Free Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon Page B

he turned to Gina. ‘Do you know his wife?’
    The question surprised her, and she grew suddenly formal. ‘No. That is, I never met her. But I’ve spoken to her on the phone a few times.’ She glanced at the door to Pedrolli’s room. ‘She’s in there with him, isn’t she?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘And I’d like one of you to stay with him while I talk to her out here, if that’s possible.’
    The two women exchanged a glance and Sandra said, ‘I’ll do it.’
    â€˜All right,’ said Gina, leaving Brunetti with her colleague.
    He led the way to the door, knocked, and entered. Pedrolli’s wife was where he had left her, by the bed, looking at her husband.
    She glanced in their direction and, seeing the nurse’s white jacket, asked her, ‘Do you know when a doctor will come to see him?’ Though the words were neutral enough, her tone suggested that she feared there might be days to wait, or longer.
    â€˜Rounds begin at ten, Signora,’ the nurse answered dispassionately.
    Pedrolli’s wife looked at her watch, drew her lips together, and addressed Brunetti. ‘There’s plenty of time for us to talk, then.’ She touched the back of her husband’s right hand and turned away from the bed.
    Brunetti stepped back to allow her to precede him, then pulled the door shut. She glanced at the Carabiniere and back at Brunetti with a look that suggested he was responsible for the other man’s presence, but said nothing. The corridor ended at a large window that looked down on a courtyard and a scrawny pine tree leaning so sharply to one side that it appeared to grow horizontally, some branches touching the ground.
    Reaching the window, he said, ‘My name is Guido Brunetti, Signora.’ He did not offer his hand.
    â€˜Bianca Marcolini,’ she said, half turned away from him and gazing through the window at the tree.
    As if he had not recognized the surname,Brunetti said, ‘I’d like to speak to you about last night, Signora, if I may.’
    â€˜I’m not sure there’s much to say, Commissario. Two masked men broke into our home along with another man. They were armed. They beat my husband insensible and left him like that,’ she said, pointing angrily back towards his room. Then she added, her voice rough, ‘And they took our child.’
    Brunetti had no idea whether she was trying to provoke him by continuing to act as though he had been responsible, but he simply asked, ‘Would you tell me what you remember of what happened, Signora?’
    â€˜I just told you what happened,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you listening, Commissario?’
    â€˜Yes,’ he agreed. ‘You did tell me. But I need a clearer picture, Signora. I need to know what was said, and whether the men who came into your house announced themselves as Carabinieri and whether they attacked your husband without provocation.’ Brunetti wondered why the Carabinieri had worn masks: usually they did that only when there was some danger that they would be photographed and thus identified. In the case of the arrest of a paediatrician, that hardly seemed the case.
    â€˜Of course they didn’t tell us who they were,’ she said, raising her voice. ‘Do you think my husband would have tried to fight them if they had?’ He watched as she cast her thoughts back to the scene in her bedroom. ‘He told me to call the police, for God’s sake.’
    Making no attempt to correct her for confusing the Carabinieri with the police, Brunetti asked, ‘Did he, or you, have any reason to expect them to come, Signora?’
    â€˜I don’t know what you mean,’ she said angrily, perhaps trying to deflect the question with her tone.
    â€˜Let me try to make my question clearer, then, if I might. Is there any reason why you, or your husband, thought the police or the Carabinieri