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non-answer, but he merely nodded to acknowledge that he had heard. Rizzardi continued, ‘If you like, I could try to explain to you exactly what happened. In the medical sense, that is.’ Seeing Rizzardi’s affable smile, Brunetti realized the pathologist had no idea of Niccolini’s profession, nor of the medical training that would have prepared him for it, and so could have no idea of the effect his condescension might provoke.
    Niccolini asked in a very soft voice, ‘Could you be more specific about this “physical indication”?’
    His tone, not his words, caught Rizzardi’s attention. The pathologist said, ‘There were signs of trauma.’ Ah, Brunetti found himself thinking: now we come to the mark on her throat.
    Niccolini considered this and then said, his voice struggling for neutrality, ‘There are many kinds of trauma.’
    Brunetti decided to intervene before Rizzardi began to simplify the meaning of the term and further antagonize Niccolini. ‘I think you should know that Dottor Niccolini is a veterinarian, Ettore.’
    Rizzardi took a moment to respond, and when he did it was evident that the news pleased him. ‘Ah, then he’ll understand,’ he said.
    Both Rizzardi and Brunetti heard Niccolini gasp. He wheeled towards the pathologist, one hand involuntarily closing into a fist, face blank with shock.
    Rizzardi stepped away from the railing and held up his hands, palms outward in an instinctive gesture of self-protection. ‘Dottore, Dottore, I meant no offence.’ He patted repeatedly at the air between him and Niccolini until the other man, looking stunned at his own behaviour, lowered his hand. Rizzardi said, ‘I meant only that you’d understand the physiology of what I said. Nothing more.’ Then, more calmly, ‘Please, please. Don’t even think it.’
    Was Niccolini so upset that he had heard Rizzardi’s remark as a comparison between animal and human anatomy? But how could he be expected to be cool and rational in the presence of the man who had performed the autopsy?
    Niccolini nodded a few times, eyes closed, his face flushed, then looked at Rizzardi and said, ‘Of course, Dottore. I misunderstood. It’s all so …’
    ‘I know. It’s all so terrible. I’ve spoken to many people. It’s never easy.’
    The men returned to silence. A beagle came out of one of the shops near the end of the campo and relieved itself against a tree, then went back into the shop.
    Rizzardi’s voice summoned Brunetti’s attention away from the dog. ‘I can only repeat that your mother died of a heart attack: there’s no question of that.’ Brunetti had listened to the doctor enough times in the past to understand that Rizzardi was telling the truth, but Brunetti could see his face now, so he knew there was also something the doctor was not saying.
    Rizzardi continued. ‘And to answer your question: yes, there was blood at the scene. Commissario Brunetti saw it, as well.’ Niccolini turned to Brunetti for confirmation, and Brunetti nodded, then waited to see how Rizzardi wouldexplain it. ‘There was a radiator not far from where your mother was found, and it is not inconsistent with the evidence that she hit her head as she fell. As you know, head wounds often bleed a great deal, but because death would have come so quickly after her heart attack, she would not have bled for long, and that too is consistent with what we observed at the scene.’ With every sentence he spoke, Rizzardi’s language moved closer and closer to the officialese of printed reports and committee minutes.
    Like a man coming up for air, Niccolini asked, ‘But it was the heart attack that killed her?’ How many times, Brunetti wondered, did he need to hear this?
    ‘Beyond question,’ Rizzardi said in his most official voice, and at the sound of it, the mild squeak of discomfort with which Brunetti had listened to his previous evasions was suddenly transformed into a klaxon of doubt. Brunetti had no idea what the doctor was