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let out a little puff of air, as if to suggest that even the blind could see the mind at work behind that suggestion. ‘Vianello.’
    â€˜As a matter of fact, sir,’ she said, no change in the sweetness of her smile, ‘the idea was mine.’
    â€˜In that case,’ he picked up seamlessly, ‘I’ll live in the single hope that I win in a tie so that I can be a part of the money’s going to such a noble cause.’
    She looked at him, her expression neutral, butthen the smile returned and she said, ‘Ah, just listen to the falseness of the man.’
    Brunetti was surprised by how flattered he felt and went back to his office, all thought of holiday staffing forgotten.

4
    SPRING ADVANCED, AND Brunetti continued to measure it florally. The first lilacs appeared in the flower shops, and he took an enormous bouquet home to Paola; the little pink and yellow flowers made their full appearance in the garden across the canal, were succeeded by random daffodils, and then by ordered rows of tulips at the side of the path bordering the garden. And then one Saturday Paola commandeered him into moving the large terracotta vases from the cool, dark
sottotetto
where they spent the winter back on to the terrace, where they would remain until November. From the terrace, he noticed that the flower boxes on the balcony on the other side of the
calle
and one floor below had been planted with the red geraniums Brunetti so much disliked.
    Then there was Palm Sunday, which he was aware of only when he saw people walking around with olive branches in their hands. And then Easter and explosions of flowers in the windows of Biancat, displays so excessive that Brunetti was forced to stop every evening on the way home from work to consider them.
    On Easter Sunday, they had lunch with Paola’s parents; this year her aunt Ugolina was also in attendance, wearing a straw hat covered with tiny paper roses that saw the light of day, perhaps, once a year. They took with them – because there was nothing to take to the Faliers that they did not already have and did not already have in a superior form – flowers. The
palazzo
was already filled with them, but this did not prevent the Countess from gushing over the roses as though they heralded a new species. The excess of flowers also set Chiara off into an impromptu lecture on the ecological wastefulness of hothouse flowers, a discourse she found no one willing to listen to.
    The floral note was continued on an invitation Paola received to a gallery opening that was to present the work of three young artists working in glass. From what Brunetti saw from the photos in the invitation, one produced flat panels using gold leaf and coloured glass; the second made vases with lips that resembled the petals of the flowers that would be put inside; and the third used a more traditional style to create cylindrical vases with smooth lips.
    The gallery was new, run by the friend of a colleague of Paola’s at the university who suggested that they attend. The level of crime in Venice was as low as the waters of that year’s spring tides, and so Brunetti was happy to accept; because the gallery was on Murano, he wondered if he would get to meet Ribetti and his wife: he hardly thought a gallery opening was the sort of place where he would re-encounter De Cal.
    The opening was scheduled to begin at six on a Friday evening, which would allow people time to see the artists’ work, have a glass of prosecco, nibble on something, and then go out to dinner or go home on time to eat. As they boarded the 41 at Fondamenta Nuove, Brunetti realized that years had passed since he had been out to Murano. He had gone there as a boy, when his father had worked in one of the factories for a time, but since then he had been there infrequently, since none of their friends lived on Murano, and he had never had reason to go there professionally.
    Three or four other couples left the