‘It has nothing to do with the sabotage of the car, but yes, years later, Cervone heard Basile, his father, talking about it with another juror. That weasel Cervone was always listening in on everything. After his father’s death, in 2003, when he inherited the campsite, he didn’t blackmail me, as you call it, we don’t use words like that here – those are words that would leave you bullet-ridden on the terrace of a café. He just let me know that he was aware of what had happened. We didn’t even need to discuss it, we both knew the terms of the pact. If he spoke to the police, a journalist, anyone, I risked going to jail, and my whole family with me, and that would have meant abandoning Arcanu. Cervone simply asked me if he could build on a few hectares, renovate the Euproctes by enlarging the restaurant, providing additional shower blocks, Finnish chalets, and bungalows, and put a bar on Oscelluccia beach, some land that still belonged to me but which he wanted to exploit. As to the land for the Roc e Mare marina, he bought it but he asked for my protection, as you might say. When it came to protecting the family’s honour at the cost of some concreted hectares, he knew which choice I would opt for.’

‘If that isn’t blackmail, then what would you call it?’

‘A negotiation. Cervone knew he wasn’t risking anything with me. He was my best friend’s son.’

‘So it wasn’t you who had him murdered?’

Cassanu’s eyes bulged from their sockets. They had reached the Arcanu courtyard, and the oak tree cast its shadow over them.

‘No. Why would I have ordered his murder? Cervone Spinello was ambitious, he was unscrupulous, with a keener sense of business than of the land, but he loved Corsica in his own way. A different way, the way of a different generation. Perhaps he was even right about all the concrete.’