After a long trial, one of the Fascists was found guilty of the murder and then, very conveniently, killed himself in prison. Killing at the same time any possibility of identifying the others responsible.

In the days following the murder, Bari was filled with tear-gas smoke, the acrid smell of burnt cars, the sound of running footsteps on deserted pavements. Metal balls shattering windows. Sirens and blue flashing lights shattering the grey stillness of those late-November afternoons.

The Fascists were well organized. Just like criminals. They settled political arguments with iron rods, chains and knives. Sometimes guns, too. You just had to walk along the Via Sparano, in the vicinity of the church of San Ferdinando – an area considered a black zone – carrying the wrong newspaper or the wrong book, or even wearing the wrong clothes, and you ran the risk of beating beaten up.

And that’s what happened to me.

I was fourteen and always wore a green anorak that I was very proud of. One afternoon I was strolling in the middle of town with two of my friends – the three of us little more than children – when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded. They were only sixteen, seventeen, but to us they were men. At that age two years’ difference is a lifetime.

One of them was a tall, thin, fair-haired guy, with a face like David Bowie. He wore Ray-Bans, even though it was already dark. When he smiled, through thin lips, my blood ran cold.

A short, very sturdy-looking guy with a broken incisor approached me and told me I was a Red bastard and I should take off that fucking anorak immediately, or they might think of giving me what I deserved: the castor oil treatment.