‘She wanted a vodka and orange juice, and I asked her if she were old enough to have one.’
Brunetti conjured a smile. ‘And she said?’ he asked.
‘That she was eighteen, and if I didn’t believe her, she’d find someone else who would.’
Imitating a look he had often seen on the face of his mother’s aunt Anna, Brunetti brought his lips together in a tiny moue of disapproval. Beside him, Pucetti shifted in his seat.
‘Not a very polite answer,’ Brunetti said primly.
Ruggieri ran a hand through his dark hair and gave a weary shrug. ‘It’s what we get from them today, I’m afraid. Just because they’re old enough to vote and drink doesn’t mean they know how to behave.’
Brunetti found it interesting that Ruggieri again remarked on her age.
‘Avvocato,’ Brunetti began with every sign of reluctance, ‘the reason I asked you to come in and talk with us is that you’ve been said to have given her some pills.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Ruggieri said, sounding puzzled. Then he gave an easy smile meant to include Brunetti and added, ‘I’ve been said to have done many things.’
Smiling nervously in return, Brunetti went on, ‘The girl – I’m sure you’ve read – was taken to the hospital. The Carabinieri questioned a number of people and were told you’d been speaking to a girl wearing a green dress.’
‘Who were they?’ Ruggieri’s voice was sharp.
Brunetti held up both hands in a gesture bespeaking weakness. ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you, Avvocato.’
‘So people are free to lie about me and I can’t even defend myself against them?’
‘I’m sure there will be a time for that, Signore,’ Brunetti said, leaving it to the lawyer to work out when that might be.
Ignoring Brunetti’s answer, Ruggieri asked, ‘What else did they say?’
Brunetti shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. ‘I’m not at liberty to say that, either, Signore.’
Ruggieri looked away and studied the wall, as though there might be some other person hiding behind it. ‘I hope they said something about the girl.’
‘What about her?’
‘The way she was all over me,’ Ruggieri said angrily, the first strong emotion he’d shown since they entered the room.
‘Well, someone did say that her behaviour was, er, forward,’ Brunetti answered, letting the word stumble out.
‘That’s putting it mildly,’ Ruggieri said and sat up straighter in his chair. ‘She was leaning against me. That was after I brought her the drink. Then she started to move to the music, against my leg. She put the glass – it was chilled from the ice – between her breasts. They were almost hanging out of her dress.’ Ruggieri sounded indignant at the shamelessness of youth.
‘I see, I see,’ Brunetti said. He was conscious of the tension mounting in Pucetti beside him. The junior officer had recently questioned a young man accused of violence against his girlfriend and had produced a report that was professionally neutral.
‘Did she say anything to you, Signore?’
Ruggieri considered this, started to speak, stopped, then went on. ‘She told me she was hot because of me.’ He paused to let the other men understand fully. ‘Then she asked if there was some place we could go, just the two of us.’
‘Good heavens,’ said an astonished Brunetti. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘I wasn’t interested. That’s what I told her. I don’t like it when it’s that easy to get.’ Seeing Brunetti’s nod of agreement, the lawyer went on, ‘And no matter what these people told you, I don’t know anything about any pills.’
‘Was the girl you talked to wearing a green dress?’ Brunetti asked.
Eventually, the lawyer gave a boyish smile and answered, ‘She might have been. I was looking at her tits, not the dress.’
Brunetti felt Pucetti’s reaction. To cover the young man’s slow intake of breath, he slapped his hand to his mouth and failed to stifle his appreciative chuckle.
Ruggieri smiled broadly and, perhaps encouraged by it, said, ‘I suppose I could have taken her somewhere and done her, but it was hardly worth the effort. Nice tits, but she was a stupid cow.’
Brunetti and Pucetti had learned an hour before the interview that the girl had died in the hospital earlier that morning. The immediate cause of death was an asthma attack; the presence in her blood of Ecstasy provided another. Beside him, Brunetti heard the rough grind of the feet of Pucetti’s chair against the cement floor of the interrogation room. From the corner of his left eye, he saw Pucetti’s legs pull back as the young man got ready to stand.
Fear of what would happen gripped Brunetti’s heart, and his left arm shot up as a low grunt escaped him. This changed to a sharp whining sound that rose up the scale as if forced out by pain. Brunetti lunged crookedly to his feet, gasping for breath while pumping out the tortured whine.
The two other men froze in shock and stared at him. Brunetti pivoted to his left, propelled by a force that shifted his entire body. Arm still raised above his head, he collapsed towards Pucetti, his arm crashing down on Pucetti’s shoulder as the young officer rose from his chair.
Self-protection, perhaps, forced Brunetti’s hand to grab at Pucetti’s collar and yank the younger man towards him. Pucetti automatically braced his left palm flat on the table, arm straight, elbow locked, and took Brunetti’s weight as it fell across him. He turned and wrapped his right arm around the Commissario’s chest, steadied him, and started to lower him to the floor, fighting down his panic.
Pucetti shouted to Ruggieri, ‘Go and get help!’ From his place above Brunetti, feeling for his heartbeat, Pucetti saw the other man’s legs and feet under the table: they did not move.
‘But there’s nothing—’ Ruggieri started to say, but Pucetti cut him off and screamed again, ‘Get help!’ The legs moved; the door opened and closed.
Pucetti leaned down over his superior, who lay on his back, eyes closed, breathing normally. ‘Commissario, Commissario, can you hear me? What’s wrong? What happened?’
Brunetti’s eyes snapped open and he looked into Pucetti’s.
‘Are you all right, Commissario?’ Pucetti asked, struggling for calm.
In an entirely normal voice, as if making a point about proper procedure, Brunetti asked, ‘Do you know what would have happened to your career if you’d attacked him?’
2
Pucetti pulled himself back from the supine man. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘You were about to grab him, weren’t you?’ Brunetti demanded, making no attempt to temper his reproach.