The writing was a mere scrawl, but the contents appeared to be listed as ‘lemons’, and the bill had been over-stamped in red with the word PERISHABLE. Judging by the swarms of flies and the nauseating stench, whatever the wagon contained was not only perishable, but had in fact perished. This came as no surprise to Maria, who knew very well that perishable goods did not travel in this type of wagon. It only remained to find out their nature, and if possible their provenance, and then write an anodyne report handing the whole matter over to Central Headquarters in Palermo. Let them decide whose head should roll.

Even standing on tiptoe, Maria Riesi could not reach the handle to open the wagon. But although short, she was both resourceful and strong. The station had been abandoned for years, but one of the large-wheeled baggage carts used to unload goods and luggage was still parked in a weed-infested corner of the platform, its handle propped up against the wall of a shed. Maria marched over and, grunting from the effort, managed to get it moving and to haul it over to the stalled wagon. She clambered up on to the slatted wooden floor of the cart, her silk blouse stained with sweat, and, by dint of putting her whole weight on the lever which secured the sliding door, eventually forced it open.

Everyone subsequently agreed that she had done more than could have been expected under the circumstances, and that it was not her fault that she vomited all over herself and the baggage cart. The post-mortem was conducted that evening, in an army tent hastily erected at the end of the platform, well away from the assembled group of policemen, magistrates and reporters. The remains had been removed from the wagon earlier by hospital personnel clad in plastic body suiting equipped with breathing apparatus. If the results of the examination were not very informative, this was due more to the condition of the corpse than to the pathologist’s understandable desire to conclude the proceedings as soon as possible. The most he could say, based on a preliminary visual examination of the fly larvae present, was that the victim had been dead for at least a week.