“And someone would risk going to prison just to avoid taking a bus where no one ever checks your tickets and that takes you to Pescara in less than half an hour?”

“What if he drove around first? What if he used it to commit an armed robbery?”

“A Fiat Multipla that’s barely even running?”

Barbara knew that there had to be another explanation. She didn’t know which one, as long as it was anything but the one that she and Tatiana had already understood for some time. She tried playing one last card. “Listen. What if he just wanted to disappear? What if he did something in Rome that he just couldn’t tell anyone else? Do you remember, in the last few days, he was frightened, lost in thought . . .”

Tatiana looked her in the eye. “Meaning that the reason he didn’t take the car was to make sure . . .”

“To make sure no one ever found him. And he dumped his cell phone somewhere, too. Exactly for that reason: to make sure nobody could track him down. So you know what we can do? We can go to the bank and ask whether by any chance he made a sizable withdrawal in the last few days. My friend, if he did, we’ve found the lead to the solution! Corrado has a big problem on his hands, but he’s still around, still hiding out somewhere trying to come to terms with it. If you ask me, pretty soon we’ll hear from him!”

She couldn’t even say how she’d been able to bolster her friend’s spirits, but a faint smile appeared on Tatiana’s face. The glimmer of hope sparkled even brighter. Barbara silently thanked Simenon, le Carré, and P. D. James, and she accompanied Tatiana to the local savings bank to delve into this hunch. If the bank teller confirmed her intuition, then that would deal them a whole new hand, and it would restore Corrado Pizzuti to the ranks of the living.