The mother said, ‘There’s evil in your blood, but I doubt you’re capable of self-disgust or shame. Your presence here is an intrusion. Go.’

In all of her life, Immacolata had never before been spoken to in such a fashion. She couldn’t meet their eyes but kept her head low as she bent to pick up the destroyed flowers.

She passed a young man with a tidy haircut and a suit but no mourner’s tie. He wore dark glasses and she couldn’t read his expression. She made her way out of the cemetery. She had known for a decade and a half that her father dealt in long-distance heavy-goods traffic, and for a decade that her brother, Vincenzo, was involved with northern industry, and she herself, had arranged the hire of trucks from far-away hauliers. At the gate, by the statue of Angelabella, aged eighteen, she dumped the flowers in a bin and hobbled out to look for Silvio.

She felt numb and shivered.

She looked at them from the door, but they seemed not to have heard her come in. She had got off the bus and walked the last mile, ignoring the drizzle. She had had no coat, and the shoes, torn blouse and black suit were in the holdall, with the ripped underwear. She was wearing what her brother would have seen her in when she had gone out early that morning.

Vincenzo and three friends were playing cards. She watched them through a fog of cigarette smoke, and waited for their reaction so that she could resurrect the lie and embellish it. Each held a fan of cards up to his face.

Since she had been dropped off at Capodichino to wait for the flight, she had thought of the bundle lifted by the men on the ladders, the accusation made against her, and had seen the crowded hospital ward as a life had drained away. The bundle had been so easy to lift that the wind, however slight, might have wafted it from the men’s grip and carried it up and away into the cloudless sky.