Brunetti was content to sit and listen to whatever Vianello said about his aunt. The distraction would keep him from going to the window every few minutes to see if. . If what? If it had started to snow?

‘And she’s started watching them on television,’ Vianello continued.

‘Horoscopes?’ Brunetti asked, puzzled. He watched television infrequently, usually forced to do so by someone else in the family, and so had no idea of what sort of thing was to be found here.

‘Yes. But mostly card readers and those people who say they can read your future and solve your problems.’

‘Card readers?’ he could only repeat. ‘On television?’

‘Yes. People call in and this person reads the cards for them and tells them what they should watch out for, or they promise to help them if they’re sick. Well, that’s what my cousins tell me.’

‘Watch out not to fall down the stairs or watch out for a tall, dark-haired stranger?’ Brunetti asked.

Vianello shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never watched them. It sounds ridiculous.’

‘It doesn’t sound ridiculous, Lorenzo,’ Brunetti assured him. ‘Strange, perhaps, but not ridiculous.’ He added, ‘And maybe not even so strange, come to think of it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s an old woman,’ Brunetti said, ‘and we tend to assume — and if Paola were here, or Nadia, they’d accuse me of prejudice against both women and old people for saying this — that old women will believe that sort of thing.’

‘Isn’t that why the witches got burnt?’ Vianello asked.

Even though Brunetti had once read long passages of Malleus Maleficarum, he still had no idea why old women had been the specific targets of the burnings. Perhaps because many men are stupid and vicious and old women are weak and undefended.