Colomba tried to keep her expression unchanged. "Yes."

"You're a terrible liar, which means you're slightly ashamed of it. But let's skip over that detail, for now. What do you want from me?"

"A child is missing, up at the Vivaro mountain meadows."

"A woman murdered, her husband in a jail cell. I heard the news." Dante was doing his best to conceal it, but it hit him hard. "Whoever it was that sent you to see me thinks the man's innocent, but someone else involved in this investigation disagrees, probably the investigating magistrate. And since the father has no way of knowing what's become of his son and this probably isn't a kidnapping for ransom, you want my help finding him."

Colomba's head was spinning. "You're an expert on missing persons."

"According to you."

"You've worked on at least two kidnappings for ransom, five others involving psychological abuse, and I don't know how many other cases of voluntary abandonment. You solved every one. You sometimes work on cases of child abuse."

Dante cracked his usual, humorless grin. "Can you prove that?"

"Of course not. You hide behind the law firm, which in turn hires private investigators and operates under cover of attorney-client privilege. Still, word does get around, and the people who sent me here have heard about you. And what they've heard is that you're good at what you do."

Dante shook his head. "I've just made good use of my own experience."

"As a kidnap victim?"

"You see, Agent Colomba, for eleven years, the most critical years in any human being's development, I lived in total isolation except for occasional interactions with my kidnapper. No books, no TV, no radio. When I got out, the world was incomprehensible to me. Ordinary social exchanges appeared alien, as alien as you might find life in an anthill."

"I'm sorry," said Colomba, and she meant it.

"Thanks, but spare me the condolences. While I was studying the world outside, I realized that I understood certain workings of that world better than people who had grown up in it. To see something clearly, you need the right distance. And I had that distance, through no choice of my own. I can summon it even now, when I need it. I can see if something's altered in a missing person's daily habits, I can sense what they love and what they fear just by observing the way they arrange their personal effects. Whether someone or something has interrupted the normal course of their lives."

"And you read body language, the way you did with me."

Dante nodded. "My kidnapper always wore gloves and kept his face covered. I tried to read his posture to tell if I was doing the right thing or if he was about to punish me. If he was telling the truth when he promised me I'd have food or water to drink. I used it to find the people you mentioned. There was always someone who knew more than they told, and I could see that. But a prosecutor isn't likely to want me as an expert witness. Aside from the fact that the last thing I want is to be in the spotlight again."

"All I'm asking for is a private consultation," said Colomba. "Your name could be kept out of it."

"No, Agent Colomba. There are two things I won't do: become involved in a case directly or work with the police. And you're asking me to do both." Dante stood up and extended his good hand. "It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Come back and see me, and I'll be glad to make you another espresso."

Colomba didn't budge, and Dante grimaced faintly. It was like a crack through which she could briefly see him for what he was. A victim who had painstakingly rebuilt a life for himself, gluing the pieces back together after experiencing the unimaginable. I ought to leave, Colomba thought. That would be the right thing to do. But she couldn't. "Signor Torre," she said. "Now please let me have my say."

Dante sat back down, reluctantly.

"I want to begin by saying once again how sorry I am," Colomba went on. "With all that's happened to you, you deserve to be left in peace for the rest of your life."

"Do me a favor and don't pity me. It's one thing I can't stand."

"I just want to be straight with you. I dislike this situation every bit as much as you do. I'm not accustomed to involving civilians in police investigations, and I don't like behind-the-scenes maneuvering."

"That comes as a surprise."

"While we're on the subject, believe me, the only reason I drank that coffee squeezed out of some squirrel's butt was to be polite. That's right, I saw the name on the bag, and even though I'm just a cop, I know what Kopi Luwak is. I know how much it costs, too, before you try and throw that fact in my face."

"I'm not that rude," he muttered.

"And I'm not that squeamish: I've been on the force for thirteen years now, and I've gulped down and witnessed more shit than you could even begin to imagine. I haven't told you everything I know about you. I know what became of your parents. Your father was in and out of prison before you turned up again. And your mother killed herself when you were . . . how old . . . ten?"

"Nine," he said flatly.

"My colleagues on the force back then failed to find you or even guess that you were still alive. If I were you, I'd be furious at the police, the prosecutors, the whole world. We abandoned you, and we took it out on your parents. You were forced to rescue yourself." Colomba gave him a level look. "But do you really want the same thing to happen to another family?"

"Do you think it's fair to come into my home and try to guilt me into working with you?"

"I'm sorry about that, too. But now I'd like an answer, please."

Dante stared at her. "Every day, about thirty thousand children die, and half of them starve to death. I can't take responsibility for all the bad things that happen on Earth."

Colomba went on staring back at him. "The Maugeri boy is closer than Africa."

"Then find him."

"You could make all the difference for that boy. You know that, don't you?"

Dante shook his head. "Until yesterday, you didn't even know I existed. Tell me who sent you here."

Colomba understood that if she hoped to get anything out of him, she'd have to tell the truth. "Captain Rovere, the head of the Mobile Squad."

"And the asshole magistrate, who's that?"

"De Angelis."

Dante shook his head a second time. "You really are in trouble."

"Well, will you help us?" asked Colomba.

Dante studied her. "Do you really think I can do anything? Or are you just dragging me into some power play between your boss and the district attorney's office?"

Colomba decided to go on telling the truth. "I'm hoping that you can pull a rabbit out of a hat, but I doubt that's going to happen."

"You've stopped believing in miracles, eh?"

"And in Santa Claus," she said, thinking back to the Disaster.

Dante nodded slightly, as if he'd just read Colomba's mind. And actually, in a way, he had. He understood that this woman with a decisive manner sitting across from him was concealing some deep sorrow. And not because Rovere, by selecting her for that assignment so unorthodox and contrary to regulation, had sent her to the slaughter, but because she had agreed to go. No one would have risked her professional future for the sake of a faint possibility they didn't even believe in, unless she was sure they didn't possess such a thing as a future. Colomba was a kamikaze pilot power-diving into her final mission, and Dante found that fact irresistible. He loved dramatic, heroic deeds, even when they were quite stupid. Or perhaps especially when they were stupid. "Let's do this, Deputy Captain," he said. "I'm willing to take a look at the documents you certainly have in that bag and tell you what I think of them."

"Thank you."

"Why don't you wait before you thank me: I want a favor from you first."

Colomba narrowed her eyes, suspiciously. "What favor?"

Dante walked her over to the balcony and pointed to the man in the street below. "Him."

3.

Alberti yawned as he stood next to the squad car parked a few hundred yards away from Dante's apartment, along the perimeter of the old city walls. Colomba had asked him not to park too close to avoid attracting too much attention, and Alberti, deep down, had to agree with her. Unlike his colleagues, who seemed not to give a damn, he was painfully aware of the uneasiness that a patrol car and a uniformed cop tended to stir in civilians. All you had to do was go into a cafe for a piss, and it was unmistakable.

Alberti wondered if he'd eventually become like his partner, after a few years of police duty, capable only of spending time with people in uniform, maybe even married to another cop. He hoped not. He had other plans, projects that kept him awake when he was off duty, hunched over the MIDI keyboard connected to his computer running Music Maker. The pieces he wrote and posted on Facebook under the pseudonym Rookie Blue had gathered almost ten thousand "likes." They still weren't bringing in money, but it was just a matter of time.

As he was yawning for what seemed like the millionth time, his cell phone rang to the notes of the piece he'd entitled "Time." It was Colomba. Given the fact that she was still on leave, she couldn't use the radio. "At your orders, Deputy Captain," he said.

"Get out of the car and go to the corner of Via Tiburtina Antica."

"Is there something wrong, Deputy Captain?"

"Not for now. But make sure you aren't seen. I'll stay on the line."

Alberti went where he'd been told. "I'm here, Deputy Captain," he said. In the street ahead of him, the mothers were starting to head for the elementary school.

"Do you see the big vases with plants right in front of you?" asked Colomba.

"Yes, Deputy Captain." They were outside a corner cafe with two outside tables.

"There's a man smoking a cigarette, in a red jacket."

"I see him." The man was about fifty, huge, and looking in the opposite direction from where Alberti was. "What do you want me to do?"

"Keep an eye on him until I get downstairs. I don't want him to get away while I'm on the stairs. Okay?"

"Excuse me, though, Deputy Captain. What did he do?"

"Don't ask pointless questions," said Colomba and hung up.

Alberti thought to himself that the question didn't seem all that pointless as he stood a few yards away from the man in the jacket. What should he expect from him? Just then, the man took a look behind him and noticed that Alberti was staring at him. He didn't even try to conceal his nervousness. He just started walking at a brisk pace. Another two seconds, and he'd vanish down one of the side streets.

Alberti went after him. "Excuse me," he shouted. "Hey!"

The man in the jacket pretended he couldn't hear him.

Alberti picked up the pace and put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I'm talking to you."

The man turned around and in the same movement swung a fist into Alberti's face.

Alberti saw black, and his legs gave way beneath him. He fell on his ass, grabbing at his nose, which was spraying blood, filling his mouth. When he opened his eyes again, Colomba's police boots had materialized in front of him.

"Are you still alive?"

"Yes."

Colomba had already set off at a dead run after the fugitive.

"I'll call Dispatch . . ." Alberti stammered as he tried to grab a planter to hoist himself back upright.

"No!" shouted Colomba. "Don't do anything else!" and disappeared around the corner.

The man in the jacket was running as if he were on roller skates, and Colomba spotted him already at the far end of the street, galloping past a fruit and vegetable stand, bumping an old woman with a shopping trolley. She accelerated anyway, hurtling through the crowd of pedestrians and shoving the ones who didn't get out of the way. How long had it been since she'd chased anyone in the street? Years, since back when she was still assistant captain in the Drug Enforcement Division and the officers had made no secret of how much they disliked taking orders from her, a penguin and a woman, to boot. After her promotion there had mostly been indoor raids and stakeouts in cars. Lengthy stakeouts. And four gun battles, one of which had left her with a scar on her leg. In none of those cases had there been any major street chases. And now she was chasing someone, and she didn't even really know why.

She barely missed hitting a kid on a bicycle who yelled after her, while a group of young Maghrebi immigrants from North Africa scattered the minute they caught a whiff of the uniform that she wasn't wearing. Meanwhile, the fugitive had managed to put several more yards' distance between them.

The street that the man in the jacket was running down ended in a T, and Colomba knew that she had only one chance of catching him: taking side streets to one of the two crossbars of that T and hoping she picked the right street. Dodging around a granite bollard, she veered to the right, heading for the elevated rail line that ran to Termini Station and the metro stop. If she'd been the one running away, that's the direction she'd have headed, not the other way, deeper into the neighborhood.

A car honked its horn behind her, but Colomba kept running straight down the middle of the street, ignoring it. A few yards short of the intersection she saw that she'd guessed right, because the man in the jacket was heading straight toward her at a brisk pace, convinced he'd lost her. He didn't even notice Colomba until she smashed into him, shoulder first, knocking him hard against the side of a building.

"Police," said Colomba, twisting his forearm behind his head. "Hands in the air, up against the wall."

The man jabbed his elbow at her. Colomba managed to avoid the blow to her face and grabbed his elbow and wrist, doing her best to gain leverage, but it was like trying to bend the branch of an oak tree, the man was so muscle-bound. He tried to punch her again, this time in the belly. She jumped back and grabbed him around the back of the neck, smashing her right knee repeatedly into his solar plexus and testicles.

He shook her off and folded forward from the waist. "You fucking whore . . ." he muttered between miserable bouts of retching.

At that point Colomba made a mistake. She was positive she'd broken his spirit and paused to catch her breath, but in fact the man in the jacket still had plenty of energy and, with an unexpected lunge, grabbed her by the throat. Colomba felt the air choke off and her lungs emptying out. At the margins of her field of vision the buzzing shadows immediately appeared, the warning signs of an oncoming attack. No, not now. If she lost control, she'd be done for. She focused on the pain she felt in her throat and seized onto the discomfort as a sort of Ariadne's thread that would lead her out of the darkness. Something like two seconds had elapsed. The man kept throttling her and shouting abuse. Colomba hit him right above his Adam's apple with the blow called nukite in karate, a full-hand straight-fingered jab.

The man fell gasping to his knees: now it was his turn to suffocate. Colomba shoved him facedown onto the ground and climbed on top of him.

"Spread your arms! Spread them!" she said in a hoarse voice.

"I didn't do anything!" he wheezed.

"Spread them, goddamn it!"

The man obeyed. While Colomba was patting him down, he unexpectedly burst into tears. "I love him. I love him," he mumbled.

"Oh, shut up," said Colomba, without a clue of what he was talking about. All around them, a dozen or so people had gathered, emerging from the nearby shops. Colomba flashed her ID in a circle. "I'm from the police, okay? I'm placing this man under arrest."

"What did he do?" asked a young man with a black-and-white kaffiyeh scarf.

"He put his hands on me, is that enough for you?" The young man kept staring at her, and Colomba turned down the collar of her blouse, where the man in the jacket's hands had left the skin chafed and sore. "You see?"

The young man nodded. "But let him up, okay? He could suffocate. It wouldn't be the first time."

"Listen, I don't have handcuffs on me, and I'm going to keep him in this position until my partners show up." Colomba reached into her pocket in search of her cell phone but couldn't find it. Fuck, she thought. "Does anyone have a phone they can lend me?" she asked.