I was silent for a moment, almost as if I’d been on the verge of saying something and had thought better of it at the last moment.

“All right,” was all she said. “See you in court.”

She sounded serious, which scared me, like a bad omen. It was stupid, of course. What other tone could she have just before a grave, uncertain event like the pronouncing of a verdict on a charge of murder? And yet it gave me the feeling – as absurd as it was persistent – that she knew something I didn’t. Something she didn’t have the guts to tell me.

I put on a new blue suit that I’d never worn before. I knotted my tie, telling myself that if I didn’t have to repeat the operation, that is, if the knot came out well at the first attempt, it would be a good omen. So I concentrated, as if the outcome of the appeal, the destiny of Iacopo Cardace, really did depend on it.

The knot came out well. Symmetrical, snugly fitting the collar of the shirt. And I took heart. A little.

In the street I had to stop myself indulging in those obsessive practices of mine, those examples of magical thinking like 273not stepping on the kerbs, avoiding the gratings of cellars, touching the wing mirrors of red cars.

Things I used to do as a child and which every now and again re-emerge at times of tension, like the impulse to retch.

In court hearings – in all of them, but particularly the most difficult ones – it would be a healthy thing to lose interest in the result once everything possible has been done.

I knew that perfectly well. I know it perfectly well.

It would be a healthy thing to do, but it never happens.

As I entered the courthouse, I looked at my watch. Ten more minutes and the judges and jurors would be coming out, according to the clerk of the court, Moretti.

The building was half-deserted, like every afternoon. Now even those who had been doing overtime in the offices had left. The very few still there seemed out of place, alien to the building even though they worked there every day. There was an unpleasant sense of transience in the air.

As I climbed the stairs, my thoughts became clear and distinct for a few moments. I wanted Iacopo – strange, I always thought of him now by his first name, not his surname – to be acquitted, and I wanted to know he was innocent. Both these things. A dangerous desire because, at least when it came to the second of them, I might never be certain.

I entered the courtroom. There was nobody there. A few dozen seconds later, as if at a signal, as if they’d been waiting for me to arrive, they all appeared. The clerk of the court, Assistant Prosecutor Gastoni, Annapaola, Consuelo, Tancredi.

Lorenza.