‘Then what?’ the first policeman prompted when Cola added nothing to this.

‘Then I came back here.’

‘No, before that,’ he said with an irritated shake of his head. ‘When you saw the shoe. When you saw her. What happened?’

Cola spoke quickly, hoping that would get him through and rid of it. ‘I picked up one shoe, and then I saw the other one. It was under the bush. So I pulled on it. I thought it was stuck. So I pulled again, and it came off.’ He swallowed once. Twice. ‘It was on her foot. That’s why it wouldn’t come off’

‘Did you stay there long?’

This time it was Cola who suspected lunacy. ‘No. No. No, I came back into the building and told Banditelli, and he called you.’

The foreman nodded to confirm this.

‘Did you walk around back there?’ the first policeman asked Cola.

‘Walk around?’

‘Stand around? Smoke? Drop anything near her?’

Cola shook his head in a strong negative.

The second one flipped the pages of his notebook and the first said, ‘I asked you a question.’

‘No. Nothing. I saw her and I dropped the shoe, and I went into the building.’

‘Did you touch her?’ the first one asked.

Cola looked at him with eyes wide with amazement. ‘She’s dead. Of course I didn’t touch her.’

‘You touched her foot,’ the second policeman said, looking down at his notes.

‘I didn’t touch her foot,’ Cola said, though he couldn’t remember now if he had or had not. ‘I touched the shoe, and it came off her foot.’ He couldn’t keep himself from asking, ‘Why would I want to touch her?’

Neither policeman answered this. The first one turned and nodded to the second, who flipped his notebook closed. ‘All right, show us where she is.’