I’ll speed up, OK, I’ll speed up. I can hear footsteps, Papa’s footsteps. In my dream of the future Natale is there too. In the pool there are children, perhaps they’re mine, my children or my grandchildren, I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m happy, that no one around me is missing, everyone is there, as if nothing has changed in fifty years, as if no one has died; as if, in the end, the passage of time is innocent, and we’re wrong to accuse it, to call it a murderer …

*

*     *

He stared into space.

The diary ended with that word.

Murderer.

He read it again one last time and then closed the notebook.

54

23 August 2016, 10.30 a.m.

Clotilde had been here before, but at night.

At night, guided by Orsu.

By day, she had no idea how to find the shepherd’s cabin. The landmarks were vague: cross a river, then climb a steep slope and pass through endless scrubland.

She had been wandering around the maquis for an eternity after parking her car at the foot of the path that led to Casa di Stella, the very place where she had waited for Orsu at midnight – doors left open, keys in the engine, she didn’t care. She had left the police behind at Calvi station.

Campa sempre.

She hadn’t been able to get anything more out of Orsu, but it didn’t matter; she had learned the most important thing. That her mother was alive.

Even though she had seen her die, right in front of her own eyes, even if Orsu hadn’t explained anything. Her half-brother had merely confirmed something she had been certain of ever since she set foot back in Corsica; that secret that she had carried deep within herself, for so long.

She was alive.

She was waiting for her.

In the shepherd’s cabin.

Clotilde climbed on to a small hillock from which Arcanu Farm was visible about a hundred metres below.

Go and stand for a few minutes beneath the holm oak, before night falls, so that I can see you.

I will recognise you, I hope.