“Doctor Ian said I was lucky,” she heard him say, “but I don’t believe that. It wasn’t luck.”

“Then what was it?”

This time the boy stayed quiet.

“What was it, David?”

“It was his decision. It wasn’t luck. I’m alive because he decided to spare me. I was going to die, I could see it in his face, but then something changed.”

“What?”

He shrugged. Teresa could feel the emotion pulsating from him. It was powerful, an energy that pervaded the room.

“I cried,” he murmured. “I cried, and he let me live.”

Teresa hadn’t expected that.

“How do you know for sure that’s why he spared you?” she asked.

“Because he looked at my face, he was looking at my tears, and . . . And he changed, something in him changed, and that’s why I’m alive now.”

Teresa didn’t know what to think. She placed the summary of the description his friends had provided onto his lap.

“Does it match?” she asked him. She watched him read it closely before looking away.

“Yes.”

“Is there anything you’d like to add to it?”

“He has blue eyes, or maybe green. God, I can’t remember!” He put his head in his hands. “I looked at him, I really looked at him, and still I can’t remember!”

He seemed distraught. Teresa patted his hand.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s the shock. And you had other things to worry about back there. How old do you think he is?”

“Thirty, maybe forty. His face was painted.”

“Do you remember anything else? It’s important, David. You’re the only one who’s really seen him.”

“I’m not the only one. You’ve seen him, too,” he said. “Outside the school. He was dressed different, but I’m sure it was him.”

So it really had been him. Now she understood where the stain on her coat sleeve had come from. The man must be using animal excrement to paint his face.

“But that’s just the means to an end,” she said to herself. “He paints his face because he wants to look like a skull.”

-39-

-39-

Light towers illuminated the forest with a premature, unnatural dawn. A few birds had begun to sing already, their cries ringing across the sky through sporadic flakes of snow.

The marks left by the SUV were still visible on the road. Shards of glass from the car’s broken headlights showed the exact spot where it had crashed against the rocks.

The sequence of events as the boys had described it was backed up by the footprints on the ground. Early signs suggested that they matched the prints found on the Valent crime scene.

“It’s him,” said Marini.

Teresa was sure of it. She nodded in greeting at the regional chief of police and deputy public prosecutor Gardini, who were standing across from the police tape that bordered the marks.