could.’

‘Until someone from the family got there to see where she went?’ Brunetti asked, failing to disguise his astonishment. ‘Cops and robbers?’

Vianello shook his head, eyes still on his fingers. ‘I wish it were that easy.’

‘It’s not easy,’ Brunetti said. ‘It’s crazy.’

‘I thought so, too,’ Vianello said. ‘That’s what I told them.’

‘So?’

‘So they want me to do it.’

Brunetti found no words. He looked across at his friend, who continued to study his hands. Finally Brunetti said, ‘That’s crazier.’

‘That’s what I told them, too.’

‘Lorenzo,’ Brunetti said, ‘I don’t want to have to sit here and prise this out of you. What are you going to do?’

‘I thought about this while I was listening to her – some way to see what she’s doing – but the only idea I could come up with involves you. Sort of.’

‘Involves me how?’

‘I need you to let me do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Ask some of the guys if they’ll help me.’

‘Help you follow your aunt?’

‘Yes. I thought Pucetti would be willing to do it if I asked him.’ Vianello looked across at Brunetti, face tense. ‘If they did it in their free time, when they’re not working, then there wouldn’t be anything illegal about it, not really.’

‘They’d just be taking a walk through the city, minding their own business,’ Brunetti snapped. ‘Just happening to be going in the same direction as the little old lady with all that cash in her purse.’ He felt a rush of indignation. Had the police been reduced to this?

‘Guido,’ Vianello said, voice dead level. ‘I know how it appears and what it sounds like, but it’s the only way to find out what she’s doing with it.’

‘And if she’s been lying to you all, and she ends up going down to the Casinò to lose it all in the slot machines?’ Brunetti demanded.

Vianello surprised him by taking him seriously. ‘Then we can get her barred from the Casinò.’

Brunetti changed his tone and asked, ‘And if she goes in somewhere and comes out without the money? Then what? You and your cousins go in and beat up whoever has the money and take it back?’

‘No,’ Vianello said calmly. ‘Then perhaps we see if there are any more little old ladies going into the same address with cash in their purses.’

Surprise stopped Brunetti from answering immediately, and when he did speak, all he could say was, ‘Oh my, oh my, oh my.’ And then, ‘Is that what you think?’

‘I don’t know what I think,’ Vianello answered. ‘But my aunt is no fool, so whoever is convincing her to give them money – if that’s what’s happening, and she’s not losing it all on the slot machines – is also not a fool, so it’s a fair bet that she’s not the only one involved in this.’

Brunetti pushed himself out of the booth and went over to the counter, where he got two more glasses of mineral water and took them back to Vianello. He set the glasses down and slipped back into his seat.

‘There’s a way we can do it officially,’ Brunetti said.

‘How?’

‘Isn’t Scarpa running the training classes for new officers?’

‘Yes, but I don’t see . . .’

‘And one of the things they’re supposed to learn, if they’re not Venetian, is how to follow someone in the city.’

Flawlessly, Vianello picked it up and ran. ‘And since Scarpa isn’t Venetian, he hasn’t got an idea of how to do it.’

‘Which means,’ Brunetti concluded, ‘that he has to let the Venetians show them how to do it.’

Vianello picked up his glass and raised it to Brunetti. ‘I know it’s wrong to toast with water, but still . . .’ He drank some and set the glass on the table.

‘And so all we’ve got to do,’ Vianello began, heartening Brunetti with his casual use of the plural, ‘is ask Signorina Elettra to see that the right Venetians are assigned to lead the detail. It won’t make any difference to Scarpa: he distrusts and dislikes us all equally.’

Vianello turned towards the counter and waved a hand in Bambola’s direction. ‘Would you bring us two glasses of prosecco, please?’

6

Not only was it too hot to think about crossing the city to go home for lunch; it was too hot to think about eating. Brunetti went back to the Questura with Vianello, saying he would speak to Signorina Elettra about the schedule for Scarpa’s orientation classes, but when he got to her office, she was gone. He went back to his own and called Paola, who sounded almost relieved