“I don’t know. As I told you, I got it from an old informant of mine. Obviously, I can’t reveal his name, and anyway it doesn’t mean he had direct knowledge of the event. He told me the rumour that was going around about the fight and how pissed off the father was. Just to be clear, nobody’s said that what happened to Gaglione was the work of somebody sent by Amendolagine.”

“Maybe we could check if Amendolagine Junior was hospitalized somewhere,” I said.

“Already checked,” Tancredi replied. “He wasn’t in any local emergency department. But he may have been treated in Trani, Foggia or Brindisi. That, I don’t know.”

I took a deep breath. “If I could manage to bring it out that Gaglione beat someone up who then turned out to be close to some dangerous people, even without naming names, that might open it up a little.”

“The one possibility is if Cardace mentions it in his testimony,” Tancredi said. “But we should find somebody who 164can at least confirm the circumstances of the fight. Somebody who was in the disco, one of the bouncers maybe.”

“We may have one,” Annapaola cut in. “A guy who owned a gym with Gaglione. Let me check some things, and I’ll let you know in the next few days.”

“Then there’s the guy Cardace went shooting with in the quarry,” Consuelo said. “Cipriani, is that right?”

“He’ll never testify,” Tancredi said. “We already talked about that. He’d have to admit he owned and carried an unauthorized weapon. I can’t see that happening. Apart from anything else, his apartment was searched a few months ago and nothing was found. If they’d discovered a gun then, we might have been able to use it as an excuse.”

“And Cardace won’t say his name in court,” I said. “We’ll never persuade him to do that. He doesn’t want the other prisoners to think he’s a snitch – you know what happens to snitches.”

Tancredi continued. “Annapaola and I, though, have tracked down the guy Cardace had coffee with. We talked to him and, incredibly, he’s willing to testify. He seems like a decent kid.”

“Well, that’s good news,” I said.

“But do we just get a statement from him or actually call him as a witness?” Consuelo asked.

“Let’s call him as a witness. If there’s no statement, it’ll be more genuine. It’ll look like the witness is impartial. Of course, if he gets cold feet and denies everything we have a problem.”

“In that case, put me up on the stand,” Annapaola said. “I’ll testify as to what he told me, and if necessary we’ll confront him with it.”