for years, and Commissario Griffoni, because of her exemplary conduct at another Questura, has been assigned here.’ This was not strictly the truth. In fact, it was a lie. Claudia Griffoni, Brunetti had discovered only after she had been at the Questura for almost a year, had been sent there because she had been too active in her investigation of the business activities of one of the politicians of the party currently holding the majority in Parliament. Her questore had warned her, as had two magistrates who were working on the same investigation. Both of them had told her to be less obvious, not to speak to the press, but the press had not been able to resist a story in which the conflicting parts were played by a convicted criminal and a very attractive female police commissario, who just happened to be blonde, and whose father had been seriously wounded in a Mafia attempt on his life two decades before.

A week after a story appeared, stating that the politician was the subject of a police investigation, Griffoni had found herself transferred to Venice, a city not famed for active interference in the doings of either the members of the political class or the Mafia.

Brunetti was pulled back from these reflections by the voice of Signora Fontana, who said to Vianello, ‘Ispettore, perhaps you could bring chairs for your colleagues?’

When the four of them were sitting in a rough circle, Brunetti said, ‘Signora, I realize this is going to be a terribly hard time for you. Not only have you suffered an unbearable loss, but you will now have to suffer the invasion of the press and public.’

‘And police,’ she said instantly.

He gave an easy smile and nodded. ‘And the police, Signora. But the difference is that we are interested in finding the person who did this: the press has other goals.’

Vianello sat up straighter and turned to Brunetti. ‘Signora Fontana has already had an offer from a magazine. To tell her story. And her son’s.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, turning to the woman. ‘What did you tell them?’

‘The Ispettore spoke to them for me,’ she said. ‘And told them I was not interested, which I am not.’ She brought her lips together in an expression of prim disapproval, but her eyes were careful to watch for Brunetti’s response.

He nodded in open approval, giving her what he thought she wanted.

‘It won’t change what they write,’ Vianello interrupted to say, ‘but of course they won’t be able to use family photos.’

‘At least not from my side of the family,’ Signora Fontana said with more than a touch of asperity.

Brunetti let it pass as though he had not heard and asked, ‘Have you any idea who might have wanted to hurt your son, Signora?’

She shook her head furiously, but not a single lock of her permed hair fell out of place. ‘No one could want to hurt Araldo. He was such a good boy. He was always a good boy. His father raised him that way, and then when his father died, I tried to do the same.’

Griffoni placed her hand on Signora Fontana’s arm and said something Brunetti could not hear, but it had no effect whatsoever on the woman. Indeed, it seemed to spur her on. ‘He was hard-working and honest and devoted to his work. And to me.’ She put her face in her hands and her shoulders moved convulsively, but for some reason Brunetti was not persuaded of the sincerity of her grief until she took her hands away from her face and he saw the tears. Like Saint Thomas, he was convinced then that she did mourn her son, but still he was left uneasy by the manner in which she showed it, as though the round-faced part of her was being instructed by those guarded eyes to behave in a fashion that would persuade.

When she had stopped crying and her handkerchief was clutched in her left hand, Brunetti said, ‘Signora, was it unusual for your son not to return home in the evening?’

She gave him an offended look. Had not her tears washed away the possibility that she would have to answer such questions? ‘I never knew when he returned home, Signore,’ she said, either having forgotten, or choosing to ignore, Brunetti’s rank. ‘He was fifty-two years old, please remember. He had his own life, his own friends, and I tried to interfere as little as I could.’

Griffoni muttered something appreciative of suffering motherhood, and Vianello nodded