Trotti shrugged. “He saw him at the murder trial.” “That was years ago.” Maserati gave a self-conscious smile. “Why should he feel guilty about the murder of someone he scarcely knew?” “The letter—it shocked him.” “Judges receive threatening letters all the time.” “But not twenty years after the ...
“Stop calling me,” said the voice, picking up for the first time that day. “Why you been avoiding me?” asked Xander, ignoring the request he was sure his lover didn’t really mean. “I ain’t been avoiding you. I been busy,” said the muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Doing what?” “Minding...
If on the outside the old building kept its traditional, wealthy appearance, on the inside everything was modern. Tradition and modernity. The two faces of Milan. Pisanelli followed Trotti through the revolving wooden doors and waited before a locked glass door. The door was promptly buzzed open ...
It was as he remembered it. It nestled, a small, forgotten town, between the Apennine slopes. The church tower rose and like a grey finger pointed out the cloudless sky. “When I was ten,” Trotti said, leaning forward to turn off the radio, “I came here with my cousin Anna Maria. I cycled on a bic...
Trotti sat in the back of the taxi. He was tired, he felt dirty and wanted to get out of his sticky clothes. Water in the lungs. He closed his eyes. (In 1978 he had been to the school. It was in the Scuola Elementare Gerolamo...
Anne Marie, slightly out of breath, went up the steps and past the procureur de la République. He was surrounded by three men. Two wore ties and neat tropical suits. The third—a tall, gaunt black man with sunken cheeks—had a pale, white raincoat. Politicians, Anne Marie thought. Only politicians ...
Trotti could make out her silhouette against the open doorway, the well-kept body and high-heeled shoes. It was dark and the glow of the bedside lamp did not reach the face. “Magagna phoned you?” “My husband is not a small man.” She stepped carefully past the jars, the vases of flowers and the em...
The car bounced on its high suspension. Dust swirled upwards and reluctantly Anne Marie had to ask Trousseau to close the windows and turn on the cooler. They traveled through the low brush at little more than ten kilometers an hour for over five minutes. Nobody was in sight. They came to the ope...