Fatal Remedies by Donna Leon Page B

home a report card with bad marks, lying on his bed in fear of his father’s anger, his mother’s disappointment.
     
    Memory sank its teeth into his spirit and took him away with it. At some point, at the same time that he became aware of motion beside him on the bed, he sensed pressure, then warmth across his chest. He smelled, then felt, her hair against his face, smelled that combination of soap and health that decades had seared into his memory. He lifted his arm from his eyes without bothering to open them. Moving it down across her shoulders, he brought the other arm out from under his head and latched his hands across her back.
     
    After a while they both slept and, when they woke, nothing had changed.
     
    * * * *
     
    9
     
     
    The next day passed quietly, things as normal as they ever were in the Questura. Patta demanded that Iacovantuono be brought to Venice and questioned about his refusal to testify, and that was done. Brunetti passed him on the steps as he was being led up to Patta’s office between two machine-gun carrying policemen. The pizzaiolo raised his eyes to Brunetti’s but gave no sign that he recognized him, his face frozen into that mask of ignorance Italians learn to adopt with officialdom.
     
    At the sight of his sad eyes, Brunetti wondered if knowing the truth about what had happened would make any difference. Whether the Mafia had murdered his wife or Iacovantuono merely believed they had - in either case, he perceived the State and its agencies as helpless to protect him from the menace of a far greater power.
     
    All these thoughts crowded into Brunetti’s mind as he saw the small man coming up the steps towards him, but they were too confused for him to be able to express them, even to himself, in words, so all he could do was nod in recognition as they passed, the little man made even smaller by the two policemen who towered above him.
     
    As he continued up the stairs, Brunetti found himself thinking of the myth of Orfeo and Eurydice, of the man who lost his wife by looking behind to assure himself that she was still there, disobeying the gods’ command not to do so and thus condemning her to remain forever in Hades. The gods that govern Italy had commanded Iacovantuono not to look at something and when he did not obey, his wife had been taken from him for ever.
     
    Luckily, Vianello was waiting at the top of the stairs, and Brunetti’s reflections were driven from him. ‘Commissario,’ the sergeant began as he saw him arrive, ‘we’ve had a phone call from a woman in Treviso. She said she lives in the same house as the Iacovantuonos, but from the way she spoke, I think she might live in the same building.’
     
    Brunetti walked past the sergeant, signalling with his head that he was to follow and leading him down the corridor into his office. As he put his overcoat into the armadio, Brunetti asked, ‘What did she say?’
     
    ‘That they fought.’
     
    Thinking of his own marriage, Brunetti answered, ‘Lots of people fight.’
     
    ‘He beat her.’
     
    ‘How does the woman know that?’ Brunetti asked with immediate curiosity.
     
    ‘She said the wife used to come down to her apartment and cry about it.’
     
    ‘Did she ever call the police?’
     
    ‘Who?’
     
    ‘The wife. Signora Iacovantuono.’
     
    ‘I don’t know. I just spoke to this woman,’ Vianello began, looking down at a slip of paper in his hand, ‘Signora Grassi, ten minutes ago. I was just hanging up when you came in. She said he’s pretty well known in the area, in the building.’
     
    ‘For what?’
     
    ‘Causing trouble with the neighbours. Yelling at their children.’
     
    ‘And the business with the wife?’ Brunetti asked, going to sit behind his desk. As he spoke, he pulled a small pile of papers and envelopes towards him, but did not begin to look at them.
     
    ‘I don’t know. Not yet. There’s been no time to talk to anyone.’
     
    ‘It’s not in our jurisdiction,’