and listen, and she continued, ‘Whatever it is they count, it was up near the stars, and the good one was no help at all. Nuria told me that during one of his consultations Gorini recommended some herbal tea – it costs the earth – that he guaranteed would bring it down, and it did, so now she’s convinced he’s a saint and she’s spreading the word among all of our friends.’
‘Do you have an appointment with him?’ Brunetti asked in what he hoped was a conversational tone.
‘Next Tuesday,’ she said and laughed. ‘He’s a clever devil, isn’t he? Makes people wait a week before he’ll talk to them.’
‘Donatella, I’d like you not to go.’
Warned, perhaps, by the change in his voice as much as by his words, the Contessa asked, ‘Is this something I should tell Nuria?’
How to warn off this other woman without frightening his prey? ‘Maybe you could suggest she cancel her appointment.’
The Contessa was silent for some time, and then she asked, ‘Can you tell me about it?’
‘Not now. But I will.’ He realized how quickly he was speaking, hastening her to go.
‘Good. I’ll tell her. Thank you, Guido,’ she said and replaced the phone.
Looking at Vianello, Brunetti asked, ‘You didn’t hear any of it, did you?’
It took the Inspector a moment to sort out which conversation Brunetti was referring to, and when he did, he said, ‘No, nothing. I came in too late.’
‘She did it because she loves him,’ Brunetti told him, oppressed by the sadness of the words.
‘Did what?’ Vianello asked impatiently.
‘She said he – Gorini, I’m sure – was using the lab results – I think this is what it’s got to mean – to convince people he could cure them. She said if he couldn’t use the results then people wouldn’t believe he could help them any more. And then he’d leave her.’ Brunetti raised a hand in a vague gesture of incomprehension or acceptance. ‘So she changed them.’ Vianello had not heard her tell Rizzardi that she had not wanted to cause any trouble, but Brunetti didn’t know if he could bear to repeat that.
Vianello looked around the lab, at the vials of different-coloured fluids still standing upright in the wooden stands, the various machines that had perhaps been too heavy for Signora Montini to try to destroy, and the jars and bottles only a professional could understand the use of. Brunetti could almost hear the Inspector thinking it all out. To aid him, Brunetti said, ‘All he needed was to convince one person that he had worked a cure, and the word would spread.’ He waited, then added, tapping the pocket where he had put his telefonino, ‘My mother-in-law told me a friend of hers is convinced he saved her husband by giving him some herbal tea that gets rid of cholesterol.’
‘It becomes a contest, doesn’t it, once people find someone they think can help them?’ Vianello asked.
‘My doctor’s better than your doctor,’ Brunetti said. ‘Just convince one person you’ve cured them, and soon all their friends will be at your door, and soon you’ll have to beat them off with a boathook.’
‘But the tests?’ Vianello objected. ‘How could he be sure Montini would get to do them?’ Before Brunetti could begin to speculate on that, they were disturbed by a noise at the door. Dottoressa Zeno took a half-step into the lab. ‘Can we come back in?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Brunetti said and started walking towards her. ‘I’d like to talk to you, Dottoressa.’
They soon had a clear idea of how Signora Montini could have done it. Everyone at the lab had worked together for so long that the choice of who would do which tests was often left to choice: usually the first people who came to work in the morning selected the first sample that had been delivered to the lab or the ones they wanted to do, and the others took what was left. Since Signorina Montini was usually the first to get there, she took first choice.
It soon became obvious to Dottoressa Zeno what sort of possibility they were considering, and she told them she could easily check for any tests done by Signora Montini where very bad results had improved over a short time.
The results took her only minutes to find in the computer, and when she printed them out for Brunetti, they were remarkable: among the people whose exams Signora Montini had performed during the last two years, there were more