Uniform Justice by Donna Leon

to present himself to Patta without first having some indication of his superior’s mood or what it was Patta wanted to see him about, Brunetti toyed with the idea of going back to his office to read the folders or to the officers’ room to see if Vianello or Pucetti were there. As he stood undecided, the door to Vice-Questore Patta’s office opened, and Signora Elettra emerged, today wearing what looked very much like a bomber jacket, buttoned tight at the waist, puffy and full over the bust and shoulders; well, a bomber jacket, were bombardiers given to the wearing of uniforms made of apricot-coloured raw silk.
    Patta had a clear view from his office into hers. ‘I’d like to see you, Brunetti,’ he called. Brunetti glanced at Signorina Elettra as he turned towards Patta’s door, but the only thing she had time to do was push her lips tightly together in either disapproval or disgust. Like ships in the night, they passed, barely acknowledging the presence of the other.
    ‘Close the door,’ Patta said, glancing up and then back at the papers on his desk. Brunetti turned to do so, certain that Patta’s use of the word ‘please’ would provide the clue to what sort of meeting this would be. The fact that Brunetti had time to formulate this thought destroyed any possibility that it was going to be a pleasant interchange of ideas between colleagues. A short delay would be the habitual flick of the whip from a carriage driver: aimed to snap the air and catch the beast’s attention without doing it any harm, it was an unconscious assertion of command, not meant to inflict damage. A longer delay would demonstrate Patta’s irritation without revealing its cause. The complete absence of the word, as on this occasion, was indicative of either fear or rage: experience had taught Brunetti that the first of these was the more dangerous, for fear drove Patta to the reckless endangerment of other people’s careers in his attempt to protect his own. This evaluation was complete long before Brunetti turned to approach his superior, and so the sight of a glowering Patta did not intimidate him.
    ‘Yes, sir?’ he asked with a serious face, having learned that neutrality of expression and tone was expected of him in these moments. He waited for Patta to wave him to a chair, consciously imitating the behaviour of a non-Alpha male dog.
    ‘What are you waiting for?’ Patta demanded, still without looking at him. ‘Sit down.’
    Brunetti did so silently and placed his arms in neat horizontals on the arms of the chair. He waited, wondering what scene Patta was going to play and how he was going to play it. A minute passed silently. Patta continued to read through the file that lay open before him, occasionally turning a page.
    Like most Italians, Brunetti respected and approved of beauty. When he could, he chose to surround himself with beauty: his wife, the clothes he wore, the paintings in his home, even the beauty of thought in the books he read: all of these things gave him great pleasure. How, he wondered, as he did whenever he encountered Patta after a gap of a week or so, how could a man so very handsome be so utterly devoid of the qualities usually attributed to beauty? The erect posture was solely physical, for the ethical Patta was an eel; the firm jaw bespoke a strength of character that was manifested only in stubbornness; and the clear dark eyes saw only what they chose to see.
    Caught in this reflection, Brunetti didn’t notice when Patta finally turned his attention to him, nor did he hear the Vice-Questore’s first words, tuning in only towards the end: ‘… your mistreatment of his students’.
    Like a scholar piecing together a coherent meaning from a fragment of text, Brunetti realized that the students must be those at the San Martino Academy, and the only person capable of using the possessive pronoun when speaking of them the Comandante.
    ‘I chanced into the room of one of them, and we discussed his