Teresa elected to say nothing for the time being, knowing that her own words in that report implied they had as good as solved the case.

Ebran knew how to set animal traps because his own father had taught him. He knew how to skin an animal and had been seen lurking around other people’s homes, spying on little girls and their families. He was an outcast. He had probably always nursed a deep frustration, exacerbated by poverty and by a physical disfigurement that he was now desperately trying to hide by keeping his hands beneath the table. Teresa suspected he must suffer from some form of psychosis, but she would need a full psychiatric evaluation to know for sure.

The boys who’d crashed their car in the woods had said he could be the stranger who had assaulted their friend. But it wasn’t a straightforward match: the stranger’s face had been painted, the clothes he’d been wearing had concealed his physical build, and the teenagers’ minds had been clouded by alcohol when they’d encountered him.

David Knauss hadn’t been able to hide his uncertainty or his disappointment when they’d shown him Ebran’s mug shot.

“These aren’t his eyes,” he’d said, though even he was aware that there was no way he could know for sure. He couldn’t recall the details, couldn’t clearly picture in his mind the moment he had—quite possibly—evaded death. But as Teresa had discovered when she’d spoken to him again, what really bothered him was something else: the realization that his attacker might not be the mythical warrior David had imagined him to be. She suspected the boy had developed a form of Stockholm syndrome. He was grateful to his assailant for having “brought him back to life” and felt indebted to him.

“Lucas Ebran’s profile matches the killer’s, but he is not the killer,” Gardini murmured as he read through Teresa’s concluding remarks, a look of dismay and consternation crossing his features.

“It’s not him. It’s clear. He’s nothing more than a misfit,” Teresa confirmed.

Ebran’s hands were disfigured by scars caused by the fire he’d started in his school when he was a teenager. That was why they hadn’t found his fingerprints in the house: he didn’t have any. The skin on the tips of his fingers was smooth and swollen, hardened by time and wear.

They had wasted time, and there was still no trace of the child. No one had seen the person who’d picked him up from the stroller and taken him away, though they had found a clue on the baby’s blanket: some white marks. The day had taken a turn for the worse when they’d heard the news that Abramo Viesel had died.

Teresa was looking at the millennial forest that surrounded the village.