From the moment he’d set foot in that valley, Massimo had been struck by the splendor of the natural landscape in which it was immersed. It gave the place the appearance of an unspoiled paradise, but he knew now that there were sins in its past—perhaps even in its present—that could not be forgotten. If it was indeed an Eden, it was already lost, tainted—much like the rest of the world—by what Massimo thought of as the “human stain.” But the people of Travenì weren’t ready to admit that, not even to themselves. There would have been no shame in facing up to the truth, in accepting that they lived in a flawed yet redeemable reality. Instead they’d chosen to surround themselves with an invisible wall that kept out anybody who dared doubt the righteousness of the community, and Massimo felt an urge to shout at them, tell them that by acting in this way, they were becoming accomplices to the crime. There were only a few exceptions, and they usually took pains not to voice their thoughts in public.

Except, perhaps, for one person.

He recalled Lucas Ebran’s mother, the anguish and disdain with which she’d defended her son against their questioning, and against the people of the valley.

She’d called them hypocrites. She’d spoken of all their bastard children. She’d challenged the criminal reticence that was ubiquitous among the inhabitants of the valley.

Massimo looked again at the demonic face. It appeared to be laughing at him.

No, he thought, it’s not laughing at me, it’s laughing with me.

He tried calling Superintendent Battaglia, but her phone couldn’t be reached. An idea had begun to dawn in his mind. Ebran’s mother had talked about secrets. Now, Massimo was ready to hear them.

-73-

-73-

Parri had found traces of blende and galena—zinc and lead sulphides—on the bones and tissue that Andreas had taken from his victims. The same traces had also been detected on the food he had recently left at the skeleton’s feet. It had to be residue from Andreas’s hands.

The Osvan quarry was a lunar landscape three thousand feet above sea level, just beyond the line of the Alpine border.

Once they’d passed the forest, the police cars had followed a road that wound through stacks of pale scree jutting through the snow, and across the exposed underbelly of the mountain. Ancient riverbeds were dotted with rusting, abandoned machinery and stacks of timber that looked like fossils in the moonlight.

Below the surface of the quarry lay zinc and lead mines. A number of mining shafts had been dug at various depths, alternating with water drainage tunnels that surfaced across the border. According to Chief Knauss, those tunnels had been used to transport supplies and military equipment during the two world wars.