'True enough,' Brunetti agreed, then went on. 'I must have pushed too hard with them because at a certain point they both stopped talking, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get anything more out of them.'

'Which means?' Vianello asked in the same level voice.

'That we need someone else to ask them questions, someone less threatening.'

'What makes you think they'd talk to Nadia?' Vianello asked, not bothering to ask for confirmation that this was the favour Brunetti wanted. 'She doesn't live near there.'

'I know. But she's Venetian: anyone who listens to her knows that.' Vianello looked doubtful, so Brunetti added, 'And she's simpatica. People trust her instinctively: I've seen it happen.' Before Vianello could object, Brunetti added, 'None of the female officers is old enough for people to trust them.'

Vianello gazed away. Brunetti watched the Inspector consider the idea and its implications. Though she would be, in a sense, working for his own employers, even Vianello was not free of the citizen's instinctive distrust of the state. Brunetti watched his friend as he contemplated the ways Nadia might be put in the public eye, how a record of what she heard and reported might somehow be used against her and, ultimately, against him.

Brunetti thought he saw the instant when Vianello's face registered the thought of Lieutenant Scarpa and the consequences of his learning of Nadia's involvement unauthorized involvement in a police investigation. Immediately after there was not even the beating of a heart Vianello said, 'I think I'd like to suggest an alternative candidate.'

Brunetti ran through the list again, this time even considering his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, only to exclude her at once because she was Sicilian. 'Who?' he finally asked.

'Just as you said, "una donna simpatica e veneziana".' With a smile, Vianello added, 'And this one lives in the neighbourhood.'

Baffled, Brunetti wondered if Vianello had some other branch of the service in mind. Was there a woman Carabiniere who could be enlisted to help them? He shook his head as a sign of his confusion and said, 'Tell me.'

'Paola,' Vianello said, and, as Brunetti's face made it evident he still did not understand, the Inspector added, 'Your wife.'

The word 'but' formed itself in Brunetti's mind. Luckily, he did not speak it, for he realized he would do so only in the sentence that insisted he could not ask his wife to do such a thing. Or would not. He looked away and then back at his friend. 'I see,' he said, admitting the truth.

Brunetti was silent, as if to allow a sound, or a smell, to dissipate, and then he said, 'There's no record of Davide Cavanella's birth.'

'If he's Venetian, that's hard to believe,' Vianello said.

'He could have been born anywhere,' Brunetti replied. 'His mother's from the neighbourhood and she speaks Veneziano, but that doesn't mean he had to be born here.'

'How long have you seen him around?' Vianello asked.

'Ten, fifteen years.'

Vianello glanced away, taking this in, then asked, 'Has she started looking in other places?' He didn't bother to name Signorina Elettra nor to suggest what the other places might be.

'Pucetti's working on it.' Before Vianello could express his surprise, Brunetti explained: 'Baptism records, health card, school records, pension for him and for his mother, hospital records,' then added, 'Simple things,' thus acknowledging that he had left the extra-legal explorations to Signorina Elettra.

'There's no getting away from them, is there?' Vianello said in a voice slowed by deep reflection. Before Brunetti could ask, the Inspector continued, 'They can go into my bank account now and find out where I spend my money and what I spend it on. Or they can check my credit card and see what I've been buying.'

Brunetti opened his mouth to speak, but Vianello held up his hand to stop him. 'I know what you're going to say: that we get and use the same information.' He smiled at Brunetti, reached over to pat his arm, as if to persuade his friend that he was not about to begin raving.

'Think of the chip in our telefonino,' Vianello went on. 'It leaves a record of where we go. Well, where it goes.' Again, he held up his hand. 'I know. We use that information, too. But who leaves his telefonino behind? Even that fool who killed his wife kept it in his pocket when he dumped her in the woods,' he said, referring to a recent case they had solved in no time because of this very simple error on the part of the murderer.

'Then what are you talking about?' Brunetti asked.

'That the way we think about it has changed, and we don't question it. We've come to think it's normal that other people know what we're buying or reading or where we've been.' Vianello paused, giving Brunetti a chance to object.

He did not, so Vianello added, 'And the internet? Every time we look at something, we leave a permanent record behind: that we read it or glanced at it, or bought it or tried to buy it, or, for all I know, looked at the timetable for going there.'

Brunetti was unsettled by the feeling that he had looked at another person but seen what he saw in the mirror every morning, heard a voice speaking and recognized it as his own. To the best of his knowledge, he had never left traces behind when breaking a law. He had, however, grown increasingly nervous about the red, howling trail of law-breaking that Signorina Elettra might have left behind her. It wouldn't even have to be Lieutenant Scarpa who discovered it for her and anyone connected with what she had done to be ruined: a well-intentioned journalist could land them all in court, disgraced and unemployed, and without a future.

He pushed this thought away, as he had so many times over the years. 'This won't get us anywhere,' he said.

Like the other partner in an old marriage who by now knew all the patterns, Vianello pursed his lips and gave a half-tilt of his head. 'Let's call Pucetti, then, and see what he's found.'

As it turned out, the young officer had found nothing. Like Dottor Rizzardi, Pucetti had failed to find evidence of the passage through life of Davide Cavanella: he seemed, as far as officialdom was concerned, to have sprung into life only by leaving it. Before his name was written on the form that accompanied his body to the morgue at the Ospedale Civile, it had not been entered in any official register kept by the city of Venice. There was no birth certificate; the files of the Church had no registry of his baptism or first communion. He had not attended school in the city, neither the public grammar schools nor the special school in Santa Croce for deaf children. He had never been issued a carta d'identita; he had never been registered with the health service,

nor had he ever been in hospital. He had never applied for a driver's licence, passport, gun permit, or hunting licence.

Knowing little about the dead man, Pucetti had

also searched for evidence of his marriage or the birth

of his children, and in those offices had found the same void.

When Pucetti, sitting beside Vianello in front of Brunetti's desk, had finished his list of non-information, the three men sat in silent amazement until Brunetti said, speaking to Vianello, 'It seems some people can still slip through the net.'

'But it's impossible,' said a scandalized Vianello. 'We should be able to find him.'

Brunetti refrained from comment, and Pucetti spoke. 'I looked everywhere, Commissario, even in our arrest files, but he's not there. Nothing. I even went down to the archives, but there's no file on him.' Then, hesitantly, as if afraid he might have gone too far, Pucetti continued, 'I did find a Cavanella in the files, sir.'

Vianello turned to face the young officer, and Brunetti said, 'Good. Did you bring it?'

'Yes, sir,' he said, taking a discoloured Manila folder from a larger one that lay on his lap and handing both across the desk to Brunetti. 'Cavanella, Ana,' was written on the file; handwritten, Brunetti was surprised to note. The Manila cover had once been light blue, but the years, exposure to light, and the penetrating humidity of the archive had turned it a sickly grey and rendered the cover unpleasant to the touch.

'Have you looked in it?' Brunetti asked.

'No, sir,' Pucetti said. Then, risking a small smile, he confessed 'But I'd like to.'

'Then let's,' Brunetti said and opened it. He discovered an outdated form with the elaborate seal of the Ministry of the Interior stamped on the top, taking up almost a quarter of the page, and below it two typewritten paragraphs. 'Mirabile visu,' Brunetti said and held up the page to show them.

'Wow!' Pucetti said in the English that had now become international.

'Never seen typing before?' Vianello asked, smiling, but not joking.

'Of course I've seen it,' said an embarrassed Pucetti.

Brunetti, reading the report, barely heard them. '6/9/68,' he read aloud. 'Suspect apprehended in Standa, carrying four unopened parcels of women's stockings, two unused lipsticks, and brassiere (size 3) with price tag still attached, in her bag. At the police station at San Marcuola, she presented her carta d'identita, which stated that she was born in 1952.

'Her employer, with whom she lives, sent her secretary. This woman identified her as Ana Cavanella, showed a copy of a contract of employment signed by the girl's mother, and took the girl home. Because of her age, no charges will be brought, though a report of this incident has been sent to the social services.'

He looked at the others, who had become a silent audience.

'Nice touch, the size of the bra,' Vianello said.

'Nineteen sixty-eight,' Pucetti said, speaking of it as though it were light years away, as in many ways it was, at least for him.

'And Davide bore her name, not his father's,' Brunetti said, putting the paper inside and closing the file. He opened the file and looked for the name of the woman who took her away, but it was not given. An address in Dorsoduro was, however.

He slid the paper across the table to Pucetti, saying, 'This is the address given for them. Have a look at the Anagrafe files and see who lived there.'

'You think they've put things on line?' Pucetti asked. 'That far back, I mean.'

Though Brunetti was only a child then, he hardly thought of it as 'far back', but he did not pass on this observation to Pucetti. Instead, he said, 'I don't know. If you call them, they should be able to tell you. If not, go over and see if they still have paper files.'

'Why do you want to know?' Vianello took the liberty of asking.

Brunetti thought about his very brief meeting with the woman. In his experience, the motive that most often drove people to distance themselves from horror or tragedy was guilt. Were they her pills, the pills that Davide had swallowed? Had she made him hot chocolate and given him some biscuits, and had he, stomach full and a ring of chocolate around his mouth, found her sleeping pills and taken them, perhaps having seen her take them before bed and thinking that he should, too?

Guilt made sense; it fitted with what he had observed of her behaviour. How better to keep it at bay than by refusing to discuss or even accept what had happened?

'Well?' Vianello asked. Pucetti watched his two superiors, silent.

'Let's go and talk to her,' Brunetti said and got to his feet.

10.

Brunetti decided it would be better for all three of them to go. He and Vianello represented, he thought, the serious aspect of the law: men of a certain age and sobriety of bearing. Pucetti, looking more like a student, with the fresh-faced eagerness of a boy just in from the countryside, might clothe the law in less fearful garb. Pucetti had rare in a man so young the uncanny ability to induce people to confide in him. He had not learned it or studied it, any more than a cat studies how to make people scratch its neck. He smiled, he looked them in the eye, curious to know about them, and they spoke to him.

Foa, who was idling in the cabin of the police launch, took them over to San Polo, commenting on the freshening wind as they went up the Grand Canal, convinced that this was a sign of approaching rain, and lots of it. Brunetti was glad to hear it: it had been an unusually dry summer, a fact that Chiara had drummed into their heads with relentless frequency; the arrival of rain, especially heavy rain, would put an end to her sermons about Armageddon, at least for a while.

When they were still two bridges from the Cavanella address, Brunetti told Foa to stop and let them out. The arrival of three men, one of them an officer in uniform, would be sufficiently unsettling for Signora Cavanella: no need to pull up in a police launch and attract the attention of the entire neighbourhood.

Seeing that it was almost six, he sent Foa back to the Questura. The three of them could go home directly after the visit.

He rang the bell, and after a full minute he heard the window above him open. Ana Cavanella stood there. 'You again?' she said. 'What do you want now?'

'There are some things I'd like to tell you, Signora. About your son. And there's some information we have to get. For our files.' This was certainly true. Behind him, he heard the sound of a window being opened, but when he turned to look at the house opposite he saw no one, nor any sign of motion at the windows.

When he looked back at Signora Cavanella, her attention had moved to the house opposite and to the windows on the floor above hers. She said something, but Brunetti heard only the last word, ' . . . cow'. Then, looking down at them, she said, 'I'm coming.' Almost as an afterthought, she added, 'But only one of you can come in.'

The men moved closer to the door. Brunetti told Pucetti to position himself so that he would be the first person she saw when she opened it. Without consultation, Vianello moved behind them, allowing most of his bulk to be hidden by Brunetti's body.

The door opened. Just as she became visible, Pucetti raised his hand to his head and removed his uniform hat in a gesture he turned into one of great deference. He did not bow his head, but he did lower his eyes before her gaze. Chiara had once shown Brunetti a book about dog behaviour, and what he sensed of Pucetti's made him want to shout out, 'Beta Dog, Beta Dog!'

Remaining a careful distance from the door, Pucetti said. 'Excuse me, Signora', his nervousness audible in his voice and evident in the way he moved his hat around in his hands. His glance was fleeting and he pulled his eyes away as soon as hers met them. And then, as though unable to contain his desire to speak, he asked, 'Did your son play soccer in San Polo?'

Her eyes grew sharp. 'What?'

'Did he play soccer? In San Polo?'

'How do you know that?' the woman demanded, as though he had told in public some shameful family secret.

He locked his eyes on his hat while he answered. 'My friends and I try to play there in the afternoons, Signora. When we're free. And I thought I remembered your son playing with us a couple of times.' His grasp grew more nervous, and suddenly he was crushing the fabric of the hat, bending the stiff brim until it made a creaking noise they all could hear. Then, pointlessly, he said, 'I'm sorry.'

'You play there?' she demanded.

'When I can, Signora,' Pucetti said, not looking at her.

When Brunetti's eyes moved back to her face, he saw that it had softened in a way that was all but miraculous. Her mouth had relaxed and her lips grown much larger and softer. The hand of ease had smoothed the lines on either side of her eyes, which were directed at Pucetti's. Seeing her face in repose for the first time, Brunetti could reconstruct how attractive she must once have been.

'S,' she said to the younger man. 'It made him happy.'

Brunetti remained as motionless as a snake on a stone, leaving the next move to her. She stepped back and, using the plural, invited them in. Brunetti stepped inside and stopped, turning to the other two men, only to discover that Vianello had evaporated. He had barely time to register this before Pucetti, muttering 'Permesso', stepped in beside him.

Signora Cavanella turned and walked towards a dimly lit flight of stairs. They followed, rigorously avoiding any spoken or glanced communication, Pucetti careful to remain two steps behind Brunetti.

At the top of the stairs, she used her key to open the door to her apartment, but even that strange cautiousness did not cause Brunetti and Pucetti to exchange a glance. Inside, she moved along a very narrow corridor that led to what must be the back of the building. Along one windowless wall was a low, glass-fronted cabinet, similar to one Brunetti's grandmother had had in her home. He could see small cardboard boxes stacked inside, or rather stuffed in randomly, for none of the piles were straight, and no concession was made to size. The top was covered by dolls, the sort of cheap souvenirs picked up at kiosks in any city of the world: he saw a flamenco dancer, an Eskimo, a basket-carrying Nubian woman, a man in a large hat who could as easily have been an American Pilgrim as a Dutch farmer. They stood or lay on top of a shabby lace runner that was no longer white, no longer smooth.

She led them into a small sitting room, and again Brunetti had the feeling that a time machine had taken him back to his grandmother's home. There was the same over-plump sofa, covered in green velvet corduroy, the top of all three back cushions protected by small, greying antimacassars. Though neither of the lamps was illuminated, Brunetti noticed that they had faded onion-coloured lampshades, both with woven tassels. A small television with rounded corners was placed directly in front of an overstuffed chair. Over the arm hung a small dark green blanket in some material that made a bad attempt to look like wool. Lodged between the cushion and the side of the chair, were a few decades of a rosary, the crucifix trapped out of sight.

Brunetti glanced out of the single window at the wall of the house on the other side of the calle, little more than two metres distant.

The Signora grabbed the chair by both arms and turned it to face the sofa, to which she pointed, and then sat in the chair. Brunetti sat at the right end, Pucetti at the left, as if hoping to give physical evidence of the abyss in sentiment that lay between them.

Brunetti unbuttoned his jacket; Pucetti sat upright, his hat on his thighs, hands carefully folded on top of it. 'Thank you for letting us come in, Signora. I'll try to be as brief as I can,' Brunetti said. He did not waste a smile, letting his face show interest and amiability and nothing else: leave the charm to Pucetti.

'I'd like to ask a few questions about your son,' he said and paused, but she did not ask about that. 'I'm afraid I have to tell you the law requires that someone identify him. It is usually a member of his family, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. His doctor or someone who knew him well can also do this.'

'I'll do it,' she said in an even voice.