knew whether it was the decapitated body of San Giovanni or his missing head which was venerated in the church. It seemed to him to make little difference.

The Salviati she had married was the son of Fulvio, the notary, so Brunetti knew the house had to be down the second calle calle on the right, third house on the left. And so it proved: the number was the same as the one in the phone book, though three different Salviatis lived here. The bottom bell had the initial E, and so Brunetti rang it, wondering if they got to move to the higher floors of the building as the older members of the family died and left the apartments vacant. on the right, third house on the left. And so it proved: the number was the same as the one in the phone book, though three different Salviatis lived here. The bottom bell had the initial E, and so Brunetti rang it, wondering if they got to move to the higher floors of the building as the older members of the family died and left the apartments vacant.

The door snapped open and he went in. In front of him was a narrow walkway, leading across a courtyard to a flight of steps. Cheerful-looking tulips lined the walkway on both sides, and a brave magnolia was just coming into blossom in the centre of the gra.s.s to the left of the path.

He walked up the steps and, as he reached the door at the top, he heard the lock release. On the other side were more steps, these leading to a landing on which stood two doors.

At the top, the door on the left opened and a young woman came out to the landing. 'Are you the policeman?' she asked. 'I've forgotten your name.'

'Brunetti' he said as he walked up the remaining steps towards her. She stood in front of the door, no expression whatsoever on what would otherwise have been a very pretty face. If the baby was indeed hers, and if it was as young as his information suggested, then she had lost no time in getting back her trim young body, which was dressed in a tight red skirt and an even tighter black sweater. Her bland face was surrounded by a cloud of curly black hair that fell to her shoulders, and she looked at him with surprising lack of interest.

When he reached the top of the steps," he said, 'Thank you for agreeing to talk to me, Signora.'

She didn't bother to answer this or to acknowledge that he had spoken, but turned to lead him back into the apartment, ignoring his muttered, 'Permesso.' 'Permesso.'

'We can go in here,' she said over her shoulder, leading him into a large living room on the left. On the walls Brunetti saw etchings depicting scenes of such violence that they had to be Goyas. Three windows looked down on an enclosed s.p.a.ce which he a.s.sumed was the narrow courtyard he had come through; the enclosing wall was uncomfortably close. She sat down in the centre of a low sofa and crossed her legs, exposing more thigh than Brunetti was accustomed to see displayed by young mothers. Waving to a chair that stood opposite her, she asked, 'What is it you'd like to know?'

Brunetti tried to a.s.sess the emotion that was emanating from her and knew that his instincts sought nervousness. But he found nothing other than irritation.

'I'd like you to tell me how long you knew Roberto Lorenzoni'

She pushed at a lock of hair with the back of her hand, probably unconscious of how impatient the gesture made her seem. 1 told all that to the other policeman'

'I know that, Signora. I've read the report, but I'd like you to tell me in your own words.'

'I'd like to think it's my own words that are in the report,' she said curtly.

'I'm sure they are. But I'd like to hear for myself what you have to say about him. It might give me a better understanding of what sort of man he was'

'Have you found the people who took him?' she asked with the first sign of real curiosity she had displayed since he arrived.

'No.'

She seemed disappointed at this but said nothing.

'Could you tell me how long you knew him?'

1 went out with him for a year or so. Before it happened, that is.'

'And what sort of person was he?'

'What do you mean, "What sort of person was he?" He was someone I went to school with. We had things in common, liked to do the same things. He made me laugh.'

'Is that why you thought it might be a joke, the kidnapping?'

'Why I what?' she asked with real confusion..

'It says in the original report' Brunetti explained, 'that you first thought it might be a joke. When it happened, that is.'

She looked away from Brunetti, as if listening to music played so softly in another room that only she could hear it. 'I said that?'

Brunetti nodded.

After a long pause, she said, 'Well, I suppose I could have. Roberto had some very strange friends.'

'What sort of friends?'

'Oh, you know, students from the university.'

'I'm not sure I understand why they would be strange,' Brunetti said.

'Well, none of them worked, but they all had a lot of money.' As if she knew how weak this sounded, she continued, 'No, that's not it. They said strange things, about how they could do anything they wanted to in life or with their lives. Things like that. The sort of things students say.' Seeing the look of polite expectation on Brunetti's face, she added, 'And they were very interested in fear.'

'Fear?'

'Yes, they read those horror books, and they were always going to see movies that had lots of violence and things like that in them.'

Brunetti nodded and made a non-committal noise.

'In fact, that was one of the reasons I had pretty much decided to stop seeing Roberto. But men it happened, and I didn't have to tell him.' Was that relief he heard in her voice?

The door opened, and a middle-aged woman came into the room, carrying a baby which had its mouth open, poised to scream. When she saw Brunetti, the woman stopped, and sensing her motion, the baby closed its mouth and turned to look at the source of the woman's surprise. Brunetti stood.

"This is the policeman. Mamma' Mamma' the young woman said, paying no attention at all to the baby, and then asked, 'Did you want something?' the young woman said, paying no attention at all to the baby, and then asked, 'Did you want something?'

'No, no, Francesca. But it's time for the feeding.'

It'll have to wait, won't it?' the girl answered as though the idea gave her some satisfaction. She looked at Brunetti and then back at the woman she called Mamma. Mamma. 'Not unless you want the policeman to watch me nurse.' 'Not unless you want the policeman to watch me nurse.'

The woman made an inarticulate noise and grabbed the baby more tightly. It - Brunetti could never tell if the tiny ones were boys or girls - continued to stare at him and then turned towards its grandmother and gave a bubbling laugh.

'I suppose we can wait ten minutes,' the older woman said and turned and left the room, the baby's laugh following behind her like the wake of a ship.

'Your mother?' Brunetti asked, though he was doubtful about this.

'My husband's,' she answered curtly. 'What else do you want to know about Roberto?'

'Did you, at the time, think that some of his friends rmight have engineered this?'

Before she answered, she brushed again at her hair. 'Will you tell me why you want to know?' she asked. The tone of her question took years from her previous manner and reminded Brunetti that she couldn't yet be twenty.

'Will that help you answer the question?' he asked.

'I don't know. But I still know a lot of these people, and I don't want to say anything that might .. .'.She allowed her sentence to trail off, leaving Brunetti to wonder what sort of answer she might give.

'We've found what might be his body,' he said and offered no further explanation.

Then it couldn't have been a joke' she said instantly.

Brunetti smiled and nodded in what he wanted her to believe was agreement, not bothering to tell her how often he had witnessed the violent consequences of what had begun as nothing more than a joke.

She looked down at the cuticle of her right forefinger and began to pick at it with the fingers of her left 'Roberto always said he thought his father loved his cousin, Maurizio, more than he did him. So he did things that would force his father to pay attention to him.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, getting in trouble at school, being rude to the teachers, little things. But once he had some friends hot-wire his car and steal it. He had them do it when he was parked in front of one of his father's offices in Mestre and he was inside, talking to his father: that way, his father couldn't think he'd left the keys in it or lent it to someone.'

'What happened?'

'Oh, they drove it to Verona and left it in a parking garage there, then took the train back. It wasn't found for months, and when it was, the insurance had to be paid back, and the parking fees had to be paid'

'How is it that you know about this, Signora?'

She started to answer, paused, and then said, 'Roberto told me about it'

Brunetti resisted the impulse to ask when he had told her. His next question was more important.

'Are these the same friends who might have played a joke like this?'

'Like what?'

'A false kidnapping?' '

She looked down at her finger again. 1 didn't say that. And if you've found his body, then there's no question of that, is there? That it was a joke?'

Brunetti left that alone for a moment and asked, instead, 'Could you give me their names?'

'Why?'

'I'd like to talk to them'

For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse, but she gave in and said, 'Carlo Pianon and Marco Salvo.'

He remembered the names from the original file. Because they were Roberto's best friends, the police had wondered if they were the people the kidnappers said they would contact to use as intermediaries. But both of them were enrolled in a language course in England when Roberto was kidnapped.

He thanked her for the names and added, 'You said that was one of the reasons you had decided not to go out with him any more. Were there others?'

'Oh, there were lots of reasons,' she answered vaguely.

Brunetti said nothing, allowing her weak response to echo in the room. Finally she added, 'Well, he wasn't much fun any more, not the last week or so. He was tired all the time, and he said he didn't feel well. It got so all he could talk about was how tired he felt, and how weak. I didn't like having to listen to him complain all the time. Or have him fall asleep in the car and things like that.' 'Did he go to a doctor?'

'Yes. That was right after he started saying he couldn't smell anything any more. He always complained about smoking - he was worse than an American about that - but then he said he couldn't even smell smoke' Her own nose twitched in response to the absurdity of this. 'So he decided to go to some specialist'

'What did the doctor say?'

'That there was nothing wrong with him' She paused a moment after that, then added, 'Except for diarrhoea, but the doctor gave him something for that'

'And?' Brunetti asked. 'I suppose it stopped' she said dismissively. 'But did he continue to be tired, the way you've described?'

'Yes. He kept saying he was sick, and the doctors kept saying that there was nothing wrong with him.'

'Doctors? Did he go to more than one?'

'I think so. He talked about a specialist in Padova. That's the one who finally told him he was anaemic and gave him some pills to take. But soon after that, it happened, and he was gone'

'Do you think he was sick?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, I don't know' she answered. She crossed her legs, displaying even more thigh. 'He liked to have attention.'

Brunetti attempted to phrase it delicately. 'Did he give you reason to believe he really was sick or anaemic?'

'What do you mean, did he give me reason?'

'Was he less, er, energetic than usual?'

She looked across at him, as though Brunetti had just walked into the room from some other century. 'Oh, you mean s.e.x?' He nodded. 'Yes, he lost interest in it; that's another reason I wanted it to end.'

'Did he know this, that you wanted things to end between you?'

'I never got a chance to tell him.'

Brunetti considered that and then asked, 'Why were you going to the villa that night?'

'We'd been to a party in Treviso, and Roberto didn't want to have to drive all the way back to Venice. So we were going to spend the night at the villa and go back in the morning.'

'I see' Brunetti said and then asked, 'Aside from being tired, was his behaviour different in any way in the weeks before it happened?' 'What do you mean?' see' Brunetti said and then asked, 'Aside from being tired, was his behaviour different in any way in the weeks before it happened?' 'What do you mean?'

'Had he seemed especially nervous?'

'No, not that I could say. He was short tempered with me, but he was short tempered with everyone. He had an argument with his father, and he had one with Maurizio.'

'What was the argument about?'

'I don't know. He never told me things like that. And if s not that I was very interested.'

'Why were you interested in him, Signora?'

Brunetti asked and, catching her glance, added, 'If I might ask'

'Oh, he was good company. At least at the beginning he was. And he always had a lot of money' Brunetti thought the order of importance of those two remarks might better be reversed, but he said nothing.

'I see. Do you know his cousin?'