Nicolas’s bum is still on the rearing horse of his Ferrari, sunglasses on his eyes, no cream and no hat, as if he couldn’t give a damn what happened to his beautiful muscular skin. Maria-Chjara is still arching under the gelatinous caresses of Hermann, eyes fixed on the bare-chested teenagers playing volleyball a little further off: Estefan with his dreams of becoming a doctor, Magnus and his Oscar-winning ambition, Filip and his reveries about the stars. The young German rubs and rubs the cream over the back of the beautiful Italian girl, he starts the fifth layer, hesitating to venture elsewhere, to slide his fingers over the edge of those gilded curves towards the taut elastic of the swimming costume, towards the beginnings of her breasts at the sides of her unzipped costume.

Poor little Cyclops …

It’s time to have a real conversation with you. To tell you who Maria-Chjara really is.

I think you’re going to like this!

* * *

He closed the notebook and let a handful of sand from Alga beach slip through his fingers. After all, it was logical enough to read this diary at the scene of the crime. Because this was where it all began, that day.

Undeniably, Clotilde had a great talent for describing feelings. For a fifteen-year-old it was nothing less than astonishing. You would have thought the story hadn’t been written by her; or by her, but years later, with hindsight and maturity. Or that her story had been rewritten, like a retouched photograph, even if it contained no flaws, even if the ink, like everything else, has long since dried.

18

11 a.m.

‘19, Rue de la Confrérie,’ Cesareu Garcia had said on the phone. ‘Behind Calenzana Church. You can’t miss it.’

Strange. At 19, Rue de la Confrérie there was a building with a dilapidated façade, the yellow plaster coming away, revealing holes left by grey bricks that hadn’t been sealed properly, ancient window frames barely concealed by nailed-up and gaping shutters.

‘Don’t knock before coming in,’ the retired policeman had added, ‘I won’t hear you. Just push the door then walk through the house. Don’t pay too much attention to the mess, I’m an old man. I’ll be waiting for you in the back garden. In my swimming pool.’

A swimming pool …

Clotilde had imagined a magnificent villa, above the village, with a veranda, a sun terrace, parasol and lounger. Like the one on the posters hung all along the road, announcing an eighties night the following evening at the Tropi-Kalliste discotheque on Oscelluccia beach.