“I have the results of the toxicology report you’d asked me for. I thought you’d want to know straight away.”

“I do.”

“There are traces of cyanide in the bone tissue. The child was poisoned.”

Teresa said nothing. Wallner must have put his plan into action after all.

“Teresa?”

“I’m here.”

“There’s more.”

As the coroner spoke, Teresa saw Parisi emerging from the tunnel. From his calmness, and his colleagues’ unhurried manner as they helped him out of the harness, Teresa deduced the cave must have been empty.

This had been Andreas’s refuge once, but it wasn’t anymore. He had smelled danger and found himself another den, in the same way animals did, moving their cubs from one safe place to another.

“Could you repeat that?” she asked Parri.

“Blende and galena,” he repeated. “I hope that helps.”

It did.

“Now I know where to look for him.”

-72-

-72-

“I’m sorry, Inspector. The walls here are thick, and there’s no signal.”

Massimo looked up from his mobile phone screen to find a woman observing him. Considering the position she held, she was younger than he’d expected; her face, devoid of makeup, showed the traces of interrupted sleep, but her black, sparkling eyes were alert and curious, and only a little bit cautious.

He recognized her from the Saint Nicholas’s Day celebrations. He held out his hand, and she shook it with a delicate but resolute grip.

“I must apologize for the late hour,” said Massimo.

The abbess bowed her head slightly.

“I was informed that the matter was urgent,” she replied.

“It is. There’s something we need to check.”

“I see. What is it?”

Massimo’s eyes darted to a room near the main entrance. It was closed off by an imposing door, reinforced with studs, and sealed by a handmade wrought-iron latch, the metal thick and coarsely molded. Everything inside the convent of Rail was ancient—except for the lives of the women who inhabited it.

“I’ve come to enquire about the foundling wheel,” Massimo said. “I need to find out how long it was in use, and how the babies who were left there were looked after.”

Sister Agata looked astonished.

“The wheel hasn’t been in use for a long time, Inspector.”

“I know. But the case that brings me here has its roots in the past.”

“And you think you’ll find the answers you’re looking for here?”

“I hope so.”

She smiled.

“I hope so, too,” she said, “but I’m afraid it’s unlikely. This is a place of prayer and not much else.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d still like to try.”

“Of course.”

“We have found some human remains in the forest of Travenì, around eighteen miles from here.”

The nun frowned.

“I know that village,” she said. “Whose remains are they?”

“They belong to a young boy, not yet a teenager. We know nothing about his identity.”