‘Clo, I’m serious. There was a murder this morning. At the campsite, at the Euproctes.’

Clotilde’s hand gripped the dirty blanket. Immediately, without knowing why, she thought of Valentine.

‘Cervone Spinello,’ Natale went on. ‘Cervone has been murdered.’

She pressed the stinking fabric to her face.

Cervone Spinello had lied to her about her brother Nicolas, Cervone was probably the one who had sabotaged the steering of her parents’ car. If he had been murdered, he would take his secrets with him.

She held back an acid retch. Her fingers, her arms, her body, smelled of petrol, salt and shit. Each roll of the Aryon amplified her desire to vomit.

‘A harpoon through the heart,’ Natale explained. ‘Spinello died on the spot. My father-in-law Cesareu wants to talk to you one-to-one. He has some things to tell you, some important things about your family. He would rather tell you himself before you’re summoned to the police station.’

‘I was asleep on your boat when he was murdered. On my own. I don’t see how I can help the police find the one who did it.’

‘That’s not it, Clotilde. The police don’t need your help.’

‘Why not?’

‘They’ve already caught the murderer.’

Clotilde threw the blanket aside. She staggered to her feet, staring at the sea, like a castaway lost on a raft thousands of kilometres away from the nearest land.

‘Who … who killed Spinello?’

‘The campsite handyman. You must have bumped into him, you’re bound to have noticed – he’s the bearded giant. One arm, one leg and half of his face are paralysed. The murderer is Orsu Romani. The police have already taken him in.’

~

Aurélia was holding Natale’s hand, standing in front of their house by the sea, perched on Punta Rossa. Cesareu Garcia was standing a little to her left. Parking the Passat a few metres away, Clotilde reflected that the scene looked like a postcard, or a setting from a magazine, a picture specially composed for a photograph on shiny paper. The dream home, the handsome fair-haired man in front of it, the blue frame, the authenticity of the old stones combined with the modernity of wood and glass. Even Aurélia didn’t spoil the scene: while she was still a charmless woman, her slender figure might have given the impression that she had once been beautiful; a luminous face, fine eyebrows, a slim waist, long legs. An attractiveness that might have been maintained through sacrifices both physical and financial, judging by her severely elegant dress, her stockings like a second tanned skin, the high heels that she wore with a slight arrogance. It was difficult, for anyone who had not known Aurélia at fifteen, to guess the awkwardness of her youth.