Common as this might be in any other city, the attack astonished Brunetti. This sort of crime did not happen here. Had seldom happened here: he corrected himself.
‘You talked to him?’ At her nod, Brunetti added, ‘What did he say?’
‘That he was too drunk to defend himself, especially against two of them.’
‘Was he badly hurt?’
‘His head needed a couple of stitches, and he’s bruised, but nothing’s broken.’ After a moment, she added, ‘It could have been much worse, I suppose.’
‘The girl?’
‘No sign of her. He didn’t remember anything about her except that she spoke a little English and seemed to know the way they were going. He doesn’t know what happened to her.’
‘So she could have led him there,’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Or she could have reacted with good sense and run like hell when the punching started,’ Griffoni shot back.
‘Of course,’ Brunetti temporized. ‘Did you get a description?’ he asked.
‘He was still fuddled when I talked to him,’ Griffoni said. ‘I don’t know if it was the drink or the shock or maybe what they gave him when they put the stitches in his head. He wouldn’t know them if he saw them, although he’d remember the girl.’
‘You think it’s worth pursuing?’ he asked her.
She waved the notebook in a vague circle and said, ‘I doubt it. There’s no video camera near there. He doesn’t remember what bar he was in or how they got to where it happened: everything looked the same to him. He thought they went over three or four bridges.’
‘So it could have been anywhere,’ Brunetti observed.
‘Exactly.’ They began to climb the steps. At the second landing, she stopped and asked, ‘May I say something that will sound strange?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where I last worked, this sort of thing happened ten times a night, twenty. Every night; more on the weekends. We kept up a steady stream in and out of the hospitals.’
‘Naples,’ he stated. He knew it was her home as well as her last posting.
‘Casa mia,’ she said with a laugh.
‘And so?’ Brunetti asked.
‘One mugging – and it’s only the third since I’ve been here – and I’m shocked by it. When I realize that, I begin to suspect I’ve been reassigned to a different planet.’ She shook her head in wonder.
Brunetti turned to the last flight of steps that would take him up to his office but stopped and turned back to her. ‘We’re spoiled, aren’t we?’ he asked.
She pulled her lips together, the way a student would when confronted with a difficult question from a teacher, perhaps a trick question. Brunetti watched her formulate her answer. ‘Perhaps it would be better to say that you’re lucky,’ she finally said.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ he asked, gesturing towards the notebook that was still in her hand.
She tilted her head and raised one shoulder in a resigned gesture. ‘Unless the girl suddenly shows up and gives us a description of the two men, there’s nothing we can do.’
‘Other than sit and wait for them to come in and confess?’ Brunetti suggested.
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she agreed drily.
‘Then if there’s nothing for you to do, come up to my office and let me tell you about another case where it seems there is little to be done.’
It took Brunetti some time to tell her about Contessa Lando-Continui and her granddaughter, as Griffoni frequently interrupted to ask for explanations and write the answers in her notebook.
When he was finished, though the events made no more sense to him than they had before he tried to explain them, Brunetti was aware of how strong were the opinions he had formed of people he had never met. He felt nothing but pity for Manuela, whom he continued to think of as a girl, although she was at least thirty. He disliked her mother, whom he defined in Paola’s terms as someone who had ‘thrown her life away’. Unfortunately, she might somehow have created the circumstances in which her daughter’s could be thrown away, as well. The father was little more than a shadow with a double name. An emotional Schettino, he had stayed on board his own Costa Concordia until the marital seas got rough and then jumped ship and found a new crew with whom to sail away from the wreck. Brunetti realized he also pitied Contessa Lando-Continui for her aching need to know what had happened to her granddaughter before she ceased knowing anything at all.
‘You really convinced Patta to ask a magistrate to open a case?’ Griffoni asked with open admiration.
‘I told you what he’s getting in return,’ Brunetti answered.
‘You make it sound so easy,’ she said.
Brunetti laughed. ‘I’ve known him so long, I’ve begun to feel something close to affection for him,’ he confessed. Seeing her surprise, he added, ‘Though only at times.’