D’Intino stood in the doorway, mouth gaping open. “My good man D’Intino, which part of what I said isn’t clear to you?”

“Dotto’. What isn’t clear to me is what I’m supposed to do now.”

“All right then, write it down. First! Go back to police headquarters.”

Under his breath, D’Intino repeated: “Go back to police headquarters . . .”

“Second, speak to Carlo Pietra.”

“Speak to Carlo Pietra . . .”

“Third, stop busting the balls of Deputy Captain Schiavone.”

“Third, stop busting the balls of Deputy Captain Schiavone.”

“All clear?”

D’Intino smiled. “I have to go to police headquarters, find Pietra, and tell him not to bust the balls of Deputy Captain Schiavone.”

“More or less.”

“So you’re not coming?”

“Coming where, D’Intì?”

“To the prison?”

“Get out!” And he slammed the door in D’Intino’s face.

End of his secret retreat. Life had come back, and it was demanding him in a stentorian voice. The following morning he’d have to go back to police headquarters.

“You’re done goofing off, Rocco!” he said loudly.

ALESSANDRO MARTINELLI HAD GENEROUSLY PUT HIS OFFICE at the disposal of both Baldi and Pietra. The penitentiary guards, Mauro Marini and Daniele Abela, sitting in two wooden chairs, were gazing up at the gigantic chief of the Turin mobile squad as he stood by the window. Baldi, on the other hand, was toying with a Bic ballpoint pen, sprawled out in the warden’s leather office chair, while the warden himself remained standing in the doorway, as if he were a guest. Italo Pierron stood behind him. He clasped his hands behind his back and observed the two penitentiary guards.

Marini was over fifty; the other man was under thirty. Both of them had sullen expressions on their faces.

“Would you explain to me, very clearly, exactly what happened?” Baldi began without looking either man in the face.

“Abela and I were summoned to put down a brawl that had broken out in the courtyard next to the door to Wing 2. Four or five convicts were fighting, so Daniele and I and other officers stopped them.”

“Four Tunisians were sent to the infirmary,” Abela went on. “The others were sent to solitary confinement. When the brawl was over, we noticed Cuntrera’s body on the ground and we realized that he was dead.”

“This Cuntrera . . .” asked Pietra as he looked out over the roofs of the prison from the office window, “did he take part in the brawl?”

“That we don’t know. A few people said that he was minding his own business, smoking a cigarette.”

Baldi shot a glance at Pietra, who continued to look out the window. “Who did you put in solitary confinement?”