“Absolutely. Which is the best kind of studies. Is that why they call you ‘the Professor’?”

Agostino Lumi started rolling himself a cigarette. “Do you mind if I smoke? You know, talking to a person like you in here isn’t the sort of thing that happens every day. Mostly, I deal with rough, ignorant people, illiterates. Foreigners, for the most part. And donkeys. Donkeys that amble and graze the soil in the courtyard. Instead, I sense that you and I can have a lovely chat. So this woman they murdered in your home, was she your girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Ah, of course, after your wife’s death, you devoted yourself to a chaste, uncommitted life, didn’t you?”

“Why, you certainly do read a lot of newspapers!”

“I read and I conjecture. When you have lots of time on your hands, you know how it can be. And yet you’re still a young man, women must happen along. What do you do? Don’t you even fuck anymore?”

“Are you gathering notes for your regular evening masturbation?”

Agostino smiled, but only with his lips. “And have you come up with some ideas about who might have killed your friend?”

“Yes,” Rocco lied.

Agostino Lumi clapped his hands like a little boy watching a puppet show. “And when do you expect to arrest him?”

“I’m not planning to arrest him.” Rocco leaned in close to Agostino’s face, close enough to perceive the stench of garlic and tobacco smoke on his breath. “Arresting someone like that is just doing them a favor. I don’t do favors. For anyone.” Then he leaned back out to a safe distance.

Agostino Lumi furrowed his brow. “That’s not the sort of thing a conscientious policeman would do.”

“The idea that I’m a conscientious policeman is something you’ve come up with on your own.”

“Tell the truth. The real target wasn’t your girlfriend, was it? It was you, right?”

“Do you know anything about it?”

“I can guess . . .”

“How did that brawl go the other day?” Rocco inquired brusquely.

Agostino licked his cigarette. “Ah, you’re referring to that little dustup in the courtyard. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a brawl. It was nothing special, just the usual roosters skirmishing in the courtyard.”

“There were three of you trying to massacre a young man . . .”

“A narcotics dealer, actually, deputy chief.” Agostino lit his cigarette. “A dealer who’s bringing narcotics into this prison.”

Rocco nodded. With a quick glance he took in the cell that housed Agostino. A bed, a small window, a private bathroom. The walls weren’t flaking; they’d just been repainted with the usual bureaucratic pale green. There was a shelf full of books with tattered spines. “So what exactly are you? Some kind of internal prison policeman?”