“Do they still put on discs?” I asked, foolishly. “Don’t they just select tracks on a computer?”

“You’re elderly, Guerrieri. You shouldn’t say anything about these subjects. Vinyl evenings are going great guns, old-style DJs are making a comeback. Maybe you remember – even you were a kid once. If they do an eighties night, or even a seventies night, I’ll take you.”

Orazio appeared with three portions of spaghetti in parcels and told Annapaola he liked beautiful women who didn’t make a fuss when confronted with a little pasta.

“I also like beautiful women who love to eat,” she replied with a broad smile. “I like them a lot.”92

I assumed Orazio didn’t grasp the full meaning of the words, or the smile (Annapaola isn’t exclusively attracted to the male of the species). He put the plates down in front of us and walked away. We opened the parcels and waited for the three-thousand-degree heat inside to die down.

“All right,” Tancredi said, picking up his fork. “I’ll talk to someone in security, and you, Annapaola, question your DJ friend. Let’s see if anyone mentions this supposed fight.”

For a few minutes, we devoted ourselves to Orazio’s special recipe. Spaghetti with seafood, cooked in the oven in parcels with the addition of coriander and a special chilli unsuitable for delicate palates.

“We also have to track down the guy Cardace had a coffee with,” I said. “He said his name is Sabino, that he’s more or less the same age as him and that he thinks he works in a garage.”

“What’s the point?” Annapaola said. “What’s so special about the fact that they met? The police didn’t even look for him.”

“Yes, but if he could give us some indication of the time they met,” I said, “and confirm what Cardace says, it might be useful to us to maintain that Cardace was in the cafe after seeing Gaglione. Not before, which is what’s in the ruling.”

“We’ll see if we can find him, sure. But in my opinion you’re overestimating how much you can use any testimony he might give. Let’s suppose he testifies and confirms the meeting, what’s to stop the court maintaining that Cardace went back to Gaglione’s place after this meeting and killed him then?”

Annoyingly, she was right. I replied that we’d deal with that if and when we found Sabino, and if and when Sabino agreed to testify.93

“Then I need to figure out the business of the shooting practice and the powder found on the jacket,” I said, eliminating the final vestige of food from Orazio’s parcel. “How long can it stay on? Do we need to talk to somebody in Forensics or with a pathologist?”