“I’ve never had anything of the sort happen to me before. I’ve been banging my head against it since this morning. Corpses just don’t behave like this . . . and most of all, do you want to see the anus?”

“Can I skip that part?”

“As you like. It was just a matter of scientific precision. You see that he’s already started to decompose? After just twenty-four hours?”

“That’s the strange thing. And can you figure out why?”

“It’s no easy matter. Not easy at all . . . I smell poison, though. I’m not sure exactly which, but if you ask me, it’s poison!”

“Do you have a magnifying glass?”

“What do you want to look at?”

“The skin.”

“Rocco, my friend, that’s my profession. And anyway, I don’t use a magnifying glass to look at skin.” The medical examiner went over to a tripod. “Solenord fluorescent magnifying light.”

He dragged it over to the corpse and switched it on. “Biconvex lens with a light intensity at fifty centimeters of 550 lux.”

“Albè, it’s not like I’m thinking of buying it.” Rocco grabbed the swing arm and started examining the neck of the late Cuntrera.

“What are you looking for?”

But Rocco didn’t reply. In silence he observed the pigments of the flesh, the moles. Then all of a sudden, he froze. “I need an expert opinion.” And he handed the lens off to Alberto.

“Fucking . . .” said the medical examiner. “Fucking hell . . . it’s tiny, it’s really tiny, but I’ll bet my retirement that this is an injection, or a bee sting.”

“Do they have bees in prison?” asked the deputy chief with a smile.

“Okay, that changes everything. Injection mark on the jugular. Bingo!”

“So now what are you telling me?”

Alberto jerked upright. “That things are starting to become clear. Now I need to get busy, and fast. If you want to stay, be my guest. But I need to cut my patient open and, believe me, for someone like you, that’s not an entertaining spectacle.”

“I’ll get going.” Rocco headed for the door while Alberto reached across the table to gather the tools of his trade. “So what’s the plan?” asked the deputy chief, turning around once he’d reached the doorway.

“I need to take a few bits of good old Mimmo here as samples and send them out to be tested. I need a first-class toxicologist, someone skilled. This is something that I personally have never seen before. And I’ll tell you the truth, I find it extremely exciting!”

“Exciting?”

“That’s what I said.”

Rocco nodded. “Exciting. All right, well, you owe me a dinner.” He opened the door.

“Oh, Rocco?”

The deputy chief stopped and turned back. “Yes?”

“Any news about the son of a bitch who broke into your apartment?”

Rocco limited himself to shaking his head.