Read Quietly in Their Sleep for Free Online Page B

front of him and grabbed up an abundant handful of the pungent green leaf. Magician-like, he pulled a sheet of brown paper from nowhere and plunked it onto the scale, dropped the leaves into it, then quickly wrapped it together into a neat package. He laid it on top of a box of neatly ordered rows of baby courgettes and extended his palm. Brunetti gave him three thousand-lire notes, didn’t ask for a plastic bag, and set off toward home.
     
    At the clock high on the wall, he turned left and headed up toward San Aponal and home. Without thinking, he took the first right and went into Do Mori, where he had a piece of prosciutto wrapped around a thin breadstick and a glass of Chardonnay to wash away the salty taste of the meat.
     
    A few minutes later and newly winded by the more than ninety stairs that led to it, he opened the door to his apartment and was greeted by the mingled smells that warmed his soul and sang to him of home, hearth, family, and joy.
     
    Though the delirious odour of garlic and onions told him that she was in, Brunetti still called out, ‘Paola, are you here?’
     
    A shouted ‘ Si’ from the kitchen answered him and drew him down the corridor toward her. He set the paper-wrapped package on the kitchen table, went across the room to kiss her and have a look at what was frying in the pan in front of her.
     
    Yellow and red strips of pepper simmered in a rich tomato sauce, and from it rose the aroma of sausage. ‘Tagliatelle?’ he asked, naming his favourite fresh pasta.
     
    She smiled and bent to stir the sauce. ‘Of course.’ Then, turning to the table, she saw the package. ‘What’s that?’
     
    ‘Puntarelle. I thought we could have that salad with the anchovy sauce.’
     
    ‘Good idea,’ she said, voice filled with delight. ‘Where’d you find them?’
     
    ‘That guy who beats his wife.’
     
    ‘I beg your pardon,’ came her confused response.
     
    ‘The last one on the right as you’re heading toward the fish market, the one with the veins in his nose.’
     
    ‘Beats his wife?’
     
    ‘Well, we’ve had him down at the Questura three times. But she always drops the charges after she sobers up.’
     
    Brunetti watched as she ran through a mental file of the different vendors on the right side of the market. ‘The woman with the mink jacket?’ she finally asked.
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘I had no idea.’
     
    Brunetti shrugged.
     
    ‘Can’t you do anything about it?’ she asked.
     
    Because he was hungry and because discussion would delay his meal, he was curt. ‘No. Not our business.’
     
    He tossed his overcoat, and then his jacket, across the back of a kitchen chair and went to the refrigerator to get himself some wine. Moving around her to get a glass, he murmured, ‘Smells good.’
     
    ‘It’s really none of your business?’ she asked, and he knew, both from her tone and from long experience, that she had found A Cause.
     
    ‘No, it’s not, not unless she makes a formal denuncia, which she has never been willing to do.’
     
    ‘Perhaps she’s afraid of him.’
     
    ‘Paola,’ he answered, having hoped to avoid this, ‘she’s two of him, must weigh a hundred kilos. I’m sure she could toss him out a window if she wanted to.’
     
    ‘But?’ she asked, hearing the unspoken words in his voice.
     
    ‘But she doesn’t want to, I’d say. They fight, it gets out of control, and she calls us.’ He filled a glass and took a swallow, hoping it was over.
     
    ‘And then?’ Paola asked.
     
    ‘And then we come and pick him up and take him down to the Questura and hold him until she comes to get him in the morning. It happens every six months or so, but there are never any serious signs of violence on her, and she’s glad enough to have him go back home with her.’
     
    Paola thought about this for a while but finally shrugged the subject away. ‘Strange, isn’t it?’
     
    ‘Very,’ Brunetti agreed, knowing from long experience that Paola