his wife’s name. Then, as time passed, they could transfer it to the boys.’ Vianello sighed.

‘But they didn’t?’

Vianello shook his head, finished his drink, and went to get another, not bothering to ask Brunetti if he wanted one. Brunetti finished his and slid the glass over near the wall.

Vianello was quickly back, but this time the glasses contained only mineral water and ice. Brunetti took his gratefully; the melting ice had ruined the first one, diluting the Campari and rendering the prosecco flat and tasteless.

‘Why does she want to sell it?’ he asked.

‘To get money,’ Vianello said and drank some of his water.

‘Come on, Lorenzo. Either tell me about this or we go back to work.’

Vianello propped his elbows on the table, his open palms pressed to either side of his mouth. Finally he said, ‘I think she wants to give it to a soothsayer.’

5

‘Gesù Bambino,’ Brunetti whispered; then, remembering what Vianello had told him, asked, ‘The magazines?’

‘That’s just a part of it,’ Vianello answered, his distress audible. He put his right hand inside the open collar of his shirt and ran his hand up his neck. ‘God, I hate this heat. There’s no way to get away from it.’

Brunetti avoided the distraction and took another sip of his water. He and Vianello had interrogated so many witnesses and suspects together that there was no tactic they had not been exposed to. He sat back with his arms folded, the very model of patience.

Vianello leaned back, as well. ‘I told you that’s how it started: reading the horoscopes. And the radio programme in the morning, and then she discovered those private channels where they have the people who read the cards.’ He made a fist with his right hand and banged it on the table, but lightly to show it was a gesture and not an act of rage.

‘One of her friends told her about the programmes, how much help they were to the people who called.’

‘What does your aunt need help with?’ Brunetti could not stop himself from asking. From the way Vianello had spoken of her over the years, she had always sounded like the pillar of strength and certainty in the family.

Something flashed across Vianello’s face, something Brunetti had never seen, at least never seen directed at him. ‘I’m coming to that, Guido,’ he said. Vianello must have been startled by his own voice because he opened his fist and spread his arm along the top of the bench, as if offering his open hand as an apology.

Brunetti smiled but said nothing.

Vianello continued. ‘She liked the way the people who read the cards gave advice to everyone who called. They seemed sensible. That’s what she told her children.’ Vianello paused, as if to invite questions, but Brunetti had none to ask.

‘That’s how I learned about this,’ the Inspector continued. ‘A few months ago, my cousin Loredano mentioned it to me, almost as a joke: something his mother had got interested in. Like she was listening to Radio Maria or had started to read gardening magazines. He didn’t think much of it, but then his sister, my cousin Marta, called me about a month after that and told me she was worried about their mother, that she talked about it all the time and really seemed to believe in all this horoscope stuff.

‘She didn’t know what to do, Marta.’ Vianello finished his glass of water and set it on the table. ‘I didn’t, either. She was worried, but Loredano thought it would pass, and I guess I thought it would, too, or I wanted to believe that because it was easier.’ He looked across at Brunetti and pulled up one side of his mouth in a wry grimace. ‘I think we all wanted it not to be a problem. So we ignored it and pretended it wasn’t happening.’

There was noise at the door as people came into the bar, but neither of them paid attention to it. Vianello continued: ‘Then Loredano called me about a month ago and told me Zia Anita had taken three thousand Euros out of the company account without telling him.’

He waited for Brunetti to comment, but he did not, so the Inspector went on. ‘Loredano took a look at the bank account and saw that, over the last few months, she’d been taking money from the account: five hundred, three hundred, six hundred at a time. When he asked her about it, all she said was that it was her money and she