Signorina Elettra had her way. Lieutenant Scarpa found an opportunity to explain his second thoughts to Dottor Gottardi, and the magistrate in his turn suggested to Brunetti that he resume his investigation of that poor handicapped girl and of the the murder of the man who had saved her. The hotel and bed and breakfast investigation was given to another commissario – luckily, not to Claudia Griffoni who, it was feared, might not be sufficiently aware of the many tangled obligations and relationships that existed between and among those requesting and those granting the permits necessary in this expanding business.
Once the case was back in his charge, however, Brunetti made little progress. Cavanis proved to have had few friends. He had used his telefonino rarely and within a narrow scope. Aside from the calls made just before his death, he had recently phoned an aunt in Torino, Stefano dalla Lana, the number which gave the forecast of the time and height of acqua alta, and the Giorgione movie theatre. Only the aunt and dalla Lana had phoned him in the last four months.
Brunetti was almost relieved when a Chinese-run and staffed bordello was discovered in Lista di Spagna, not far from the train station, and he was asked by another magistrate to look into it. It was banal, really, but the interviews and the follow-up arrests, which led to more interviews and more arrests, all rose upwards on the feeding chain of organized prostitution in the province.
As this investigation mutated and took up more and more of his time, Brunetti thought less often about the dead man and the horror of the first sight of that knife.
In the second week of November, late in the afternoon of the feast of San Martino, Brunetti left the Questura early, hoping to see the children on the street banging their pots and pans and asking passers-by for coins. He had done the same as a boy, though he had never understood the reason for the custom. That had made no difference to him, happy as he had been then to get the money and happy now to be able to give it away.
He saw three or four groups and gave each of them a few euros, delighting them with his generosity. As he turned into Ruga Rialto, he was surprised to see Griffoni and Manuela approaching him. At first he took them for mother and daughter, walking arm in arm, heads together, talking and laughing. Griffoni smiled to see him, and Manuela politely extended her hand as if she had never met him.
‘We’ve just been to visit the Contessa,’ Griffoni explained. Turning to the other woman, she said, ‘What’s the price on those grey shoes in that window, Manuela? Can you see?’
The window was on the other side of the calle, so Manuela had to move away from them to go and have a look. In her absence, Griffoni said, ‘I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this, but the Contessa keeps asking me if we’ve learned anything.’ She kept her voice entirely neutral; there was no hint of reproach.
‘How is she?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Old and weak,’ Griffoni said.
‘How often do you go to see her?’
‘Not as often as she’d like,’ Griffoni said. They were interrupted by a group of five boys, who surrounded them and beat their wooden spoons on the bottoms of their pots, chanting the same song about San Martino that Brunetti had shouted out in his own time. He gave them two euros and off they went to encircle an elderly couple, who seemed as delighted by the noise as Brunetti had been.
Turning back to Griffoni, Brunetti said, ‘And the . . .’ then caught himself just as he was about to refer to Manuela as ‘the girl’ and changed it to ‘Manuela’, but it was awkwardly done, and he was embarrassed.
‘She loves to be out and walking and seeing things,’ Griffoni said as Manuela came back to her.
‘I didn’t see a tag,’ she told Griffoni, looking back and forth between her and Brunetti. ‘Is that all right?’ she asked, and he winced at the vulnerability in her voice.
‘Of course it is, Tesoro,’ Griffoni said, linking her arm in hers. ‘If they were stupid enough not to put a price on them, then we’re not interested, and that’s that.’
Manuela smiled and shook her head. ‘They’re not for us, are they?’
‘Not at all,’ Griffoni confirmed and patted her arm. Then, in a grown-up voice, the one used for teaching manners, she said, ‘Say goodbye to Dottor Brunetti, Manuela.’ After the young woman had dutifully done this, Griffoni said, careful to address the remark to Manuela, ‘Maybe we’ll see him again at your grandmother’s.’
‘That would be very nice,’ Manuela said pleasantly, proof of how well she had learned her manners.