Teresa picked the couch, Marini the armchair. He’d come to work early that morning, mercifully in a pair of jeans and comfortable shoes. He hadn’t relinquished the blazer, though, or his tailored coat. Teresa, faintly amused, had thought that the transformation had already begun. They’d spent the early hours of the day at the crime scene, now cleared of the forensics team’s paraphernalia, but still cordoned off. To work out who had killed Roberto Valent, they first had to establish how he’d been killed—step by step, right up until the final act—and find the answer to a single question: Why?

Perhaps the family would provide the answer, though Teresa doubted it. She was here for the usual formalities, to allow the police to gain a better sense of the family, and to reassure those closest to the victim that they were doing everything they could to get to the truth.

The room was furnished in the alpine style, probably like the rest of the house. Honey-colored wood creaked underfoot and covered the walls and the coffered ceiling, its panels interleaved with swathes of silk brocade and other rich fabrics, as well as wool and felt. There was a charming and tasteful selection of objects on display: heart-shaped, inlaid boxes containing gingerbread and candied fruits, and old copper and pewter pots that had been repurposed as vases and filled with aromatic herbs and star anise, releasing a lingering scent into the room. The cushions were soft and embellished with handmade lace. A nativity scene whose layout and coloring suggested it was an antique had been set up on a coffee table near the entrance.

The focal point of the parlor was the stube, the traditional wall-mounted stove that took up almost an entire side of the room, and emitted a pleasant, welcoming warmth. There were upholstered benches to its left and right; this was the part of the house where families used to gather in the evenings, once they had completed their chores in the woods or in the stables.

But the family that lived in this house now had just been deprived of one of its key members. Their evenings would no longer be the same; the nights that would follow would seem unending and full of misery. Teresa was sure that nights in Travenì would have felt quiet enough to begin with—it was one of those places where the streets became deserted at the first hint of sunset. Now, to make matters worse, the town had awakened to the knowledge that a killer had been roaming its streets in the dark.