‘Aurelio?’ he muttered at last. ‘The little hooligan who used to terrorize the whole neighbourhood and make his mother’s life a misery? I can still hear her words. “For the love of God, Daniele, give him a damn good thrashing! I can’t control him any more. At this age, it takes a man to keep them in line.”’

He tugged his dog viciously away from a niffy patch of plaster it was investigating.

‘How is Giustiniana, anyway?’

‘My mother’s fine, Daniele.’

‘And what are you doing here?’

‘I’m on business.’

‘What sort of business?’

‘I’m in the police.’

Daniele Trevisan drew back.

‘The police?’

‘What about it?’

‘Nothing. It’s just the way you were going…’

‘Yes?’ demanded Zen.

‘Well, to be frank, I’d have expected you to end up on the other side of the law, if anything.’

Zen smiled thinly.

‘And Claudio?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

The old man looked as bewildered as the victim of a practical joke. Zen waved at the locked door, the fly-posted window.

‘Gone!’ Daniele exclaimed. ‘Claudio’s moved down to the bridge, where the tourists are. You can’t turn a profit round here any more. And what’s the police business that has brought you here, if it’s not an indiscreet question from an old family friend?’

But Zen had caught sight of the vaporetto approaching and hurried off, leaving Daniele Trevisan looking after him with a quizzical, slightly malicious smile.

At first it looked as though Zen would not be in time to catch the boat, but fortunately another ferry, bound for the station, arrived at the landing stage first, forcing its opposite number to throttle back and drift in mid-stream, awaiting its turn. The result was that Zen was able to saunter across the Tre Archi bridge and even light a cigarette before boarding.

As they passed the modernistic council houses on San Girolamo and emerged into the open waters of the lagoon, the full strength of the wind became clear for the first time.