Teresa tried to get up, but the pain in her back forced her to curl up on her side. By the time she had finally managed to sit up, she was alone. The stranger had disappeared. She couldn’t tell whether he’d gone back to the village or sought refuge in the forest. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked around, feeling disoriented. Perhaps she’d banged her head. She ran a quick inventory of her bones and concluded that everything was in its right place. Only then did she remember the pain in her hand and looked at it to find that she was bleeding profusely from a cut on her palm. She swore, feeling old and foolish. She took off her scarf and wrapped it around the wound.

“That’s what happens when you try to play the hero: you end up on your ass,” she muttered.

She rested her elbows on her knees, still feeling unsure about standing up. Why couldn’t she have sent Marini instead? He was younger, quicker, stronger.

And better suited to this job than she was?

But the thought of being stuck at a desk, far from the frontline, issuing orders and drawing up profiles without the chance to test them in the field, was more than Teresa could bear. She refused to believe she could no longer rely on her body as she had done all these years up until now.

And that was exactly why she hadn’t sent Marini after that man. It was a last-ditch attempt to banish the idea that she might no longer be fit to be a policewoman.

“Superintendent!”

Marini was by her side before she’d even heard him coming. He knelt down and put his arm around her shoulders.

“What happened? Are you okay?” he asked.

Teresa shrugged him off with a sneer.

“What a fucking stupid question,” she said. “Do I look okay?”

She saw him hesitate.

“Do you want to sit down for a little longer or shall I help you to your feet?”

“How about you stop talking? That would help me.”

Teresa tried to brush the dirt off her clothes and pick out the leaves stuck in her hair.

“Where’s Diego?” she asked. She realized with a shiver that she’d almost forgotten about the boy. “I told you to stay with him.”

“I left him with a teacher.”

Teresa swore.

“So you disobeyed an order. Do that again and I’ll send you back to the archive room.”

Marini let it go.

“Was it that man? Did he push you? I saw the two of you running,” he said.

Teresa hesitated.

“No, it wasn’t his fault. I think he helped me,” she finally said.

“You think he helped you?”

She glared at him.

“It wasn’t exactly easy to see what was happening, what with my head bouncing against the ground.”

Marini got up again and peered into the forest.