SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 9:15 P.M.

BLUME RETURNED TO headquarters. After some haggling, he finally managed to get a squad car and two policemen called back in to take him to the crumbling house on Via di Bravetta.

The two policemen who arrived in the squad car couldn’t have made up his age between them. One of them couldn’t take his eyes off Blume’s plastered arm, as if he had never seen anything so strange or exotic in his life, which was possible.

They exchanged glances with each other as Blume clambered into the backseat of the car. Superior officers never did that. The backseat was for junior officers and criminals. But Blume had had enough of front seats for now, and his arm hurt.

The shops had closed for the night and the traffic on the streets was beginning to flow again as they left. It took only twenty minutes to reach their destination.

Leaving the driver in the car, Blume and the other young policeman, whose name he never even asked, got themselves buzzed into the shabby apartment block by an old woman to whom they simply declared “police” when she asked who they were. No wonder criminals had such an easy time.

The elevator mechanism smelled of old oil and grease, and the cab took an age in coming. They stepped into the narrow cabin, and ascended to the third floor in silence, trying not to breathe all over each other, before stepping out into a short hallway with three doors. Angelo Pernazzo’s with its plaque dedicated to a virtual killer was the middle one. Blume walked up to it, raised his fist to thump at the door, then lowered it.

“Hold it,” he said.

The young policeman, who had not been on the point of doing anything at all, looked confused.

An image of Ferrucci sitting at his desk, tapping away at the computer, eyes moving back and forth as he eagerly awaited a command or simply some attention came into his mind. A sense of fatigue overwhelmed Blume, and he felt his confidence drain from him as he realized what he had been about to do. He was right about Pernazzo, a person who had killed at least four people. And here he was on the point of confronting a killer, with a single unprepared rookie cop as backup.

He was going to have to call in help. Trusting himself did not mean doing it himself. On the contrary: it meant being confident enough to risk what remained of his reputation by ordering a full-blown raid. If Pernazzo turned out to be the wrong person, he might as well apply right now for a job guarding a bank.

“Ring the door on that side,” he ordered, indicating the apartment to the right of Pernazzo’s. “Show your badge, speak quietly. Ask if they think Pernazzo is in. I’ll do the same here.”

Blume pressed the button, and heard a sharp buzz from immediately behind the door, but no one answered. On the other side, meanwhile, the young cop was speaking quietly to an old man wearing wide shorts, a yellow shirt, and thin white socks pulled up to his knees. The old man had opened the door fully: another easy victim.

Blume knocked and waited. Still no one. He tried the buzzer again.

Nothing. The young cop finished his talk with the old man. Blume motioned him over, made a quick downward bye-bye motion with his hand to warn him to speak quietly.

“Says he doesn’t know,” said the young cop. “Says the son keeps to himself, was never one to have friends. He used to know the mother, but she died a short while ago. Nobody in that one?”

Blume slapped the neighbor’s door with the palm of his hand, “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Are we going to try this middle door?”

Blume looked at the unwrinkled and uncomplicated face of the young man in front of him and thought of Ferrucci.

“No. I’ve changed my mind. We’re going to call in backup, and we’re going to get a warrant to get in there.”

The kid looked annoyed, like he had been told he was too young for a fairground ride. “But we haven’t even tried.”

“Nor will we. Let’s get back to the car, radio from there,” said Blume.

But he could not help himself from trying to peer in through the security peephole. The killer could very easily be right there. He might have heard them ringing next door and be looking out, looking directly into Blume’s eye. Blume considered telling the young cop to point his Beretta directly against the peephole, see if that produced a panicked scuttling from behind the door.

Blume sidestepped out of the radius of vision of the middle door and positioned himself in front of the old man’s door. Then he hunkered down and tested whether he was able to keep his balance with his arm in a sling. He could, but only just. On bended knees he made his way back, below the scope level of the peephole, or so he hoped, and pressed his ear to the door. The elevator behind him clunked and whirred, and moved down. From behind the door, he thought he heard a scuffling sound. He could also hear a Mulino Bianco commercial playing on a TV, advising people to eat healthily. It could have been from another apartment, but he doubted it. The apartment next door was empty, and he did not remember TV noise getting any louder when the old man had opened the door.

Then he heard it. A sniff. That’s all it was. The sound of someone sniffing from the other side of the door. Still crouching, he took five painful sideways steps out of the range of vision, but the effort was too much and he slowly keeled over onto the floor, on top of his sprained arm, his knees locked in pain. He bit his lip to stop himself from shouting out. Eventually, he struggled back into an upright position. The young policeman, unable to work out a coping strategy for insane superiors, was staring down the stairwell.

Blume was physically exhausted from his exertions. His ribs felt as if they had pierced his lungs, his arm throbbed. Even his teeth were paining him. He pressed the button for the elevator.

The elevator took a long time, and seemed even slower going down than it had been on the way up. But as they made their slow descent, Blume’s pain was subsiding and his confidence rising.

They got out into the courtyard. Blume caught a glimpse of a figure walking fast out the gate, head bowed. There was something slightly strange in the gait. The world was full of people fearful of the police.

Blume stopped and told the young cop, “I’m staying here outside the main door to make sure our man doesn’t leave the building. You go back to your partner, call in backup, then wait for them to arrive. Just say you’re acting under my orders, and anyone wants to know, they can talk to me. I’ll see about the warrants.” He felt confident.