When he approached the Ospedale dell’Angelo, Brunetti was struck by its resemblance to a cruise ship becalmed in a soccer field. From a distance, a glass wall appeared: six, seven floors high, seeming to slant backwards as they rose. The ends had an unsettling resemblance to the prows of the massive ships that once plied the waters in front of San Marco, occasionally crashing into the riva or coming close enough to fill the front page of the Gazzettino for days.
Brunetti approached the shape with a certain timidity, as though, as soon as he stepped aboard, it would break free of its moorings and set off, giving in to some atavistic desire to slide itself into the laguna and, like the frog in the fairy tale, be transformed by the kiss of the water back into its true, princely self.
He freed himself from these fantasies and went to the Information desk, where a young man at a computer quickly found Signorina Watson’s name, gave him the floor and room number, and told him the elevators were to his left.
Brunetti hardly needed to be told, for he saw signs and arrows pointing to the different clinics and wards. It would be, he realized, difficult to become lost; how different from the old, comfortable, confusing Ospedale Civile in the city, with buildings spread out in no apparent pattern and many signs contradictory or confusing. Instead of the many-pillared cloister with its dozing cats, Ospedale dell’Angelo had pathways threading through what appeared to be a rainforest and an almost palpable cleanliness about everything that met the eye.
He arrived quickly at the third floor and, after showing his warrant card to the nurse at the desk, asked where he would find Mr. Watson and his daughter. He followed her directions to the room. The door was open, so he stopped there and looked inside. Two beds, the near one empty, a man sitting on the opposite side of the other bed. He might have been Brunetti’s age, but he had gained more weight and lost more hair getting there. His bulk put the chair at possible risk of collapse: he was deeply intent on the phone he held in his hand, fingers tapping out a message. What was it? ‘Come and save my daughter’?
Brunetti’s glance moved to the small figure lying under the blankets. In the centre of the face, a white plastic triangle was taped over her nose. Another tape ran the length of her left eyebrow: one perpendicular strip of tape secured it under the plastic covering, another anchored it to her forehead. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open. The skin above and below her left eye was almost black, radiating out to a circle of yellow, and some swelling remained. Her lips were open and pink.
A transparent plastic bag hung suspended from a metal rack, and from it, a pale liquid ran to a needle taped to her arm. A second bag hung below the other; the tube disappeared under the covers.
As if he’d been tapped on the shoulder, the man on the other side of the bed looked up and towards Brunetti. He blinked and dropped his phone, leaned forward in his chair, his hands on the arms, and pushed himself to his feet, hands raised, ready to confront whatever danger Brunetti might represent.
‘Scusi, Signore,’ Brunetti began. ‘Sono qua per . . .’ hoping to calm the other man by explaining why he was there.
The man took two slow steps towards him and stopped. ‘Who are you. A doctor?’ he asked in English.
Brunetti answered in the same language ‘No, I’m not a doctor, Mr Watson,’ he said, realizing it would be best to tell him immediately who he was. ‘I’m Commissario Guido Brunetti, from the police. I’ve come to visit your daughter.’
The man’s expression changed from curiosity to something harder.
‘Why are you here?’ the American asked, coming one step closer. ‘What do you want?’
The words would have been aggressive had he not sounded so curious.
‘To see if there’s been any improvement in her condition, sir.’
The man glanced towards his daughter, as if he hoped to catch her listening to their conversation, but she was not. In a voice he forced to sound calm, Watson said, ‘You can see. There’s none.’ His voice choked off the last word.
‘I’m sorry,’ Brunetti said, conscious of how useless it sounded.
Before Brunetti could say anything more, the other man stepped back to where he had been sitting, bent and picked up his phone, and put it in his pocket. He came around the bottom of the bed to Brunetti and held out his hand. ‘Alex Watson,’ he said. His grip was firm but quick, the sort of handshake Americans often gave: eager to establish friendship but reluctant to give any indication they wanted it to continue. He had reddish blond hair that had begun to whiten with age and very pale blue eyes that reminded Brunetti of a Border Collie’s, although the man had none of that animal’s restrained nervousness.
Brunetti took Watson’s hand and repeated his name, leaving off the title.
Watson looked at his daughter and closed his eyes for a long time, then turned to Brunetti and said, ‘Perhaps we could talk in the corridor. I don’t want to disturb her.’
With a brief nod, Brunetti turned and went into the corridor. Two white-jacketed women stood a few doors down, talking in soft voices.
‘Have the doctors told you what’s going on?’ Brunetti asked.
‘They say now that she’s in a coma. When they called me to tell me about the accident, they said only that she was unconscious.’ He remained silent for a long time and then said, ‘Now it’s a coma.’
Brunetti nodded and made a noise, which Watson must have interpreted as a request to continue. ‘They say it sometimes happens with head injuries. Brain injuries, that is.’ Brunetti heard how difficult it was for Watson to speak the words the doctors had actually used.
Watson walked over to one of the windows that looked out on a parking lot. He braced his hands against the windowsill and lowered his head for a moment, then pushed himself upright. ‘I spoke to one of the doctors through a translator.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘Something about a piece of bone – I think he said it a was really a fragment. But he didn’t tell me how big it is, or I didn’t understand.’ Before Brunetti could ask Watson if he remembered the Italian so he might translate, Watson said, ‘It’s not the translator’s fault. I’m having a hard time remembering what people tell me. When I talk to my wife, I try to repeat what the doctors tell me. She does speak Italian, but she can’t be here.’
Brunetti’s expression must have revealed his surprise, for Watson said, ‘She’s in the middle of chemotherapy, in Washington, and she can’t be in a hospital, any hospital, because her immune system is . . . it’s not working very well.’
Brunetti nodded to acknowledge hearing this and, after a pause, asked, ‘Is that all they’ve told you, Signor Watson?’
‘They said the only thing they can do is wait and see what happens.’ Brunetti noticed motion and glanced down to see Watson’s hands, clenching and unclenching repeatedly.
‘I’ve been told that she and Ms Petersen are friends at university,’ Brunetti said, trying to re-establish the normality of their conversation.
Watson opened his mouth in surprise. ‘Yes. They live in the same dormitory.’
‘So you don’t know her well?’
‘No,’ Watson answered, shaking his head several times, as if he’d forgotten it was moving. ‘She stayed with us in Rome last year.’ His face softened and he added, ‘She’s got a lot more sense than some of the girls who went to high school with Lucy.’ In evidence, he offered, ‘She helped my wife with the cooking. Made Lucy help keep their room clean while they were staying with us.’ Then, voice wavering, Watson added, speaking as though it were a declaration of love, ‘Lucy’s never been the neatest girl in the world.’
Before Watson could spin entirely out of control, Brunetti said, ‘Neither is my daughter,’ and smiled.
The truce of shared parenthood descended, and both remained silent for some time.
Deciding to make a clean break with their preliminary talk, Brunetti asked, ‘Did JoJo tell you what happened that night?’
Watson turned his back to the window and half sat on the sill as though suddenly in need of support. After a moment, he nodded and went on. ‘They were in a piazza with a lot of other kids, and they met two young men, Italians, who asked them if they’d like a drink.
‘When they went into a bar, JoJo had a gingerino, and Lucy had a Coke. Then the boys both had apple juice and they all started to laugh about that.’ Watson paused here, and a smile removed a decade from his face. He stopped, and Brunetti saw him cast his attention towards the door to his daughter’s room.
Brunetti let a good deal of time pass and then asked, ‘Did she tell you about the accident?’
Watson nodded. ‘She said it took her some time to remember, but then it started coming back.’ Brunetti said nothing, and Watson went on. ‘The fact these guys didn’t drink reassured them both, so they accepted their invitation to go out in their boat. Everything was fine until they were out in the open water, when the one at the motor kept going faster and faster until JoJo asked him to slow down. But he didn’t understand. Though I don’t know how much there is to understand, really, if a girl starts shouting at you while you’re speeding in a boat.’ Brunetti heard the tight breath of anger slipping back into Watson’s voice but said nothing.
‘She said she asked the other guy to tell him to slow down, but he just shrugged.’
‘What else did she say?’
‘She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away from the motor, but it was impossible. She stood up to move back to where Lucy was sitting, and that’s when they hit something and she fell over.
‘When she sat up – she doesn’t know how much time had passed, Lucy was still lying on her stomach and the other one – not the driver – was kneeling next to her, talking to her.’ Watson kept nodding his head, as though that would force him to remember what he’d been told.
‘JoJo said her arm started to hurt then, really hurt. No one spoke except the guy who was trying to talk to Lucy.’ He stopped and bit at his lip, as though he had to punish himself for saying her name.
‘The other guy started the motor, and they began moving again; it seemed very slow to JoJo, but she said she wasn’t sure because her arm hurt so much and she was cold. She said a lot of water had splashed into the boat when they stopped.’
‘Does she remember being taken to the hospital?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No. She said she might have fainted from the pain because the boat kept hitting waves and she and Lucy were knocked around in the bottom of the boat.’ He paused here and added, ‘She thinks her mind kept going in and out: things were real, and then they weren’t. At one point, she thinks she heard one of them say, “He’ll kill me. He’ll kill me,” but she isn’t sure because of the pain and the fear.’ Watson stopped.
‘Nothing else?’ Brunetti asked softly.
‘She woke up in the hospital, but Lucy wasn’t there. After a while, the policewoman came, and things began to make sense.’
Then, as if his senses had suddenly been restored, Watson asked, ‘Who took them there?’
‘The men who were in the boat,’ Brunetti told him, since it would soon be common knowledge.
‘Who are they?’
Brunetti took it upon himself to answer, ‘What they seemed to be, sir: two young men, both Venetians, who had . . .‘
‘I know that,’ Watson said shortly. ‘JoJo told me. But you know who they are?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I’ve spoken to both of them.’
‘Without telling anyone?’ he asked, moving towards anger. Brunetti saw that all signs of amiability had disappeared. ‘What did they tell you?’ Watson demanded, seeming to grow larger as he spoke.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you that, sir, not while the investigation is still in progress.’ Brunetti spoke calmly, in what he tried to make sound like a friendly voice.
‘So they took them to the hospital? And then what did they do?’
Brunetti realized there was no use in lying to him. ‘They left, sir. One of them was badly injured himself.’
‘I don’t care about him,’ Watson shot back. He was silent for a moment, and then anger drove him to repeat Brunetti’s words. ‘“They left them.” Just dumped them there and left. . .’ Watson began, his anger now unleashed, ‘and left them there like they were . . . .’ Watson stopped and looked around the corridor, as though the words he wanted were hiding from him. But then he found it, and it burst from him, ‘. . . like trash.’ He raised his hands in fists but did no more than bring them down at his sides.
‘Did you ask them about drugs? About alcohol?’ Watson demanded.
Brunetti shook his head.
‘You didn’t ask them?’ Watson all but shouted.
‘I’m sorry, sir. We did question them, but I’m not at liberty to discuss this with anyone who isn’t involved in the investigation.’
The man nodded, but Brunetti saw the tightening of his jaw as he fought back words. Brunetti wondered how well he’d succeed in controlling himself if it had been Chiara on that boat, Chiara in the bed in the room opposite them, and suddenly he felt admiration for Watson’s powers of restraint.
The man looked at Brunetti and then at the door to the room. He nodded a few more times, then said, ‘I think I need to get back.’ He turned away from Brunetti and went into the room, closing the door quietly behind him.