Free Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon

said the Inspector.
    â€˜Afternoon?’ asked a puzzled Brunetti.
    â€˜It’s Tuesday,’ Vianello said by way of explanation, as if to say, ‘Food stores close onWednesday afternoon, fish restaurants don’t open on Monday, and Signorina Elettra doesn’t work on Tuesday mornings.’
    â€˜Ah, yes, of course.’

7
    SHE WAS STRONG. Had Brunetti been asked to explain why this word came to him when he first saw Pedrolli’s wife, he would have been hard-pressed to answer, but the word came to his mind when he saw her and remained with him for as long as he dealt with her. She stood at the side of her husband’s bed and gave Brunetti a startled look when he came in, even though he had knocked. Perhaps she expected someone else, someone in a white doctor’s coat.
    She was beautiful: that was the second thing that struck Brunetti: tall and slender with a mane of dark brown curls. She had high cheekbones and light eyes that might have been green or might have been grey, and a long, thin nose that tipped up at the end. Her mouth was large,disproportionately so below her nose, but the full lips seemed somehow to suit her face perfectly. Though she must have been in her early forties, her face was still unwrinkled, the skin taut. She looked at least a decade younger than the man in the bed, though the circumstances prevented that from being a fair comparison.
    When she registered that Brunetti was not whoever she was expecting, she turned back to her husband, who appeared to be asleep. Brunetti could see Pedrolli’s forehead and nose and chin, and the long shape of his body under the blanket.
    She kept her eyes on her husband, and Brunetti kept his on her. She was wearing a dark green woollen skirt and a beige sweater. Brown shoes, expensive shoes, made for standing, and not for walking.
    â€˜Signora?’ said Brunetti, remaining by the door.
    â€˜Yes?’ she said, glancing at him quickly but then turning back to her husband.
    â€˜I’m from the police,’ he said.
    Her rage was instantaneous and caught him off guard. Her voice took on a threatening sibilance that sounded one remove from physical violence. ‘You do this to us, and you dare to come into this room? You beat him unconscious and leave him lying there, speechless, and you come in here and you dare to talk to me?’
    Fists clenched, she took two steps towards Brunetti, who could not stop himself fromraising his hands, palms outward, in a gesture more suited to warding off evil spirits than the threat of physical violence. ‘I had nothing to do with what happened last night, Signora. I’m here to investigate the attack on your husband.’
    â€˜Liar,’ she spat, but she came no nearer.
    â€˜Signora,’ Brunetti said, intentionally keeping his voice low, ‘I was called at home at two o’clock this morning and came down here because the Questura had received a report that a man had been attacked and taken to the hospital.’ It was an elaboration – one might even have called it a lie – but the essence was true. ‘If you wish, you can ask the doctors or the nurses if this is so.’
    He paused and watched her consider. ‘What’s your name?’ she demanded.
    â€˜Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police. The operation in which your husband was injured . . .’ He watched her begin to object, but he continued ‘. . . was a Carabinieri operation, not ours. To the best of my knowledge, we were not informed of it in advance.’ Perhaps he should not have told her this, but he did so in an attempt to deflect her wrath and induce her to speak to him.
    The attempt failed, for she immediately returned to the attack, though no matter how forceful her words, her voice never grew louder than a whisper. ‘You mean these gorillas are free to come into the city whenever they want and break into our homes and kidnap our children and leave a man lying there