“You really have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I believe I do.”

“That wasn’t a question, Inspector.”

“The profile?” asked Parri, interrupting their confrontation.

Teresa hesitated.

“Go on,” the doctor insisted. “I can tell you have something in mind.”

“We only have a single murder, Antonio. Profiles are for something else altogether.”

“But that’s what you’re thinking about, isn’t it? There’s a ritualistic element, you saw that straight away, and ritualism leads to repetition. That’s how it works, that’s how serial killers are born.”

Teresa chewed on her glasses. She was tired, hungry, and unsettled. Parri knew her too well, and she felt utterly transparent around him.

Finally, she relented. “Twenty-five to thirty years old. Lives alone. An ectomorph by build, but far stronger than his appearance would suggest; the victim was no weakling. Disorganized, but showing flashes of lucid reasoning. There is method behind his vigor. He is intelligent, but his psychosis has held him back. He probably struggled through school, and if he has a job, it isn’t one that he finds fulfilling. An introvert. No partner. I suspect he’s never known how to approach women. He may suffer from some form of sexual dysfunction.”

Marini sighed, an unconscious reflex that, Teresa had noticed, betrayed his frustration.

“Perhaps you disagree?” she said.

He threw up his hands.

“And what if I did?” he said. “Or did you think I was only here to tag along? Obviously I’d like to discuss things and exchange views and maybe even argue about the case if it helps—but over real, tangible facts.”

Teresa smiled. She was used to this kind of reaction.

“You’re right,” she conceded. “Death is real, here in this place. You can smell it, can’t you?”

His eyes blazed.

“I can. Can you?” he replied defiantly.

Parri made as if to speak, but Teresa silenced him with a glance. She wasn’t troubled by the insubordination. At last the boy was showing there was more to him than an expensive suit and the pout on his pretty face. Perhaps beneath all that he had a backbone after all.

“Do you want to know how I can be so sure?” she said, moving closer. “It’s down to experience. But it’s also down to statistics. It’s down to hundreds of profiles of people like him who’ve committed certain kinds of murders. This kind of murder. It’s not magic. It’s not guesswork. I do my homework. So should you.”

The night air was bitter and cleansing. Teresa breathed deeply, as if to wash off the blight of all the sorrow she’d just inhaled. She felt this way every time she left the Institute no matter how many autopsies she’d witnessed throughout her career. It was like resurfacing from a deep sea dive.