That morning the boy’s parents and grandparents were heard. Cervellati and Cotugno questioned them at length about insignificant details. They could have done without it.

I put only a few questions, to the grandfather. Did he have a Polaroid? He did, and he remembered taking shots on the beach last summer. It was possible – though he didn’t remember it – that the boy had kept some. In any case, he couldn’t say where those photos had got to.

Of the parents I asked nothing, and while I was watching them during Cervellati’s examination I grew ashamed of having put those questions about the separation to the carabinieri lieutenant.

They were more or less my age. He was an engineer and she a physical education teacher. They answered the questions identically, behaved in the same way. Lifeless, not even angry. Nothing.

Abdou spent the whole hearing clutching the bars of the cage, his face pressed between them, his eyes riveted on those witnesses, as if longing to attract their attention and tell them something.

But those two didn’t look anyone in the face, and when their deposition was over, they went away without so much as a glance at the cage in which Abdou was locked.

They no longer cared about anything, not even that the presumed author of all that destruction was punished.

The thought occurred me that if we had had a child when Sara had brought the matter up, it would now have been about six years old.

I left the courtroom, cool as it was with its air-conditioning, and was enveloped in the damp and deadly heat of June. It had arrived, even though late. I loosened my tie and unbuttoned my collar on my way down the broad central steps of the law courts.

I walked homewards with a strange buzzing in my head. I feared a return of my trouble a year before, and it occurred to me that since that time I had never used a lift.

My thoughts began to get muddled, fear was encroaching. I might have been in a scene of one of those disaster movies where the hero is fleeing desperately before the waters flooding an underground tunnel.

In a strange way this idea helped me. I told myself I no longer wanted to run away. I would stop, I would hold my breath and let the wave sweep over me. Come what may.

I did exactly that. I mean I really stopped in the street, took a deep breath and stood there holding it for several seconds.

Nothing happened, and when I let it go I felt better. Much better, with a brain that was functioning again, lucidly, as if it had been cleansed of old incrustations and piles of rubbish all in one go.

It was then that I had the idea of passing by the office before going home. I had decided to try something.

On my way to the office I began breathing by forcing my diaphragm down, as I used to before a boxing match. Trying to empty my mind and to concentrate on what I had to do.

I reached the street door, got my keys from my briefcase, opened the door and dropped the keys back in. I rebuttoned my collar and reknotted my tie. Then, instead of heading for the stairs as I had done for about a year, I pushed the button and called the lift. While it was on its way down I felt my heartbeat quicken and heat surge to my face.

When the lift arrived I told myself that I mustn’t think and I mustn’t hesitate. I opened the metal outer door, then the two inner flaps. I entered, closed the metal door, closed the inner ones, looked at the panel of buttons, placed the first finger of my right hand on number eight, shut my eyes and pressed.

I felt the lift jerk upwards and thought the test wouldn’t work if I kept my eyes shut. I opened them wide as I felt my breath coming short, my arms and legs weaken.

When the lift reached the eighth floor I remained motionless for a short while. I told myself that it was no good if I couldn’t stay there another ten seconds without moving, even at the risk of someone calling the lift.

I counted. A hundred and one. A hundred and two. A hundred and three. A hundred and four. A hundred and five. A hundred and six. A hundred and seven. A hundred and eight. A hundred and nine. There I stopped, my hand hovering near the knob of one of the inner doors. I had pins and needles all over my body, but really fiercely in that hand and arm.

I had stopped time in its tracks.

A hundred and ten.

Slowly I opened one flap. Then the other. Then I opened the metal door. Without leaving the lift I looked out at the broad slabs of marble paving the landing. I knew I mustn’t put a foot on the cracks between them. I must be careful to tread from one slab to the next. I remembered that was exactly what I had always thought coming out of that lift ever since I had used it.

I thought: what the hell.

And I put the first foot right between two slabs. I was not concerned about the second, but turned to close the lift doors with intense concentration. First the two inner flaps, then the metal door, which I pushed to gently until I heard it click.

I stayed there leaning against the wall of the landing for maybe ten minutes. I held my briefcase in front of me with both hands, my arms stiff. From time to time I swung it to and fro. I looked into space with half-closed eyes and, I think, a slight smile on my lips.

When enough time had passed I pushed myself away from the wall. I recalled how a year before I had met Signor Strisciuglio, and thought now of knocking at his door. To tell him how it had all ended.

But I didn’t. I stepped back into the lift, which no one had summoned in the meantime, and left the building.

High time to get home.