Part 23 (1/2)

'It didn't work' he admitted. 'They said they had no idea who this Rocich was or why someone with that name would want to speak to them.' It had been the woman, Brunetti recalled, who was more vociferous in her protestations: Fornari had stood beside her, shaking his head, capable of speech only when Brunetti asked him a direct question.

Brunetti uncrossed his legs and stretched them out, then lifted his feet and rested them on the lower rung of the railing of the terrace. As he did so, he remembered how, as young parents, they had been so careful about keeping the door to the terrace locked and allowed the children on to it only when one of them was with them. Even now, after decades in the apartment, Brunetti still avoided peering over the edge and looking down at the ground, four floors below.

Paola allowed a long time to pa.s.s before she asked, 'What do you think happened?'

Brunetti had thought of little else during the last few days, had made and cancelled and remade the scenario of events, had imagined it this way and imagined it that way, always with the memory of the girl's face at the forefront of his mind. 'Their daughter was there' he finally said. 'With the boyfriend, probably in her bedroom. They heard noises in the apartment.' He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it. 'Drugged or not drugged, the boy would still see it as his duty to go and find out what it was.'

'And the stripes?' Paola suddenly asked. 'How did the little boy see them?'

He turned to face the shadow of her head against the still-fading light. 'They weren't in her bedroom doing their calculus homework, Paola. Remember, her parents were out.'

He left it to her to imagine the scene as he had: the naked boy, roused from bed, wild stripes on his arms and legs, roaring at the Gypsy children. ”Tiger man' Paola said.

'The parents' room has a door to the terrace' Brunetti said- 'It's probably how they got in, so it's where they'd run to try to get out.' 'And then?' Paola asked.

Though Paola could not see Brunetti's shrug, she thought she heard it as his jacket rubbed against the back of his chair.

'That's anyone's guess' he finally answered.

'But the brother said ...' Paola began.

'The brother' Brunetti cut her off to say, 'because he is a boy, was probably in charge of whatever they did. And he let his sister die.' Before Paola could protest, he went on, 'I know, I know, he didn't let anything happen. But I'm not talking about what actually happened, whatever that was, but about how he'd see it. She was with him, so anything that happened to her was his fault.'

He paused a long time after this, then said, 'But if she was thrown off the roof, then it's not his fault.' Before she could protest, he hurried on, 'I'm just trying to see it the way he would.' He stopped talking and the noise of the city flowed up to them: pa.s.sing footsteps, a man's voice coming from one of the windows beneath them, a television in the distance.

'Then why are the Fornaris acting so guilty?' Paola finally asked.

'It might not be guilt' Brunetti said.

'What else could it be?'

'Fear.'

'Of the Gypsies?' she asked in surprise. 'Some sort of vendetta?' Her tone revealed her refusal to believe this. 'But from what you said, no one except the mother and the brother seemed much to care about what happened to her.'