“I thought it’d be worse,” she commented, and after a few seconds, as if all at once she’d had a brilliant idea, added: “Of course, if I’m not your girlfriend, it becomes more interesting. You know what I think? We could indulge in steamy clandestine sex.”

“We could,” I admitted.

Carmelo Tancredi had been a policeman. I might even say he was the best cop I’d ever known, except, maybe, for an 30old marshal of carabinieri in Turin. He’d worked for more than thirty years in the Flying Squad, had retired with the rank of deputy chief inspector and had recently graduated with a degree in psychology.

But then it had struck him that he wasn’t tired of working (especially not that work: talking to people, making people talk, discovering what happened, how it happened and who it was) and had no desire to go fishing every day in his dinghy, even though he loves that boat more than if it were a Labrador puppy. Fishing a couple of times a month is wonderful, he told me once; fishing a couple of times a week starts to seem like a nightmare.

So when Annapaola, after a dinner the three of us had had, suggested to him that they join forces and set up a real detective agency, he’d taken just five minutes to accept. Since then they had worked together – often for my practice, sometimes for other people. Apart from anything else, I think they have a lot of fun.

I got home, stooping under the weight of my rucksack, which was filled with the two folders Lorenza had left for me. The ruling, documents relating to the investigation, trial transcripts.

“Hi, Mr Punchbag,” I said, addressing the punchbag hanging by a chain from a beam in the middle of the living room. He gave an imperceptible nod. He’s a taciturn fellow, who doesn’t much like to move unless it’s absolutely necessary. Which naturally happens when we both do a bit of boxing. He takes the punches very calmly. He never reacts. He takes and I give, but he always wins in the end. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, I guess. One of these days I’ll find out what it is.31

We’re friends, Mr Punchbag and I. He isn’t demonstrative, that’s for sure, but it’s also sure that he conceals delicate feelings behind that impassive leather mask of his.

We went through a difficult time, the day of my fiftieth birthday. The kids (I include Pasquale among the kids, even though he’s in his seventies) had bought me a lovely, shiny new punchbag, the kind you see in the glossy videos showing world champions like Floyd Mayweather Jr pretending to train. (A great boxer, by the way, but too much of a pin-up for my taste.)