“Yes, for work, of course,” she answered. “But he didn’t come back. After a couple of hours I began to worry and I decided to go looking for him at the construction site. But he had never made it there.”

Teresa now addressed Valent’s mother: “Did you notice anything odd in your son’s behavior?” she asked.

The old lady’s eyes were dry now, and dimmed, like worn glass marbles.

“No, there was nothing out of the ordinary. He was working too hard, that’s true, but it wasn’t to be for much longer. The project was due to be completed soon, in a few months or within a year at most. That’s what he always told me when I fretted over him.”

She took the empty coffee cups and disappeared into the kitchen, beating a hasty retreat. The clinking of crockery in the sink filtered through to the sitting room, together with the sound of quiet conversation.

Teresa knew who it might be.

“Is there someone else in there?” she asked the widow.

“The boy.”

The boy, thought Teresa. As if he were someone else’s son. A little stranger who lived in her house. Marta Valent had just made an unintended confession: that cozy, immaculate home she worked so hard to maintain was only a projection of what everyone expected of her. The truth was perhaps rather different, involving a mother who was emotionally distant from her own child.

“I would like to meet him,” said Teresa, in a tone that made clear that this was not a request.

The woman frowned.

“Is that really necessary?”

Teresa smiled, seeking to reassure her, and nodded.

Diego Valent was a dutiful child: his mother had only to call him once, and without any particular inflection in her voice, for him to appear. He emerged from the kitchen with his little face flushed from crying, his eyes carrying a world of confusion.

A meek and wounded creature, Teresa thought.

The boy approached his mother, who put her hand on his shoulder. There was no other physical contact between them.

“Hello, Diego,” Teresa said kindly. “I’m Superintendent Battaglia, but you can call me Teresa.”

He watched her wordlessly. The tremor of his sobs had passed, replaced by curiosity.

“How old are you?”

“Ten,” his mother answered in his stead, without giving him any time to decide whether or not to trust this stranger. “Diego has a stutter.”

Those words struck the boy like a curse, and Teresa saw him squirming beneath the force of his humiliation. She felt furious on his behalf and pitied this woman who seemed to live in some kind of emotional vacuum. It wasn’t a recent emptiness either; it had nothing to do with the death of her husband.

Pull your son into your arms, she thought, feeling irritated and sad. Hold him tight and kiss him. Rest his head against your breasts, that’s what they’re there for.