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a rectangle with fifty or sixty surnames. I found Mori’s name and held his buzzer. I looked at my watch. It was just after nine.
    ‘Who is it?’ a voice said over the intercom.
    ‘My name’s Castagnetti. I’m looking for Massimo Mori.’
    ‘That’s me. What do you want?’
    It felt all too easy. ‘I’m looking for a young girl. Simona Biondi. You were staying in a hotel on the outskirts of Rome with her last night.’
    ‘You must have the wrong person.’
    ‘May I come in?’
    ‘You’ve got the wrong person,’ he repeated.
    I thought there was a hint of doubt in his voice. ‘Can we talk face to face?’ I asked.
    He hesitated and then buzzed the gate open. ‘Ninth floor,’ he said.
    I walked through the concrete courtyard and into the main foyer. I waited for the lift with a young woman carrying a baby.
    ‘Do you know Massimo Mori?’ I asked her. ‘He lives on the ninth floor.’
    She shrugged and shook her head. ‘Don’t know any of the neighbours,’ she said.
    We got in the lift together and the narrow box creaked up to the ninth floor. When the lift doors opened I saw a short man standing in a doorway. He looked the same as the man from the passport: he was the wrong side of middle age with short silver hair, a face lined by the sun and, judging by the smell, cigarettes. His chin had given up the fight against gravity and was covering the top of his jumper. I knew instinctively that he wasn’t the man I was looking for. He was in slippers and had something about him that suggested he didn’t often get out of them.
    ‘I’m Mori,’ he said, holding out a hand.
    ‘Castagnetti.’
    ‘Prego,’ he said politely, holding open his door and inviting me inside. ‘What’s this about?’
    We stood facing each other in the corridor. A woman came and stood beside him: she had the same sort of figure and looked, as much as I could tell, like a kindly grandmother: her grey hair was in a bun and she had heirloom glasses balancing on her thin nose.
    I pulled the copy of his passport from my pocket and passed it over to him. ‘You checked out of the Hotel del Fiume yesterday.’
    His glasses were hanging on a chain around his neck and he put them on, looking down his nose at the sheet of paper. He shook his head. ‘I’ve been here all week. Haven’t been to Rome at all.’
    ‘May I see your passport?’
    He frowned, pulling off his glasses. He raised his white eyebrows as if he suddenly understood what was happening. He was still looking at me when he shut his eyes and shook his head, smiling wryly.
    ‘Where’s your passport?’
    ‘I lent it to my brother,’ he said. ‘Our mother died recently. Well, quite a few months ago now. We’ve spent a very long time trying to do probate, trying to organise everything. You know what it’s like.’
    I did, sort of. My parents had checked out when I was still a kid. I hadn’t had to deal with the paperwork, but I had dealt with all the rest.
    ‘Endless forms,’ he shook his head, ‘and documents. Dealing with lawyers and banks and notaries. It’s taken a long time.’ He looked at me with a sad, mournful face. ‘My brother and I have been slowly going through it all and quite often we’ve needed ID for this or that. I lent him my passport a month or so ago. I didn’t need it after all. The furthest we go nowadays is to the supermarket.’
    ‘What’s your brother called?’
    ‘Fabrizio. Fabrizio Mori.’
    ‘And where does he live?’
    ‘South of Rome.’
    The three of us stared at each other.
    ‘Can I offer you a coffee?’ the old woman asked.
    I said I would be grateful and she shuffled off down the corridor.
    ‘Prego, prego,’ the man said, leading me into a sitting room. ‘Prego,’ he said again, motioning towards a low sofa that was upholstered with the thick brown cloth that was fashionable in the 1970s.
    ‘Tell me about your brother,’ I said quietly.
    He sighed wearily. ‘He’s always been . . . ’ He stopped and stared at the