of atavistic memories of danger. The rooms where people were at their weakest were invariably placed – or so the article maintained – farthest from the point of entry, the place where danger would burst into the house. Thus bedrooms were on the second floor or at the back of the house, forcing the invader, it was suggested, to fight his way through less well-defended positions with his sword or club, thus alerting the owner and giving ample time to prepare for escape or defence.

Brunetti had no doubt that Signora Fulgoni would have phoned her husband by now, perhaps hoping to give him enough time to slip out a back window or to start sharpening his axe.

Two desks stood on either side of a door at the back of the bank, as though they were bookends and the door some rare piece of incunabula. Another young woman stood in front of one desk; the other was empty.

The first woman stopped and said, raising a hand in Brunetti’s direction, ‘This is the policeman.’

Brunetti fought down the impulse to growl and wave his hands in their faces, but then he remembered that, in the land where money was god, policemen were not meant to enter the places of worship. Instead, he smiled amiably at the second young woman, who turned and opened the central door without bothering to knock. There was to be no surprising Dottor Fulgoni.

The man was already moving towards Brunetti. He was dressed in a sober dark grey suit. His tie was maroon, with some sort of fine pattern on it, and he had a maroon handkerchief in his breast pocket. As the man approached, Brunetti hunted for the signs of femininity he had noticed at the funeral and, seeking, found none.

His steps were precise, his hair and features well cut, and his eyebrows pointed arches over his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Commissario; they didn’t give me your name,’ Fulgoni said in a voice that was reassuringly deep. He shook Brunetti’s hand and led him to a sofa that sat on one side of the office.

Brunetti introduced himself as they crossed the room and chose to seat himself in the leather chair that stood in front of the sofa; Fulgoni took the sofa. He had sharply-defined cheekbones and a long nose. ‘May I offer you something, Commissario?’ Fulgoni asked. He had an attractive voice, very musical, and he spoke Italian from which had been erased all sign of Veneto accent or cadence.

‘Thank you, Dottore,’ Brunetti said. ‘Perhaps later.’

Fulgoni smiled and thanked the young woman, who left the office.

‘My wife called me and told me about your visit,’ Fulgoni said. ‘She said there was some confusion about the time we got back to our home the night Signor Fontana was killed.’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, ‘among other things.’

Fulgoni did not pretend to be surprised by this. ‘I assume my wife has clarified the time we got home.’

‘Yes, and she told me about your sweater, and your going out to look for it,’ Brunetti said.

Fulgoni did not respond but sat quietly, studying Brunetti’s face while allowing his own to be studied. Finally he said, ‘Ah, yes. The sweater.’ The way Fulgoni pronounced that last word told Brunetti that it had enormous significance for him, but Brunetti had no idea what the significance might be.

‘She said you realized, when you got back from your walk, that you had lost a green sweater. She said the sweater was important to you – I think “talisman” was the word she used – so you went back outside to look for it.’

‘Did she tell you that I found it?’

‘Yes, and that you told her you had when you came back.’

‘And then?’

‘And then, she said, she went to sleep.’

‘Did she tell you, by any chance, how long I was out? Looking for the sweater?’

‘She wasn’t sure, but she said it was about half an hour.’

‘I see,’ Fulgoni said. He pushed himself back in the sofa, sitting up a bit higher. He met Brunetti’s gaze for a moment but then glanced away and fixed his eyes on the far wall. Brunetti did not interrupt his reflections.

A minute passed before Fulgoni said, ‘My wife told me that you – the police – have found traces of me and Signor Fontana in the courtyard. In the same place in the courtyard, to be exact.’

‘That’s true.’

‘What traces?’ he asked, cleared his throat, and then added, ‘And where?’

Trapped in his own lie, Brunetti waited some time before answering the question. Fulgoni glanced at him