That, despite what Francesca Giusti told me, the door would be sealed, and I wouldn’t be able to get in. Or that it would be covered in fingerprint dust, the way places are in the movies, with drawers left open and furniture turned upside down. But it isn’t any of those things. All it is, is empty. The article on Billy’s murder is coming out today and Pierangelo left early. He offered to come with me to collect some more of my things, but I told him I wanted to be alone. Now I wish I hadn’t, and that he was standing here beside me, stirring the silence that’s built up like silt. The French windows in the kitchen are still tied shut. The first traces of the police are smudges of dark powder around the door handles in the living room, and the fact that the papers on the desk have been squared into too neat a pile. The shutters are up, the curtains open, and below on the street the city is coming to life again, stirring like a bloated animal after the Easter festivities.
