He took a sip large enough to complement the size of the glass and said, ‘All right, what is it?’

‘Chiara complained that you were late, and when I told her it was because someone had been killed, she said that it was only a vu cumprà.’ She kept her voice dispassionate, reportorial.

‘Only?’ he repeated.

‘Only.’

Brunetti took another drink of wine, rested his head on the back of the sofa, and swirled the wine around in his mouth. ‘Hummm,’ he finally said. ‘Not nice at all, is it?’

Though he couldn’t see Paola, he felt the sofa move as she nodded.

‘You think she heard it in school?’ he asked.

‘Where else? She’s too young to be a member of the Lega.’

‘So is it something her friends bring in from their parents, or is it something the teachers give them?’ he asked.

‘It could be either, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Or both.’

‘I suppose so,’ Brunetti agreed. ‘What did you do?’

‘I told her what she said was disgusting and that I’m ashamed she’s my daughter.’

He turned, smiled, held his glass up and saluted her. ‘Always prone to moderation, aren’t you?’

‘What was I supposed to do, send her to some sort of sensitivity training class or give her a sermon on the brotherhood of man?’ Brunetti heard her rage and disgust rekindle as she went on, ‘It is disgusting, and I am ashamed of her.’

Brunetti was pleased she did not bother to assert that their daughter had never heard such things in their home, that they were in no way responsible for this sort of distortion of mind. Heaven alone knew what was suggested by the conversations he and Paola had in front of the children; no one knew what they could have inferred over all those years. He liked to think he was a moderate person, brought up, like most Italians, without racial prejudice, but he was honest enough to accept that this belief was probably yet another national myth. It is easy to grow up without racial prejudice in a society in which there is only one race.