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the chaplain for the casa di cura over near the Ospedale Giustiniani, but that’s all I know about him.’ Miotti kept his head down, writing, so Brunetti asked, ‘Do you have any idea about who he could be, Miotti?’
     
    The young officer looked up. ‘No, sir. I never had much to do with my brother’s clerical friends.’
     
    Brunetti, responding more to his tone than to the words, asked, ‘Is there any reason for that?’
     
    Instead of answering, Miotti shook his head quickly and then looked down at the pages of his notebook, adding a few words to what he had written.
     
    Brunetti glanced at Vianello over the lowered head of the younger man, but the Sergeant gave a barely perceptible shrug. Brunetti opened his eyes and nodded briefly toward Miotti. Vianello, interpreting this as a signal that he discover the reasons for the young man’s reticence when they went back downstairs, nodded in return.
     
    ‘Anything else, sir?’ Vianello asked.
     
    ‘This afternoon,’ Brunetti said, answering his question but thinking of the copies of the wills Signorina Elettra had promised him, ‘I should have the names of some people I’d like to go and talk to.’
     
    ‘Would you like me to come with you, sir?’ Vianello asked.
     
    Brunetti nodded. ‘Four o’clock,’ he decided, thinking that would give him plenty of time to get back from lunch. ‘Good. I think that’s all for now Thank you both.’
     
    ‘I’ll come up and get you,’ Vianello said. As the younger man moved toward the door, Vianello turned, gestured toward the disappearing Miotti with his chin, and nodded to Brunetti. If there was anything to be discovered about Miotti’s reluctance to spend time with his brother’s clerical friends, Vianello would find it out that afternoon.
     
    When they were gone, Brunetti opened a drawer and pulled out the Yellow Pages. He looked under doctors but found no listing in Venice for Messini. He checked the white pages and found three of them, one a Doctor Fabio, with an address in Dorsoduro. He made a note of Messini’s phone number and address, then picked up the phone and dialled a different number from memory.
     
    The phone was picked up on the third ring, and a man’s voice said, ‘ Allò?’
     
    ‘Ciao, Lele,’ Brunetti said, recognizing the painter’s gruff voice. ‘I’m calling about one of your neighbours, Dottor Fabio Messini?’ If someone lived in Dorsoduro, Lele Bortoluzzi, whose family had been in Venice since the Crusades, would know who they were.
     
    ‘Is he the one with the Afghan?’
     
    ‘Dog or wife?’ Brunetti asked with a laugh.
     
    ‘If it’s the one I’m thinking of, the wife’s a Roman, but the dog’s an Afghan. Beautiful, graceful thing. Just like the wife, if you think about it. She walks it past the gallery at least once a day.’
     
    ‘The Messini I’m looking for has a nursing home over near the Giustiniani.’
     
    Lele, who knew everything, said, ‘He’s the same one who runs the place Regina’s in, isn’t he?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘How is she, Guido?’ Lele, only a few years younger than Brunetti’s mother, had known her all his life and had been one of her husband’s best friends.
     
    ‘She’s the same, Lele.’
     
    ‘God save her, Guido. I’m sorry.’
     
    ‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said. There was nothing else to be said. ‘What about Messini?’
     
    ‘As far as I can remember, he started with an ambulatorio over here, about twenty years ago. But then after he married the Roman, Claudia, he used her family’s money to start the casa di cura. After that, he gave up private practice. Well, I think he did. And now I believe he’s the director of four or five of them.’
     
    ‘Do you know him?’
     
    ‘No. I see him every once in a while. Not often. Certainly not as often as I see the wife.’
     
    ‘How do you know who she is?’ Brunetti asked.
     
    ‘She’s bought a few paintings from me over the course of the years. I like