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anyone about any other possibility: not his classmates, still less his parents. To do so would be the worst sort of ghoulish curiosity as well as a flagrant misuse of his power. Admitting all of this, he went out into the courtyard of the Academy and, using the
telefonino
he had remembered to bring with him, called Signorina Elettra’s direct line at the Questura.
    When she answered, he told her where he was and asked that she check the phone book for Moro’s address, which he thought must be in Dorsoduro, though he couldn’t remember why he associated the man with that
sestiere
.
    She asked no questions, told him to wait a moment, then said the number was unlisted. There elapsed another minute or two, then she gave him the Dorsoduro address. She told him to wait, then told him the house was on the canal running alongside the church of Madonna della Salute. ‘It’s got to be the one next to the low brick one that has the terrace with all the flowers,’ she said.
    He thanked her, then made his way back up the stairs to the dormitory rooms on the top floor and went along the still-silent corridor, checking the names outside of the doors. He found it at the end: MORO/CAVANI . Not bothering to knock, Brunetti entered the room. Like that of Ruffo, the room was clean, almost surgical: bunk beds and two small desks opposite them, nothing left in sight to clutter up their surfaces. He took a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and used it to open the drawer of the desk nearest him. With the pen he flipped open the notebook that lay inside. Ernesto’s name was on the inside of the cover and the book was filled with mathematical formulae, written out in a neat, square hand. He shoved the notebook to the back of the drawer and opened the one beneath it, with much the same result, though this one contained exercises in English.
    He shoved the drawer closed and turned his attention to the closet between the two desks. One door had Moro’s name on it. Brunetti pulled it open from the bottom with his foot. Inside, there were two uniforms in dry-cleaning bags, a denim jacket, and a brown tweed coat. The only things he found in the pockets were some small change and a dirty handkerchief.
    A bookcase contained nothing more than textbooks. He lacked the will to take down and examine each of them. He took one final look around the room and left, careful to hook his pen in the handle to pull the door shut.
    He met Santini on the steps and told him to check Moro’s room then left the school and went down to the edge of the Canale della Giudecca. Turning right, he started to walk along the
riva
, intending to catch a
vaporetto
. As he walked, he kept his attention on the buildings on the other side of the canal: Nico’s Bar and, above it, an apartment he had spent a lot of time in before he met Paola; the church of the Gesuati, where once a decent man had been pastor; the former Swiss Consulate, the flag gone now. Have even the Swiss abandoned us? he wondered. Ahead was the
Bucintoro
, the long narrow boats long gone, evicted by the scent of Guggenheim money, Venetian oarsmen gone to make space for even more tourist shops. He saw a boat coming from Redentore and hurried on to the
imbarcadero
at Palanca to cross back to the Zattere. When he got off, he looked at his watch and realized that it really did take less than five minutes to make the trip from the Giudecca. Even so, the other island still seemed, as it had ever seemed, as far distant as the Galapagos.
    It took less than five minutes to weave his way back to the broad
campo
that surrounded La Madonna della Salute, and there he found the house. Again resisting the impulse to delay, he rang the bell and gave his title and name.
    ‘What do you want?’ a woman’s voice asked.
    ‘I’d like to speak to Dottor Moro,’ he said, announcing at least the most immediate of his desires.
    ‘He can’t see anyone,’ she said shortly.
    ‘I saw him before,’ Brunetti said, then added,