Marja lowered her head and closed her eyes. Tears began to fall from between her lashes. Massimo realized that up until that moment, she had convinced herself her son had been living a full and happy life far from her.

“I was scared,” she confessed. “But I didn’t do anything wrong. I left him in better hands than mine, someone who could give him a family that would love him.”

“Was he sent to an orphanage?”

“No.”

“Who was it, then?”

“The same person who helped him into the world.”

Massimo grabbed hold of the grille, bringing his face close to hers, unmoved by her silent weeping.

“I need a name,” he said.

Marja sighed and whispered the name into his ear, as if she were still afraid, after all that time, to say it out loud.

Massimo looked at her, horrified. He knew that man. But the discovery led him to make one final connection: that man had the same blue eyes—only older now—as the man in the blurry photo Massimo had found in the file of an old unsolved case from across the border.

-79-

-79-

Teresa couldn’t recall assigning Marini that task. She couldn’t remember a single thing about their conversation on the subject, and yet it seemed that a few hours ago, she had ordered him to visit the convent in Rail. The only clue she had was a hurried scribble on a piece of tissue paper she hadn’t yet transcribed to her diary. At the end of the note, she’d written the following words: “refer to diary.”

She did remember writing something down about the foundling wheel after her conversation with Doctor Ian at the pub. That must be what those words meant.

Her coat and her bag were inside a cabinet by the bed. She took out her diary and began to leaf through it, but though she was sure she’d written that entry, she couldn’t find it. She checked again, but the page where she’d recounted her conversation with the doctor was missing. Yet her memory of it was clear, unsullied by her spells of confusion.

“I had advised you to lie down,” said Ian, entering the room. “How are you feeling?”

Teresa had been asking herself the very same question. It was as if a stranger were coming in every now and then to take over her life for a while, leaving nothing more than hints about her visits—which, though always brief, had the power to turn everything on its head.

“Has anyone had access to my belongings?” she asked.

Ian looked at her in surprise.

“Not that I know of. They’ve been in the cupboard all along. Your colleagues put them there. Is there a problem?”

Teresa looked at her diary again.

Are you really sure someone’s opened it?

“There’s a page missing from my notes,” she told him.