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planning a strategy that would get her to confess to involvement in the murder. After what seemed a long time, he came out of the small cubicle. Pointing towards the back of the building, he said, ‘Down that corridor there,Signora. Turn right and it’s the second door on your left. The lieutenant is expecting you.’ He went back into the cubicle, closing the door behind him.
    She started down the corridor, surprised that she should be allowed to walk around in the Questura so freely. Hadn’t they ever heard of the Red Brigades?
    She found the door, knocked, and was told to enter. A man of about her own age was seated behind a metal desk in a room hardly bigger than the cubicle downstairs. If he stood, he would be much taller than she. He had dark hair, and eyes that looked as though they would limit their work to seeing the surface of things. There was the uniformed man, his chair, the desk, and two armless chairs placed in front of it.
    â€˜Lieutenant Scarpa?’ she asked.
    He looked up at her and nodded, then looked down at the papers on his desk.
    She gave her name and her address, then asked, ‘Are you in charge of the investigation of the murder of Signora Battestini?’
    â€˜I was,’ he said, again raising his eyes. He pointed to one of the chairs and said, ‘Please sit down.’
    One step brought her to the chair, and she sat, then, realizing that it was placed so that the sun from the small window shone into her face, she got up and moved to the other, angling it away from both his desk and the window before she sat down again.
    Signora Gismondi had no direct experience of the police, but she had for six years been married to a very lazy and equally violent man, and she simply put herself back into that time and situation and acted accordingly. ‘You said you
were
in charge, Lieutenant,’ she said softly. ‘Does that mean the investigation is being handled by someone else?’ If so, she wondered, then why had she been sent to talk to this man?
    He made a point of finishing whatever it was he was reading and setting it aside before he looked up at her. ‘No.’
    She waited for an explanation, and when none was forthcoming, she repeated, ‘Does that mean the investigation is closed?’
    He paused a long time before repeating, ‘No.’
    Giving no sign of impatience or exasperation, she asked, ‘May I ask what it does mean?’
    â€˜That the investigation is not currently being actively pursued.’
    Hearing the tortured vowels the longer sentence revealed in his accent, she adjusted her response to the information that he was a southerner, perhaps Sicilian. Feigning indifference, she asked, ‘To whom is it, then, that I might give information about this matter?’
    â€˜If the case were being investigated, you would give it to me.’ He allowed her to grasp the implications of his statement and returned his attention to the papers on his desk. Had he told her to leave, he could have made it no clearerhow little interest he had in whatever she had to tell him.
    For a moment, she faltered. It would all lead, what she had to say, to trouble for her and, if they didn’t believe her, possibly to actual risk. It would be so easy to push herself to her feet and leave, abandon the issue and this man with the indifferent eyes.
    â€˜I read in the
Gazzettino
that she was murdered by the Romanian woman who lived with her,’ she said.
    â€˜That’s correct,’ he said, and then added, ‘She did it.’ His tone, like his words, brooked no opposition.
    â€˜It might be correct that I read it in the
Gazzettino
, and it might be correct that it was printed there, but it is not correct that the Romanian woman killed her,’ she said, driven by the omniscience of his second remark to launch herself at the truth.
    His indifference, however, was unassailable. ‘Have you some evidence for that statement,