The ambulance man heaved a profound sigh, indicating helpless acquiescence in the face of might rather than right, and started to go through the dead man’s clothing. The trouser pockets and the outer ones of the jacket were empty, but a zipped pocket inside the left breast of the jacket yielded a large metal key, seemingly new, and a worn leather wallet containing an identity card and driving licence. The security man scanned these documents, then brusquely turned his back on everyone and switched on his radio again.

‘This is Grimaldi,’ he said, his voice hoarse with excitement. ‘Tell the chief to get over here immediately! And you’d better notify His Excellency.’

Aurelio Zen, on the other hand, was to remember that particular Friday as the night the lights went out.

His first thought was that it was a personal darkness, like the one which had descended without warning a few months earlier on poor Romizi. ‘Come on, Carlo, at least try and look like you’re working!’ one of the other officials had jeered at the sight of the Umbrian frozen at his desk, a grey, sweating statue of flesh. Romizi had always been a laughing-stock in the Criminalpol squad. Only that very morning Giorgio De Angelis had retailed yet another apocryphal story about their hapless colleague. ‘Romizi is detailed off to attend a conference in Paris. He rings the travel agent. “Excuse me, could you tell me how long it takes to get to Paris?” “Just one moment,” says the travel agent, reaching for his time-table. “Thanks very much,” says Carlo, and hangs up.’

But Romizi’s fate hadn’t been funny at all. ‘A clot on the brain,’ the doctor had explained when Zen looked in at the San Giovanni hospital. When asked what the prognosis was, he simply shook his head and sighed. Anna, Romizi’s wife, and his sister Francesca were looking after him.