“Jesus Christ, Marini! I’ll tell you what, I’ll write you a little apology note so you can go home and show it to Mommy.”

“You know what? Fuck you!”

They both froze.

“I’m sorry,” Massimo quickly added, mortified.

Teresa pursed her lips in disappointment.

“What a shame, you were doing so well until you came out with that pathetic apology. You know, it doesn’t hurt to be told to fuck off, every now and then,” she said.

He didn’t quite know what to say. She seemed to have gone back to her usual self: insufferable and determined. And admittedly, she did have at least one good quality: she didn’t use her position to put herself beyond reproach—or even insults, it seemed.

“Tell Chief Knauss to put a surveillance team outside the Valent and Kravina homes,” she ordered. “Tomorrow we’ll speak to the widow again.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the city.”

“I’ll drop you.”

“No. I still know how to drive a car, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Massimo fell silent. Teresa flung open the door that led out to the parking lot. Snow had begun to fall again in fat flakes that shone in the lamplight.

“So, is it true that the killer always returns to the scene of the crime?” he asked her before she left, with a hint of irony in his voice.

It was only five o’clock, but it looked like nighttime already. Teresa Battaglia stared into the darkness before she answered him.

“If he lacks self-control, then yes. He returns to the scene of the crime. He attends the victim’s funeral, visits their grave. He phones the relatives. He even makes up excuses to meet them. Sometimes he does this to keep a tab on things, but more often, it’s his way of keeping his fantasies alive. Of savoring the death he has wrought for as long as possible, and basking in the pleasure he’s derived from it.”

-24-

-24-

AUSTRIA, 1978

The sound of the sirens was drowned out by the roar of the storm, which seemed to shake the building from its foundations all the way up to the topmost garret. In all her years of service at the School, Agnes had never seen a storm like the one that was ripping through the sky that night.