waiting for Vianello’s aunt to emerge from this woman’s house.

He saw the plain coffin, the three wreaths, smelled the incense. ‘But at least it was short,’ he told Paola. ‘Then they took her to San Michele.’

‘And you came up here?’ she asked.

Brunetti hesitated for some time and then said, ‘I did a favour for Vianello first.’

‘What?’

‘I talked to his aunt.’

Paola could not hide her surprise. ‘But I thought she was away for two weeks with her son.’

Brunetti got up and tossed a log on to the fire, poked it into place with the end of another one, and went back to the sofa. ‘Why do we love fires so much?’ he asked.

‘Atavistic. We can’t help it. Caves. Mammoths. Tell me about Vianello’s aunt,’ Paola said, drink forgotten in her hand.

‘His cousin called him the night before and told him she’d gone back to Venice, so we went by to see her after the funeral.’

‘As if the funeral weren’t enough, eh?’ she asked, patting his knee.

Brunetti said, ‘It was better, really. Lorenzo’s talked about me, so she had an idea of who I am. And I think she trusted me. No matter how angry she was with her son or with him, she still listened to me.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Everything we learned about Gorini,’ Brunetti said. ‘I took along the police reports.’

‘Thus violating the law on privacy?’ she inquired.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Good. What did she say?’

‘She read them all. She asked me about some of them; what the different branches of the police did and whether the documents were believable.’

‘You told her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where was Vianello during all of this?’

‘Sitting on a chair, pretending to be invisible.’

‘And? Did she believe you?’

‘In the end, she really had no choice,’ Brunetti said. The vigorous woman he had so recently followed down Via Garibaldi had sat between him and Vianello, face tear-stained, silent and tense; one wrinkled hand clutching at the papers, as if she could somehow squeeze the truth from them.

‘What happened?’

‘It took her some time, and then she told us,’ Brunetti said, not describing the way the old woman had let the papers fall to the ground as she searched for a handkerchief to wipe her face and eyes, ‘that she’d been buying special tisane for her husband after his lab results said he had the beginnings of diabetes.’ He uncorked the bottle and added some schnapps to his glass, then slapped the cork back in with his palm.

‘Then she told Vianello she’d been a fool,’ he said, his voice lightening with the word, ‘and wanted to call her son and apologize.’

‘What did Vianello do?’

‘He told her not to be a fool herself and that he’d take her back to her family to finish her vacation.’

‘And you?’ she asked.

‘I got on the train to come up here,’ he said, not mentioning his irritation with what he suspected were histrionics on the part of Vianello’s aunt. During his career, Brunetti had seen and heard so many timely tears that it was difficult for him to be easily convinced of their sincerity.

‘What about Gorini?’ Paola asked.

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? He’s gone. We went to Montini’s home after she was dead, but there was no sign of him. Nothing.’ He swirled the liqueur in his glass but drank none.

‘What will happen?’ Paola asked.

‘To him? Nothing, probably. He’ll move somewhere else and find some other gullible woman, and then he’ll find more gullible people.’

‘Like Vianello’s aunt?’

‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Or people like her.’

Abandoning Vianello’s aunt and people like her to their beliefs, Paola asked, ‘And the Fulgonis?’

Brunetti made a puffing noise and took a small sip of the schnapps. ‘She says she came down and found Fontana on the ground and pulled off her sweater to try to stop the bleeding. Then her husband came out of the storeroom, and she understood what had been going on and what had happened. She says she ran back upstairs but couldn’t bring herself to call the police.’

‘And her story about hearing the church bells? Why would she tell that unless she wanted it to sound as if he was murdered later that night?’

‘She said it was her husband’s idea to tell me, so that it would seem as though Fontana had been murdered after they went upstairs. If there was no body when they came in, and it was already after midnight, then the obvious conclusion would be that Fontana was killed after they went upstairs.’

‘Then why did she tell you about the sweater in the first place?’

Brunetti had thought about that during the long train ride from Venice. ‘Who knows? Maybe she thought someone had seen her husband outside, and she thought it would be best to tell the police he had gone out. That way, we might believe the rest.’

‘Was she trying to protect him, do you think?’ she asked.

‘Maybe. At the beginning,’ Brunetti said.

‘Then why lie and say it was his sweater?’

Brunetti shrugged. ‘Surprise? Or she instinctively wanted to distance herself from the crime, or she wanted suspicion to fall on him. Or maybe she’s just a bad liar.’

‘How will it end?’ she asked.

Brunetti leaned forward and set his empty glass on the table, then sat back and sank even deeper into the sofa. ‘Until one of them confesses, it will all lead to nothing.’

‘And if neither one does?’

‘Then the case will churn on for ever, and the lawyers will pick their bones clean,’ Brunetti explained.

‘Isn’t there enough to convict either one of them?’ Paola asked, confusion and irritation fighting for dominance in her voice.

Brunetti, if only to keep himself from sinking into sleep, pushed himself up and went over to the fire again, but only to feel its warmth. How strange, yet how delicious, the feel of heat on his legs. He looked out of the window that gave to the north and pointed towards a slant of white that glistened in the light of the moon. He could form no clear idea of the distance: it was far away, yet it seemed very close. ‘Is that the Ortler?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

He moved away from the heat but returned to her question. ‘There’s enough evidence to convict either one of them, but the real problem is that there’s enough evidence to convict both of them.’ He thought with disgust of the media spectacle that was sure to ensue: blood and death and illicit sex among the birdcages. It had everything, and more, that an avid public could devour. ‘But that’s not likely.’

‘Do you believe him?’ Paola asked.

After some time, Brunetti said, ‘I’d like to.’ Then, after a longer pause, he added, ‘I’m afraid of that.’

Paola waited until she was sure he was finished, and said, ‘Let’s go to bed.’

Later, Brunetti lay awake, looking off at the Ortler, visible from their bed: gleaming bright, beaming in the absence of men.

‘My talisman,’ Brunetti said, took his wife in his arms, and slept.