'He's at the Ospedale Civile. You can go there any time from eight until five: Dottor Rizzardi or his assistant will be there. The assistant will help you with the paperwork, I'm sure.'

'What paperwork?' she asked. The softness had disappeared from her face, and the lines were back where they had been the first time Brunetti spoke to her.

'They need to notify the Ufficio Anagrafe of any death in the city: the usual process is to take the information from his documents. This way, they can cancel his health card and have his name removed from the various registers in the city.' Brunetti decided not to mention his allowance, which would stop at his death, as would hers for taking care of a handicapped person.

He raised his hands in what he hoped would appear to be a calming gesture. 'It's more or less routine, Signora. All they need is some information and your signature, and they should take care of dealing with the various offices.' This, he knew, was a lie: the bureaucratic clean-up after the death of a family member could sometimes be as bad as the long road to death itself. Death consigned the family to grief and then to the seemingly endless chasing from office to office. Arrange for the Mass and the funeral, the plot in the cemetery, close bank accounts, stop the allowance payments, cancel subscription payments for the television, stop the phone service, close the water, close the gas, stop the postal delivery. Each transaction usually required at least one trip to the appropriate office: many were at the Commune, but others were up at Piazzale Roma or at other far-flung bastions of officialdom in the city. Officials spread misinformation with cavalier disregard for the time it would take the person they were advising to go and find out they were in the wrong office and asking for the wrong certificate or form. Mistaken addresses were dispensed like chocolates to greedy children.

She would learn all of this, if the death of a parent had not already taught her. How many millions of hours were sacrificed every day to the gods of laziness and incompetence? How much was sacrificed each working day on the altar of Eris, goddess of chaos? He thought the Indians, whose bureaucracy, he had heard, made Naples seem like Helsinki, had Kali to stir things round for them.

Pucetti's voice called him back. The young officer was saying, '. . . teams of only four or five players, Signora, so we were all very happy to have him'.

'He knew the rules?' she asked.

'Oh, yes,' Pucetti answered. He lowered his head, as if preparing for confession. 'None of us likes much to be goalie, to be honest. But Davide was very good at stopping the ball and tossing it back to us.' He smiled here and raised his hands, as if imitating the catches her son had made. Then, voice suddenly serious, he said, 'I'm really sorry, Signora. We all liked him. And we'll miss him.'

The compliments worked the same transformation and smoothed away some of the traces of age. Signora Cavanelli's lips moved, and Brunetti was curious to see how a smile would transform her, but she did not smile, only spoke. 'I'll come tomorrow morning.'

'Thank you, Signora,' Brunetti said. 'And it would save a lot of trouble for everyone if you could bring his papers.'

'I can't,' she said suddenly, as if she had just realized the impossibility.

'Why is that, Signora?' Brunetti inquired.

'They were stolen, all of them.'

'I beg your pardon,' was the only thing Brunetti could think of to say.

'Someone broke in here a few months ago and took them.'

Brunetti pulled his notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped it open, and took out his pen.

'That won't help,' she said brusquely.

'Excuse me?'

'Writing down the date. It won't help. I never told the police.'

Brunetti let his hands fall to his lap and asked, 'Why is that, Signora?'

'No one trusts them,' she said, unaware or unconcerned that he was a member of the police.

That, Brunetti was willing to admit, was probably the truth, but he didn't want to admit it to this woman. Instead, he picked up the notebook and asked, 'What was taken?'

'Everything.'

'I see,' Brunetti said and then, rather than asking her to supply a list, asked: 'Carta d'identita?'

'Yes.'

'Birth certificate and baptismal certificate?'

Here she moved back in her chair and crossed her legs. She was wearing a dark dress, and the motion pulled the hem to mid-calf; Brunetti could not help noticing that they were shapely and long. 'Oh, I lost those a long time ago. When we moved.' In response to his glance, she said, 'You know how it is.'

Brunetti, who did not know how it was, said, 'Of course,' and made a note of it.

'Where was your son born?' he inquired mildly. 'And when?'

Even though it might have been obvious that his questions had been leading to this one, she seemed surprised. 'In France,' she said. 'I was working there. We were, my husband and I.'

'I see. And the name of the town?'

'I don't know,' she said, her voice calm, even in the face of Brunetti's quizzical stare.

'How is that, Signora?' he asked, lowering the notebook, the better to attend to her answer.

'We were working in a small village near Poitiers, and the doctor told us there were complications with the pregnancy and I should try to have the baby there, in the hospital. Because it was so much better equipped. So when the pains began, my husband and I started to go there. By car. A friend had loaned us his car. But my husband didn't know the way, and we ended up in a small town and the best he could do was find a doctor's office, and I had the baby there.'

'Then the name of that place should have been on the birth certificate, no?' Brunetti asked with an easy smile.

She nodded. 'Yes, but things didn't go well, and I was very sick and in the hospital in Poitiers for a month, and when they let me out, we decided we had had enough of France, so we took Davide and came back to Italy. And that's when we lost the papers.'

'Did you move to Venice?'

She hesitated a long time before she answered. 'No, we went to stay with his family.'

Picking up the notebook again, Brunetti asked, 'And where was that, Signora?'

Voice suddenly obstinate, she demanded, 'Why do you want to know all this?'

'Because it's what they need, Signora. It's not that I'm particularly interested,' he said easily, making it sound as though he actually meant it, 'but the people at the hospital are going to need this information for their system to be able to function.' He smiled and shook his head, as if to suggest that he found this quite as absurd as she must.

'Then I'll tell them,' she said with the same note of truculence he had heard the first time she spoke to him.

As though the words could not remain unspoken, Pucetti said, 'I think the Signora should have to give this information only once, sir.' The tone was meekness itself, yet one sensed the steely resolve that animated him: leave this poor creature alone with her grief. There was nothing of insubordination in what he said, but his manner made it clear that he had declared himself the paladin of this unfortunate mother in her loss and would do his best to protect her from the cold insensitivity of his superior.

'All right,' Brunetti said, pocketed his notebook and got to his feet. 'Then we'll leave the Signora in peace,' he said, managing to suggest that this was not the end of the matter for his inferior officer. He nodded to Signora Cavanella and gave Pucetti a hard look not absent of reprimand and warning.

At the door, he turned to Pucetti and said, voice rich with sarcasm, 'If you'd like to see that the Signora isn't persecuted by the officials at the hospital, as well, perhaps you'd go along to keep an eye on her?'

Pucetti opened his mouth to defend himself but glanced at Signora Cavanella, as if to ask her what she wanted. Then he lowered his head and allowed the moment to pass.

'It would be very kind if he could come with me,' Signora Cavanella said, and Brunetti made no attempt to prevent a look of raw anger from flashing across his face. But he was trapped, and his face showed that he knew it. 'All right, then. If that's what you want.' He turned towards the door, saying, 'I'll leave it to you two to decide what time is best for you,' and left the apartment, not bothering to close the door quietly.

11.

Brunetti turned into the first calle on the right, irritated that the scene had got beyond his control and he had not thought to ask her about the pills that had killed her son. As he approached the bar on the first corner, Vianello materialized from the doorway. 'Would you like a drink?' he asked.

Brunetti walked up to him, saying, 'Pucetti made a serious mistake joining the police: he could have had

a career on the stage.'

Vianello turned back into the bar and went over to a table near the window that provided a clear view down the calle, thus explaining his sudden appearance at the door. A glass of white wine stood to the left of that day's Gazzettino; Brunetti waved to the barman and pointed to the glass.

As Brunetti pulled out a chair, Vianello closed the paper and set it aside. 'Tell me,' Vianello said.

'When we were still outside,' Brunetti began, 'and you were pulling your disappearing act, Pucetti completely out of the blue asked her if her son used to play soccer in Campo San Polo.' Hearing this, Vianello grimaced and picked up his glass.

The barman arrived and set a second glass of wine in front of Brunetti; he picked it up and took a drink. 'He said he and his friends used to play soccer there and her son was goalie for them sometimes.' Even before Vianello could comment, Brunetti went on, 'I know: he lives down in Castello, so why he'd be playing soccer in San Polo is beyond me.'

'He hates sports,' Vianello said. In response to Brunetti's surprise, Vianello explained. 'One day, I was reading La Gazzetta dello Sport in the squad room, and when he saw it he said he hated soccer, was sick of reading about it, hearing people talk about it.' He finished his wine and set the glass on the table. 'So you can forget the idea that he was playing anything especially soccer in Campo San Polo.'

Brunetti swirled his wine around for a moment and said, 'Then he's even more clever than I thought he was.'

'And the woman?' Vianello asked.

'A liar. She invented a break-in to explain the lack of papers: apparently, she has nothing, or he had nothing. And the birth and baptismal certificates were lost when they moved back from France. Which is where she said he was born.' He finished his wine and set his glass beside Vianello's.

'Why would she lie about something like that?' Vianello asked. It was not that he thought Brunetti had the answer hidden in his back pocket, but an invitation to joint speculation.

'Maybe she stole him from outside a supermarket because she wanted a baby,' Brunetti said.

'Or raised the baby of a relative,' countered Vianello, adding, 'It's not as if anyone much cares whether women who have children are married or not.'

'That's now,' Brunetti said. 'Her son was born about forty years ago. Things were different then. Think about when we were kids, what our parents said about unmarried women who had children.'

Vianello thought for a moment, then said, 'But the fact that we heard them talk about it means that women were doing it, and enough of them for there to be talk. In front of children, that is.'

Casting his memory back, Brunetti was forced to agree that Vianello was right. He remembered hearing his parents really, his mother with her friends talk about other women in the neighbourhood who lived with men without benefit of clergy, had children with them. As far as he could recall , all that seemed to matter to his mother was whether they treated the children well, which meant keeping them clean, raising them to be polite and respectful of their elders, feeding them abundantly, and seeing that they went to school and did well. But that was his mother; he had doubts as to whether her friends shared this elasticity of moral vision.

His speculations were interrupted by the entrance of Pucetti, who had seen them from the street. He approached their table, saying, "I hope you don't mind if I have a drink while I'm in uniform."

'Only if you let me pay for it,' Brunetti said and went over to the bar to get him a glass of white wine. When he came back with it, Pucetti was sitting opposite Vianello and busy telling him about his encounter.

'I'm to go and pick her up at ten tomorrow morning and take her to the hospital,' he said, accepting the glass Brunetti offered him. He took an eager swallow and set it down. Turning to Brunetti, he said, 'I hope you understand I didn't mean any disrespect, sir.'

Brunetti laughed, followed by Vianello, and then by Pucetti himself. Looking at Vianello, Brunetti said, 'You should have heard him: "I think the Signora should be asked to give this information only once," and then just the least little bit of a hesitation before he added, "sir".' He turned to the young officer, whose face had turned red with embarrassment, and said, 'Well done, Pucetti.' Then he gave in to his curiosity and asked, 'How did you know about the soccer?'

Pucetti picked up his glass and swirled his wine around; to give him something to look at while he spoke, Brunetti thought. 'The guys in the squad room were talking about Cavanella, and one of them Corolla said he used to play soccer over here, and they would let him Cavanella, that is play goalie because they felt sorry for him. He fell down a lot, but he played well enough: besides, no one ever does want to be goalie.'

'He said they all tried to make him feel good,' Pucetti went on. 'Smacking him on the shoulder when he caught the ball or blocked a goal.'

That explained, Brunetti called them back to business by looking at Pucetti and asking, 'What did you make of her story?' Then, to aid him, he added, 'Two possibilities we've come up with, which are that she stole the baby' he smiled to suggest that this was not to be taken seriously 'or that she raised the child for a relative. Or it could even have been a friend, I suppose.' Then, in fairness before Pucetti committed himself to either proposition, Brunetti added, 'I don't think either one has any merit.' He had seen, or thought he had seen, the resemblance between their faces and did not doubt for an instant that Signora Cavanella was the mother of the dead man.

'Neither do I,' added Vianello. 'I think the obvious reason is that she wasn't married to the father.'

'What difference does that make?' Pucetti asked. The question, but even more the clear perplexity on his face, showed his age and the generation from which he came.

'It was like that, Roberto,' Vianello assured him. 'Believe me. And when your grandparents were your age, women with illegitimate children were shunned by all decent people; sometimes their children were taken from them and put into orphanages.'

The older men watched Pucetti process this tale, his incomprehension as evident as if he had been told that children in former times went to work at the age of eight. Perhaps because Brunetti's grandparents had lived with the family for the first ten years of his life, he was aware in a visceral, real sense of the way things used to be. Pucetti had grown up in a world of computers and an elastic ethical system, so the thought that a woman would be shunned for being unmarried at the time of the birth of her child would be as bizarre to him as the idea that people would be willing to die in defence of an idea rather than the possession of an object.

The older men seemed to decide at the same moment that persisting in a history lesson was futile. Brunetti asked, 'Did she say anything else?'

Pucetti, also glad to return to the present, said, 'She elaborated a bit on her story about France. It turns out that her husband was French and left her soon after he brought them back to Italy.'

'Where she said his parents were living?' asked a sceptical Brunetti.

Pucetti smiled. 'She told me she felt so threatened by you that she got things all mixed up. It seems they went to his parents in France, and then they came back to Italy, though she didn't say where.' His voice was neutral, leaving the other men to believe what they would of the story. 'He stayed with them for only a short time, and then he went back to France and she never heard from him again.'

'She called him her husband?' Vianello asked.

Pucetti shrugged. 'I had the feeling it might have been a courtesy title. And she seemed uncertain about where they were living in France.'

'She mentioned Poitiers,' Brunetti reminded him.

'I know,' Pucetti said with a very sly smile.

Vianello reached across the table and poked Pucetti in the arm. 'Come on, Roberto, what else have you done that makes you look so proud of yourself?'

'I told her I'd been there once, with my parents, when I was a kid, and I loved playing on the beach.'

Vianello propped his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hands. He shook his head, and from behind his hands came his muffled voice, 'Oh, you sly bastard.' Then he asked, looking at him directly, 'What did she say?'

'That with the baby she never had time to go to the beach. But that her husband told her it was very beautiful.' After a brief hesitation, Pucetti said, his regret audible, 'It was too easy, really. I almost felt sorry for her.'

His use of that 'almost' did not go unheard by Brunetti, but he said only, 'So she's never been to Poitiers, but if we ask her about that, she'll just say she had it mixed up with some city that was on the beach. Even if her story's true, there's no way we can check it. The French won't cooperate. I don't believe her story, but if it were true, the baby would be registered under the father's name, and we don't know what that is.'

Pucetti made a small gesture that reminded Brunetti of a student's raising his hand in class. 'If I might ask, Commmissario, why is this so important to you?'

'Because she's telling too many lies,' Brunetti answered without hesitation. 'I want to know what she's lying about.'

He decided to tell them something he had realized after his conversation with Rizzardi. 'He can't be buried