‘Then we are the ones who should have died. All five of us. Nicolas, Maria-Chjara, Aurélia, Cervone and me. We were all supposed to get into your parents’ car at midnight and go to that nightclub, with your brother at the wheel.’ He seemed to reflect for a long time before continuing. ‘Yes, that changes a lot of things. It feels quite strange, after all this time. A bit like missing a plane that then crashed.’ Another pause. ‘It was us, all five of us, who should have ended up in that ravine. If I’m alive, it’s entirely down to one question, Clotilde, one question to which only you can have the answer: why did your father change his mind that evening? Why did he decide to take the car and his family and go to that concert after all?’

‘I … I don’t know.’

‘These things don’t just happen by chance. If you examine your memories, you are bound to find an explanation.’

Hermann’s tone had become abrasive again. It was the voice of someone who was used to being obeyed. Clotilde guessed that for the last twenty-seven years his sole concern had probably been to make others undergo the humiliations he had suffered during his adolescence. But he was right too, the most important thing was that key question: why had her father changed his plan on the evening of 23 August? She had no explanation. The well of her memory seemed desperately dry. Perhaps the solution was written somewhere in her diary from the summer of ’89, that notebook she had been scribbling in right until those final moments on the bench at Arcanu? Perhaps she had protected her memories by hiding them in that journal? Or perhaps it contained nothing, only mere invention, the imaginings of a lying, jealous, frustrated teenager. The person she had been.

‘There shouldn’t be any shortage of clues to follow,’ Hermann Schreiber went on. ‘Corsica is complicated, land and family, life and death, money and power. But above all, Clotilde, are you sure you can trust Cervone Spinello? Have you found any other witnesses? What about the rest of the five? They must still be alive?’

Apart from Nicolas, Clotilde thought. The Cyclops was still the emperor of tact.

‘I’ve seen Maria-Chjara,’ she replied.

Hermann laughed heartily.

‘Ah, Maria-Chjara! I was crazy about her. In those days I thought quoting Goethe and playing Liszt on the violin would be enough to seduce a girl. Basically I should thank her – it was to impress girls like her that I worked so hard.’ A few more bursts of laughter. ‘Girls as beautiful as her, I mean. My wife is like her, only blonde. Except that she’s a soprano with the Cologne Opera, not a singer on TV reality shows.’

Clotilde suddenly wanted to cut short the conversation. Was it a kind of curse, always needing to put down everything you’d loved during your teenage years?