The silence in the car, barely troubled by the few words uttered by her father or Nicolas. What she saw of the woman in front of her, a chignon, the back of a neck, an earring, a dress, a thigh. The rest, her mother’s face, her smile, she had invented over the years, she had added it all to the woman sitting in the car who could only have been her mother. That woman whose hand her father had taken just before the Fuego crashed on to the rocks.

Nicolas knew. Nicolas had seen, heard and understood the tragedy that was being played out.

But how could she have suspected it for a moment?

12 noon.

Lisabetta got up and walked towards the courtyard.

‘The ambulance will be punctual. Giovanni, the driver, is an old friend. He knows that Cassanu doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

Clotilde couldn’t take her eyes off the portrait of Salomé. Lisabetta’s voice softened as she anxiously looked at the clock.

‘You have understood, my darling, it isn’t your mother’s grave that Speranza goes and waters every day in the mausoleum of the Idrissi family. It’s her daughter’s.’

Clotilde saw Speranza carrying her watering can in the graveyard, digging her secateurs into the marble of the mausoleum, scratching out the name of Palma Idrissi; heard once more the old witch’s insults.

She shouldn’t be here. Her name doesn’t belong here, engraved with the rest of the Idrissi family.

Behind her, Speranza spoke for the first time, her voice like an echo.

‘I didn’t hesitate, Clotilde. I didn’t hesitate for one second to bury my daughter under the name of another so that she could rest side by side with your father, in the Idrissi mausoleum. To claim that Salomé had died, that she had committed suicide after the accident, and bury an empty coffin in the Marcone cemetery. Because that was what she would have wanted. She had always dreamed of being a part of your family.’ Speranza stuck the knife she was holding in the loaf of bread on the table. ‘She only achieved her dream by losing her life. Leaving me with her child. Because …’ She was choked with emotion, and her eyes stabbed into Clotilde’s with the same ferocity as she had plunged the knife into the loaf. ‘Because your mother killed her!’

One minute past midday.

The ambulance slowly entered the courtyard and, for the two women, nothing else seemed to matter all of a sudden. They glanced around to check that everything in the kitchen was in place, hung their aprons on hooks and went outside.

Clotilde was left on her own, Speranza’s words still echoing in her ears.

Because your mother killed her …

Instinctively, she reached for the phone in her pocket. She had received a text. Franck, at last. Her husband had been trying to contact her.

*

We heard about the murder of Spinello.