‘I wouldn’t believe them.’

‘I didn’t.’

They sat quietly until Vianello said, ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

Brunetti looked across and nodded: it was easier than speaking.

Vianello ran his hand across the surface of the newspaper, then sat back. ‘You ever,’ he began, paused as if trying to find the proper wording, then went on, ‘read the horoscope?’

After a moment, Brunetti answered, ‘Not consciously.’ Seeing Vianello’s confusion, he continued, ‘That is, I don’t remember ever opening the newspaper to look for them. But I do glance at them if someone leaves the paper open to that page. But not actively.’ He waited for some sort of explanation; when none was given, he asked, ‘Why?’

Vianello shifted his weight in his chair, stood to smooth the wrinkles in his trousers, and sat down again. ‘It’s my aunt, my mother’s sister. The last one left. Anita.

‘She reads them every day. Doesn’t make any difference to her if what they predict happens or not, though they never say anything much, do they? “You are going to take a trip.” She goes to the Rialto Market the next day to buy vegetables: that’s a trip, isn’t it?’

Vianello had spoken of his aunt over the years: she was his late mother’s favourite sister and his favourite aunt, as well, probably because she was the most strong-willed person in the family. Married in the fifties to an apprentice electrician, she had seen her husband go off to Torino in search of work within weeks of marrying him. She waited almost two years to see him again. Zio Franco had had good luck in finding work, most of it with Fiat, where he had been able to study and become a master electrician.

Zia Anita moved to Torino to join him and spent six years with him there; after the birth of their first son, they had moved to Mestre, where he set up his own business. The family grew, the business grew: both prospered. Franco had retired only in his late seventies and, much to the surprise of his children, all of whom had grown up on terraferma, moved back to Venice. When asked why none of her children had wanted to move back to Venice with them, she had said, ‘They had gasoline in their veins, not salt water.’