“Not as many as they had in the big cities, where the effects of industrialization forced many working women to give up their babies. Then again, I suppose that up in these mountains, that same unfortunate role was played by poverty and famine.”

“When was the wheel closed?”

The abbess pointed at the book on the table.

“That’s the most recent register, and it will record the last date.”

Massimo read the entry out loud.

“18 October 1972. Female.”

“They named her Clara. She was the last foundling to ever come to this abbey.”

Massimo looked at her.

“What became of the children?”

“They would live in the abbey for two weeks. A wet nurse would be brought in from the village to feed them, and the sisters would handle everything else. During those two weeks, they would pray for the mother to change her mind and take the child back, but if that didn’t happen, the baby would be handed over to the care of the State and placed in an institute for children born out of wedlock.”

“It’s a sad story,” said Massimo.

“I wouldn’t say that. Those children were spared a far more terrible fate. But as you can see, Inspector, the child you are looking for cannot have been left in this convent—and even if it had been, it would not have crossed the confines of these four walls except to continue its life in an orphanage.”

Massimo exited the convent in Rail weighed down by a sense of oppression. Before walking away, he stopped to study the wheel. A devil’s head was carved into the stone over the mouth of the revolving hatch, its wicked gaze following Massimo no matter where he stood. It had a pair of twisting horns, a pointed chin, and gaping jaws, the tips of its fangs touching its lower lip. It was a gruesome sight, a last attempt to deter those who came there to abandon their child.

He thought of how the Church was always so strict with others, yet so quick to forgive itself.

The sense of unease that had fallen upon him refused to go away; it was a subtle but persistent sense of nausea that made his stomach churn. The thought of all those abandoned infants had shaken him deeply—even more shocking was the knowledge that it had still been happening until not too long ago.