Once again, the killer had protected himself. Teresa had never seen anything like this before: the perpetrator had no qualms taking risks, spreading traces of his DNA around, walking on the snow and leaving his footprints everywhere, showing them, in dozens of identical prints, the shape of the hand that had ripped the victim’s eyes out. But the moment he’d had enough, he was also capable of disappearing inside the forest, like an animal.

“Rational and deranged at the same time. Rational and deranged,” she murmured, watching the water flowing in limpid jets.

“If what you say is true, then there’s a monster walking around in the village.”

Teresa blew hot air onto her stiff fingers. Flecks of ice had caught in the wool of her gloves.

“Someone’s going to have to explain to me some day what constitutes a monster,” she said. “That’s what we like to call them, yet we can’t look away, we won’t change the channel, and that’s because we know they’re just like the rest of us: human. That’s what captivates us, the realization that a small part of them exists in every one of us.”

Marini stood perfectly still and stared into the forest. Perhaps he was trying to work out what secrets it held, what fresh horrors it might soon witness.

“You think a monster lives inside us all?” he asked. He sounded doubtful.

“I’m sure of it. If you’re lucky enough that fate has been generous and bequeathed you with a half-decent life, the monster will lie dormant until your last breath. But the monster inside these people has been fed by trauma and abuse.”

Marini’s eyes searched her face.

“You see them as victims?” he asked with a mixture of shock and revulsion. But Teresa was used to her opinions causing vehement reactions. It wasn’t easy to admit there was something human in that kind of horror—it was far more reassuring to regard it as entirely alien.

“They always are,” she replied firmly. “Condemned to live off the only thing that can placate their gnawing hunger.”

“Hunger for what?”

“Power. Absolute power over another human being.”

Marini took a step forward and a twig snapped beneath the sole of his shoe. An identical sound echoed from among the trees further up the slope. They turned their heads toward the noise. The fog seemed to be rolling down from the peak.

“An animal,” said Marini.

Teresa motioned at him to stop talking. She could have sworn someone had been watching her from the moment she’d stepped into the forest. She’d told herself it was an illusion, but she didn’t think it could be causing auditory hallucinations. She picked up a branch and snapped it in half. From up the slope, about twenty meters to the east, came the same sound.

“It’s not an animal,” she said, her breath hitching. “It’s mimicry.”