“No, I told you. I didn’t notice him. You see, along with me there are two other inmates hurrying along, and this other guard here—he’s named Guidi, I think. They ran right in front of me and maybe that kept me from seeing that there was a man on the ground.”

“Can you tell me why this corner isn’t covered by security cameras?”

Tolotta smiled. “That’s not right, actually. There is a security video camera, right here, you see it?” And he placed his finger on the screen, right on top of a huge lamppost. “Right on this lamppost . . . it covers that corner and the gate to Wing 3. The door I just ran out of.”

“Then why don’t I have the recording?”

“Because that security camera has been broken for the past week and we’re still waiting for them to come fix it, that’s why.”

Rocco nodded. “And the same way you know that fact . . .”

“. . . everyone else knows it, too, Dottor Schiavone. That corner hasn’t been covered by the video cameras for the past week. If you only knew the things the inmates have been writing on the walls there!”

Rocco ran back the video. “You approach the brawl . . . Here you pick up the keys . . . You grab them and you hit Oluwafeme in the back of the head.”

“That’s right. I figured that with the keys in my hand, the punch would be more effective. I mean, that guy is big.”

“And in fact you can see the Nigerian is staggering after you hit him. A little unfair, to hit him like that, don’t you think?”

“Desperate times, desperate measures, right?”

The video continued. “There, now you’ve subdued them, you take Erik into custody . . .”

“That’s right . . . we were just taking him away when—”

“When Marini and Abela start shouting, attracting your attention because they’ve just found Cuntrera dead. You can only see the back of one of them, and you head straight over in that direction. Here, on the right of the screen.”

“But how did Cuntrera die, anyway?”

“Of homesickness.”

The giant panda didn’t get the joke.

“I was just kidding. Someone gave him an injection of some kind . . .”

“And no one else saw?”

“Strike you as strange, too, Tolò?”

HE’D TYPED INTO THE SEARCH ENGINE: “ESCORT AOSTA.” A website had come up with lots of photographs and cell phone numbers of beautiful women. All with their faces blocked out. But their breasts, their legs, and their lingerie could have aroused a corpse.