Brunetti wanted to explain that Pucetti had not been wearing his gun that morning, but he realized it made no difference. He had lost control of himself, or would have, which merited an official reprimand, but Brunetti’s grandstanding had eliminated that possibility. Wasn’t what he had done to save Pucetti a distortion of the truth? Was it any different from kicking a weapon closer to the fallen body of an attacker who might have been about to use it? Or saying that the suspect had resisted arrest and had to be restrained?
‘You’re right,’ Brunetti said. ‘I didn’t think. All I wanted to do was stop him before he did anything violent.’
‘You’re his boss, Guido, not his father.’
‘Would you do the same thing to stop one of your students from ruining his career?’ he asked, knowing it was not at all the same thing, not really.
‘I probably would,’ she said and got to her feet.
Her answer didn’t change much, he realized. He had done it and would do it again. Where could he find another Pucetti?
‘And so?’ he asked.
She let a moment pass and then said, ‘We were talking about your running away.’
‘You make me sound like a child,’ he said petulantly.
‘Not at all, Guido. I’ve watched you during the last few months, and I agree with you that you need to get away from waiting for the next horrible case you’ll have to work on.’
In all these years, she had never criticized the work he did: she had always been the interested, supportive wife, who listened to him as he described the mayhem he had observed and the consequences of the violence that lay so close to the surface of human behaviour. She had listened to his accounts of murder, rape, arson, violence, and she’d had the grace to ask him questions and had often suggested new ways to view people and events.
And in return, he asked himself, how much interest had he paid to the work that was equally part of her life? He had turned her passion for the prose of Henry James into a running gag and had refused to read more than a few of his books. Murder was for real men, and books were for girls. And now he couldn’t bear it any more, and she was encouraging him to run away from it.
‘I’ve just had a vacation,’ he reminded her.
‘That was two months ago, and you didn’t like it.’
‘It rained all the time,’ he said, remembering how he’d sulked his way through London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, complaining about the rain and the lousy coffee, not caring that his mood dampened his family’s spirits as much as did the weather.
‘We can talk about this when you come home,’ she said. ‘Did they tell you when that will be?’
‘No. Only that they have to do more tests,’ he said, sounding casual.
‘Does that mean they’ve found something?’ Paola asked, sounding anything but casual.
The door opened, and Dottoressa Sanmartini came in. ‘Good afternoon, Signora,’ she said coolly. ‘Might I ask you to leave me alone with my patient?’
Ordinarily, Paola would have reacted to any sarcasm lurking among the words, but there was none, only the request of one polite person to another. She said, ‘Of course, Dottoressa,’ and left the room.
‘Would you like to sit on the bed, Signor Brunetti?’ the doctor asked.
Brunetti sat and waited for her to continue, curious about what a civilian would think of the costs of their work.
When she realized that he was not going to prompt or question her, she went on, ‘You must sometimes have to deal with dreadful people who have done terrible things and are incapable of seeing them as that.’ Had someone played her the tape of the conversation with Ruggieri? he wondered wildly.
‘You’ve certainly seen the results of what people can do to one another,’ she added.
‘You’ve see the same things, Dottoressa, I’d imagine,’ he said.
‘Yes, but my responsibility ends when I cure the victim of her wounds.’ Interesting, Brunetti thought, that she automatically said ‘her’. ‘I don’t have to listen to the person who did it deny what he did or say that he had the right to do it.’
‘And you think this could lead to what’s wrong with me?’ Brunetti asked.
She set the papers down and turned the full attention of her eyes towards him. ‘Signor Brunetti, may I speak frankly?’
‘If you’re my doctor, don’t you have that obligation?’ he asked.
She made a noise, something between a snort and a laugh. ‘Hardly.’
‘Then yes, please speak frankly.’
She indicated the file. ‘I think the results in there have very little to do with what’s wrong with you.’
Brunetti shrugged and waited for her to continue. When she did not, he asked, ‘Then what does?’
‘Your work. The need to do something when you can do nothing.’
She looked down, studying either her answer or her feet. Eyes still lowered, she said, ‘Because of the limits put on your powers, you can only arrest and question people you believe guilty of a crime. You can’t do anything to them, and you have little chance of making them see what it is they’ve done.’
She raised her eyes and looked at him. ‘That’s why I said “need”, Signore. I’m talking about a sense of ethical obligation. Because you consider yourself powerless, you ended up here.’
‘You make it sound like a very simple conclusion, Dottoressa,’ Brunetti said quite amiably.
‘When I look at the results of your tests, it is simple,’ she answered. ‘Would you like to know why?’
‘Yes.’
She picked up the file and opened it, then said, ‘I spent some time looking at these results, and I find no sign that you had a heart attack, nor demonstrable problems with your heart. The electrocardiogram and ultrasound are normal, and there’s no sign of problems with your blood enzymes.’
Brunetti flashed a relieved smile and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘That’s a great relief,’ he said, feeling uncomfortable at continuing with his performance as a worried patient.
‘But your blood pressure is very high: 180 over 110.’
Brunetti made no attempt to disguise his nervousness.
‘In your case, since there’s no sign of damage – of any sort – to the tissue of the heart, what’s left is stress.’
Brunetti interrupted here to ask, ‘Is that better or worse, Dottoressa?’
‘Neither better nor worse, Signore.’ She left him time to digest that, then said, ‘I’ve made copies of our results. You can show them to your own doctor. My diagnosis is that you are at risk because of stress, and you should do something to reduce it.’
‘I’m too old to find a new job, Dottoressa,’ he said.
Finally, she smiled. ‘And too young to retire, I’d venture.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Nonetheless, and regardless of your age, I think what you need, Signor Brunetti, is time away from the circumstances that cause your stress. I’ve indicated that in my report, which says that you are suffering from exhaustion brought on by your work that might have adverse consequences for your heart.’
‘Does that mean what I think it does?’ he asked.