Suffer the little Children

  'Have you read it?' Brunetti asked.

  The first two paragraphs,' the Inspector said, his eyes on the third.

  Together, they read down the first sheet of paper, then the next, and then the rernaining pages. Pedrolli's visits to fertility specialists appeared to have begun three years before, the year after his marriage.

  At the bottom of two of the pages were what looked to Brunetti to be lab reports: he saw lists of names and lists of numbers which made little sense to him. He did recognize the words 'cholesterol' and 'glucose', though he had no idea what the numbers beside them meant in terms of Pedrolli's health.

  The last page was a report, apparently emailed to ULSS from a clinic in Verona and dated two years ago.

  'Probable malformation of the sperm ducts due to trauma experienced in adolescence,' Brunetti read. 'Sperm production normal, present in testicles, but obstruction of tubes results in total sterility.'

  'Poor devil, eh?' said Vianello.

  Sexual behaviour is the ichor, the very life-blood, of gossip. Remove it, and there is relatively little left to chew over in the lives of other people, certainly very little of any interest, aside from their money or their work or their health. Some people might take an interest in those things, but none of them possesses the all-consuming fascination of sexual behaviour and its consequences. The story of Pedrolli's affair and the subsequent birth of his child - to make no mention of his wife's noble acceptance of that child - was the sort of thing that would make the rounds.

  But here was proof that Pedrolli, regardless of gossip, could not have been the father of the' child and so must have acquired the baby in some other way. One had but to indicate the word 'sterility' to the police, and it would not be long before Pedrolli would be listed among those to be investigated for illegal possession of a child he clearly could not have fathered. Since his name was on the birth certificate along with the mother's, she could be easily located, and then it was only a matter of time before the forces of the state could be expected to arrive to save the child. A person who valued virtuous behaviour would almost be constrained to make such a thing known to the authorities, wouldn't he? Well, unless perhaps a certain sum were to change hands, perhaps at regular intervals?

  Brunetti reassembled the sheaf of papers, careful to keep them in order. 'What else is in there?' he asked, pointing to the file.

  'Pucetti and I have already come across HIV and drug rehabilitation, even a surgeon with a history of hepatitis B.'

  'A gold mine, really,' Brunetti said.

  'I'm afraid so,' Vianello answered.

  'Have you gone through them all?'

  'No, only about half. But I came up here as soon as I saw that Pedrolli was a client of his.'

  'Good,' Brunetti said. 'How many of you are working on this?'

  'Just me and Pucetti,' Vianello said.

  'How do you know what you're finding?'

  Brunetti asked, tapping the medical reports with the back of his fingers.

  'He's at one of the computers. And when he doesn't know what something is, he checks the medical dictionary.'

  'Where'd he get that?' Brunetti enquired.

  'The whole thing's on a disc: her friend sent it when he sent us these lists. He thought it would make things easier for us.'

  'Thoughtful fellow,' observed Brunetti.

  'Yes,' Vianello answered without true conviction.

  'Go back and see what else you can find, all right? I want to read through this again.'

  Vianello moved away from the desk but stopped, looking less than fully persuaded.

  'Go on,' Brunetti said, gesturing towards the door. 'I'll come down soon.'

  He glanced through the papers but with no great interest: he had learned what he needed to know the first time he read them. He looked out the window, suddenly unable to remember, not only what time of day it was, but the season. He got up and went over to the window, opened it. The air was cool, the grass across the way tired and dusty and in need of the rain that seemed to be in the air. His watch showed that it was almost one. He picked up the papers and went downstairs, only to be told that Vianello and Pucetti had gone out for lunch. Paola would be out, so Brunetti was not planning to eat at home. He tried not to feel sorry for himself that his colleagues had not asked him to join them and returned to his office. He dialled the number at the hospital of Ettore Rizzardi, the medico legale of the city, planning to leave a message, and was surprised when the doctor answered the phone.

  'It’s me, Ettore’

  'Hmm?'

  'And good afternoon to you, too, Dottor Rizzardi’ Brunetti said in a voice he made sound as mindlessly cheerful as he could.

  'What is it, Guido?' the doctor asked. 'I'm in the middle of something.'

  'Malformation of the sperm ducts due to a trauma in adolescence?' Brunetti asked.

  'No kids.'

  'One hundred per cent?' 'Probably. Next question?' 'Fixable?'

  'Perhaps. Any more questions?'

  'Personal, not medical,' Brunetti answered. 'About Pedrolli, the paediatrician.'

  ‘I know who he is,' Rizzardi said with some asperity. Tost his son.'

  'What did you hear about how he got his son?'

  'Story I was told said he brought him back from some woman in Cosenza.'

  'What, exactly, did you hear?'

  ‘I told you I was busy with something,' Rizzardi said with exaggerated patience.

  'In a minute. Tell me what you heard.'

  'About Pedrolli?'

  ‘Yes.'

  'That he went to a medical conference in Cosenza, and while he was there he met a woman - one of those things that happen - and then he found out some time later that she was pregnant. And he did the right thing by her and accepted paternity’

  'How did you find out about this, Ettore?'

  There was a long pause before Rizzardi said, ‘I suppose the story just started to spread round at the hospital’

  'Who started it?'

  'Guido,' Rizzardi said with exaggerated politeness, 'It was more than a year ago. I don't remember’

  'Then how did Pedrolli find out?' Brunetti asked. 'Do you know that?' 'Find out what?'

  'That she was pregnant? The woman who was questioned couldn't even remember his name, so how did she find him? He certainly didn't leave her his business card, did he? So how did she find him or how did he find out she was pregnant?' Brunetti insisted, his curiosity running away with him.

  ‘I can't answer any of those questions, Guido,' Rizzardi said, impatience slipping back into his voice.

  'Could you ask around?'

  'I'd rather not,' Rizzardi surprised him by saying. 'He's a colleague’ Then, as if to make up for that, the doctor suggested, 'Why don't you come and ask him yourself?'

  'Is he there?'

  ‘I saw him in the bar this morning, and he was wearing his lab coat, so it would seem so’

  Rizzardi said. Brunetti heard another voice in the background, sounding insistent or angry. Rizzardi said, I've got to go,' and hung up.

  Brunetti was on the point of deciding that he would call Vianello on his telefonino and join his colleagues for lunch, but just at that moment, his own telefimino rang.

  'Pronto’ he said and saw that it was Paola's office number. 'Did you manage to track down your father?'

  'No, he found me. He said he couldn't sleep because of the time difference, so he called to see how we are. He's in La Paz.'

  Ordinarily, the name of the city would have caused Brunetti to joke and ask if her father were there to arrange a deal in cocaine, but the mounting evidence that many, if not most, of the calls made on telefimini were intercepted and recorded dissuaded him from doing so. Instead, Brunetti contented himself with a neutral, 'Ah.'

  'And hell see you at three.'

  'Marcolini?'

  'Certainly not my father,' she said and hung up.

  That left Brunetti just under two hours. If he was able to speak to Pedrolli now, he might be
better prepared to meet the doctor's father-in-law. Perhaps from Pedrolli he could get some sense of whether a man as powerful as Marcolini would use his connections to find a way to return the child to Pedrolli and his wife. Since the child's natural mother seemed to want no part of him, perhaps the authorities would ... Brunetti stopped himself from pursuing this thought. He could not stop himself, however, from remembering how Pedrolli had cradled his missing son in his empty arms, and it made him a victim of his own sentimentality.

  He wrote a note to Vianello, saying he was going to the hospital to speak to Pedrolli and then to Marcolini; he left it downstairs on the Inspector's desk. It had begun to rain, so Brunetti ducked back inside to take an umbrella from the stand where the staff always deposited those umbrellas left behind by visitors.

  Brunetti was glad of the rain, however inconvenient it proved to him or anyone else. The autumn had been a dry one, as had the summer, and Chiara had redoubled her efforts as water monitor of the family. Infected by her constant reminders about the waste of water, Brunetti now found himself asking barmen to turn off taps left running to no purpose, a request which always earned him astonished glances both from staff and from other customers. What surprised him was the frequency with which he found himself having to do it.

  When he reached the hospital, all thought of lunch abandoned, he followed the signs to pediatria. He heard it before he saw it, in the wail of a screaming baby that flooded down the staircase and grew louder as he approached.

  The waiting room was empty, but the sound penetrated even the heavy double doors separating him from the ward. Brunetti. pushed one of them open and went into the corridor. A nurse emerging from one of the rooms came immediately towards him. 'Visiting hours have finished’ she said above the screams.

  Brunetti took his warrant card from his pocket, showed it to her, and said, 'I'd like to speak to Dottor Pedrolli’

  'He's with a patient’ she said sharply, then added, 'Haven't you people done enough to him?'

  'When will he be free?' asked an imperturbable Brunetti. 'I don't know.' 'Is he here?' Brunetti asked. 'Yes, in 216’

  '‘I’ll wait, then, shall I?'Brunetti asked.

  At a loss what to do, she turned and walked away, leaving Brunetti standing by the door. It was then he noticed that the cries of the child had ceased and felt a slackening of the tension in his heart.

  After some time, a bearded man in a white jacket emerged from a room halfway down the corridor and started in Brunetti's direction. Had he seen him on the street, Brunetti would not have recognized Pedrolli. The doctor was taller than he had seemed lying on the hospital bed, and the bruise on his face had all but disappeared.

  'Dottor Pedrolli?' Brunetti asked as the man grew closer.

  Startled, the doctor looked up. 'Yes?'

  'I'm Commissario Guido Brunetti’ he said,

  extending his hand. ‘I came to visit you when you were in hospital’ Then, smiling, Brunetti added, 'As a patient, I mean’

  Pedrolli took the extended hand. 'Yes, I remember your face, but I'm afraid I don't remember much else. That was when I still couldn't talk, I think. I'm sorry’ His smile was awkward, almost embarrassed. His voice, which Brunetti was hearing for the first time, was deep and resonant, a true baritone.

  'Could I speak to you for a moment, Dottore?' Brunetti asked.

  Pedrolli's gaze was level, untroubled, almost uninterested. 'Of course,' he said. Pedrolli led Brunetti into the corridor and then down to one of the last doors on the left. Inside, Brunetti saw a desk with a computer, a few chairs ranged in front of it. The windows behind the desk looked out on the same horizontal tree Brunetti had noticed on his last visit. One wall was covered with bookshelves filled with medical texts and journals.

  'Here's as good as any place,' Pedrolli said, pulling a chair out for Brunetti. He took the other chair and sat facing him. 'What is it you'd like to know?' Pedrolli asked.

  'Your name has come to our attention, Dottore,' Brunetti began.

  Almost unconsciously, Pedrolli reached up and touched the side of his head. 'Is that meant to be an understatement?' he asked with an expression he seemed to be struggling to make appear pleasant.

  Brunetti smiled in return but continued, 'This isn't connected in any way to why I saw you last time, Dottore.'

  The look Pedrolli gave Brunetti was sharp, but then he quickly looked away.

  'That investigation was in the hands - and remains in the hands - of the Carabinieri. I'm here to ask you about another investigation that is being carried out by my department.'

  'The police, then?'

  'Yes, Dottore.'

  'What sort of investigation is that, Commissario?' he asked with a more than faintly ironic emphasis.

  'Your name has appeared in connection with an entirely unrelated matter. I've come to ask you about that'

  ‘I see,' Pedrolli said. ‘Perhaps you could be more specific?'

  'It has to do with fraud here at the hospital,' Brunetti said, deciding to raise this first, before introducing the idea that he might be the victim of blackmail. Pedrolli relaxed just minimally.

  'Fraud of what sort?'

  'False appointments.' He saw the contraction of Pedrolli's eyes and went on, 'There are doctors here who are apparently scheduling appointments for patients they know will not keep those appointments; in some cases pharmacists schedule the appointments, and then the health service is charged for them, though they never take place. In at least three cases.

  the patients for whom the appointments were scheduled are dead’

  Pedrolli nodded affirmatively, then pressed his lips together. ‘I’d be a liar if I said I'd never heard about this, Commissario. But it doesn't happen in this department. My primario and I see to that’

  Though Brunetti's impulse was to believe the doctor, he still asked, 'How?'

  'All patients - well, their parents, since our patients are all children - who have appointments scheduled have to sign in with the nurse on duty, and at the end of her shift, she checks that list against the computer list of the patients who were actually seen by every doctor in the department.' He saw Brunetti's response and said, 'I know, it's very simple. It adds about five minutes of work to the nurse's day, but it eliminates any possibility of falsification.'

  ‘It sounds as though you set up your system specifically to avoid the possibility, Dottore,' Brunetti said. 'If I might say that'

  ‘I think you should say that, Commissario: that's exactly why we did it.' Pedrolli waited a moment until Brunetti's gaze met his, and then said, 'Word travels in a hospital’

  ‘I see,' Brunetti said.

  'Is that all you wanted to ask me about?' Pedrolli said, beginning to shift his weight forward on his chair.

  'No, Dottore, it isn't. If you'd have a moment's patience.. ‘

  Pedrolli relaxed back into his chair and said,

  'Of course’ but he looked at his watch as he said it. Suddenly Pedrolli's stomach made a thunderous groan and he gave that same almost embarrassed smile. ‘I haven't had lunch yet.'

  'I'll try not to keep you too long,' Brunetti said, hoping that his own stomach would not begin to echo the doctor's.

  'Dottore,' Brunetti began, 'are you a customer at the pharmacy in Campo Sant'Angelo’

  'Yes. It's the one nearest to where I live.'

  'You've used it for years?'

  'Since we moved there, about four years ago. No, a bit more than that’

  'Do you know the pharmacist well?' Brunetti asked.

  A long time passed before Pedrolli said, pronouncing his words carefully, 'Ah, the exquisitely moral Dottor Franchi.' Then he added, I suppose I know him as well as any doctor knows a pharmacist.'

  'Could you tell me what you mean by that, Dottore?'

  Pedrolli shrugged. 'Dottor Franchi and I have diverging views of human weakness, I fear,' he said with a wry smile. 'He tends to take a sterner view than I do’ He gave a small smile. When Brunetti said nothing, Pedrolli continued
, 'As to how well I know him professionally, I ask. him if patients of mine are collecting their prescriptions, and occasionally I go in to write and sign prescriptions when I've told someone over the phone to take a certain medicine.'

  'And for yourself, Dottore? Do you buy things there?'

  'I suppose I do; toothpaste or things we need in the house. Occasionally I'll get things my wife asks me to buy for her.'

  'Do you get your prescriptions made up there?'

  Pedrolli considered this question for a long time and finally said, 'No, I don't. I get any medicine I need here at the hospital.'

  Brunetti nodded.

  Pedrolli smiled, but it was not the same smile as before. 'Would you tell me why you're asking these questions, Commissario?'

  Ignoring the question, Brunetti asked, 'In all these years, you've never had to get a prescription made up there?'

  Pedrolli gazed off into the middle distance. 'Maybe, once, not too long after we moved in. I had flu, and Bianca went out to get medicine for me. She came back with something, but I don't remember if I needed a prescription for it.'

  Pedrolli gazed away, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to recall, and he seemed about to speak when Brunetti interrupted to ask, 'If it had required a prescription, would that information have to be put into your medical records, Dottore?'

  Pedrolli gave him a long look, and then suddenly his face went blank, as though someone had turned him off. Life returned in the form of a quick glance that Brunetti could not read. 'My medical records?' he finally asked, but it was not a question, not the way he said it. 'Why do you ask about them, Commissario?'

  Brunetti saw no reason not to tell him, so long as he did not mention blackmail. 'We're looking into the inappropriate use of medical information, Dottore.'

  He waited to see how Pedrolli would respond to this hint, but all the doctor did was blink, shrug, and say, 'I'm not sure that means anything specific to me.' It seemed to Brunetti that, behind the calm expression the doctor appeared to have nailed to his face, he was busy considering what Brunetti had just said, perhaps considering the possibilities towards which it might lead.

  Brunetti realized that he had so far failed to raise with Pedrolli the chance of his son's return. He began again but in an entirely different tone of voice. 'What I would really like to do is talk to you about your son.'