Sampaio stopped short, closed his mouth, opened it again, closed it again. The action made him look rather like a fish.

“You don’t have to remind me,” he said at last. “I remember well. But you don’t need his confession. You have evidence. You have photographs.”

Either Ercilio Nardoni, or his late roommate, Clovis Borges, always made Polaroid photographs of the faces of their terrified victims. They’d kept those trophies, along with the stuffed animals, along with the cotton panties stamped with cartoon characters and teddy bears, along with the little pieces of jewelry-rings just big enough for little girls’ fingers, crucifixes with chains just long enough for little girls’ necks.

“The photographs will be useless in court,” Silva said.

“Why?”

“Nardoni claims they belonged to Borges. He claims Borges did all the raping and all the killing. We can’t prove otherwise. They used condoms. They washed the corpses. The trophies were wiped clean of prints.”

“That confounded Borges,” the director said petulantly, “you shouldn’t have killed him.” There was a time when Sampaio would have said “goddamned,” not “confounded,” but not any more.

“Self-defense,” Silva said.

“I read your report.” Sampaio leaned forward and looked Silva in the eye. “But we’re alone in my office, Mario, just the two of us. Did Borges really threaten you with that pistol?”

Silva didn’t blink. “Of course he did.” He waited for the director to say something more. When he didn’t, Silva continued, “If Nardoni doesn’t confess, he isn’t going to be convicted, and if he isn’t convicted, he’s going to go out and do the same thing all over again. With that in mind, does your order still stand? Do you want me to take him out of that cell before he signs a full confession?”

The director finally said, “Leave him where he is. Let’s move on. There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”