Teresa was taken aback. She hadn’t spotted that connection. She asked herself if Marini’s theory could really explain what was happening in Travenì, whether the monster—as the newspapers and the locals had begun to call him—could really be looking for something he didn’t have: the ability to feel.

If it was true, it was a frightening prospect: it would mean that there was a creature roaming among them capable of formulating a complex homicidal scheme with a specific objective in mind. And it would mean that he wouldn’t stop until he had achieved it.

Sight. Smell. Hearing. He rips them out and takes them away. What does he want to do with them? Why does he need the senses?

She looked at Marini.

“You might actually have stumbled on a half-decent idea there,” she said.

His eyes widened.

“Stumbled on it? What if it’s the result of some very complex logical reasoning?”

Teresa didn’t even hear him. Her mind was racing to put together a coherent picture using the latest fragments they had gathered.

“The senses. Parts of the face. Identification?” she mused—more to herself than to Marini.

“I still think ‘robber of senses’ is much more apt a description,” he replied peevishly.

“According to psychoanalytic theory, identification is the most primitive form of attachment. It’s the primordial form of love,” said Teresa.

Marini let out a bitter laugh.

“Makes sense. He loves his victims and that’s why he devours them,” he said.

“He doesn’t love his victims. That’s not how it works. He wants something. There are always two sides to identification: tenderness and the urge to obliterate.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Think of the oral stage in the development of infant libido: according to Freud, infants incorporate the object of their desire by eating it.”

Her explanation was interrupted by the return of Chief Knauss.

“Doctor Ian says the girl can talk now.”

Lucia was finding it difficult to trust them. It would take time for her to get to that point—but Teresa would make all the time that was needed. She didn’t want to ambush the little girl with questions that would scare her and cause her to retreat even further into her shell.

She sat Lucia on her lap and waited until the little girl’s body had stopped shaking. Then, she turned her around so they were face to face.

“Don’t worry. You can talk to me. It will be our secret,” she said reassuringly. She could tell that Lucia was worried about betraying her father.

“Swear it!”

Teresa didn’t hesitate.

“I swear,” she said, her hand on her heart.

So Lucia told her about the stranger who had rung their doorbell the night before, the blood that had appeared on the porch the next morning, and how her father had turned the house inside out in a frenzy.