It was two days later that the State Railway offices in Catania received the phone call. The speaker had a smooth, educated voice, but his accent was unfamiliar to the official on duty. Apparently he wanted to report a public nuisance in the form of a wagonload of rotting goods parked on a siding at Passo Martino. The smell, he claimed, was dreadful, and what with the heat and the usual stench from the swampland all around, it was driving everyone out of their minds. Something should be done, and soon.

The railway official duly passed the message on to his superintendent. Maria Riesi would normally have dismissed the matter as just another crank call from some disgruntled eccentric, but under the circumstances she was only too happy to have an excuse to leave her stifling office and drive — all windows open, and the new Carmen Consuela album blasting from the speakers — down the autostrada to Piano d’Arci, and then along the country road which zigzagged across the river and the railway tracks to the lane leading down to the isolated station. She didn’t believe for a moment that there would be anything there, but that didn’t matter. The call had been duly logged and noted, so by going out to investigate she was merely doing her job.

Much to her surprise, there was a wagon there, parked on a set of rusted rails almost invisible beneath a scented mass of wild thyme punctuated by some scrubby cacti. There were other, less pleasant smells in the air too, and a lot of flies about. The sun was a strident scream, the heat reflected from every ambient surface its sonorous echo. Maria Riesi walked along the crumbling platform towards the rust-red bulk of the boxcar.

As a matter of routine, the first thing she checked was the waybill clipped into its holder beside the doors. This document listed Palermo as the origin of the wagon, and its destination as Catania.