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his sleeve and dragged him out of the room. In the bathroom, Paulo helped Eduardo through the shutters. Then he stood on the edge of the lavatory bowl, put one foot on the window-sill, leaned out and pushed his left shoulder between one strip of glass and the next, then his left leg: he squeezed out and was soon standing next to Eduardo in the garden.
    They ran across the road and hid behind a rubbish bin.

    They heard the cathedral bell. It pealed once. A silence. A second time. Silence.
    ‘Two in the morning! If my mother finds I’m not in bed she’s going to be worried.’
    Paulo was hoping that the party with prostitutes, rum and laughter that he imagined his father and brother were enjoying would be even livelier than usual.
    ‘If my father gets back and finds I’m not at home, he’ll kill me.’
    ‘Why does he always beat you?’
    ‘It’s not always.’
    ‘But I’ve seen you so often with a swollen face …’
    ‘It’s my fault.’
    ‘Why’s that?’
    ‘I’m no good.’
    ‘What d’you mean, Paulo?’
    ‘I’m no good.’
    ‘I’ve never seen you do anything that—’
    ‘I think lots of bad things,’ Paulo interrupted him.
    ‘What things?’
    ‘Things. Ugly thoughts.’
    ‘Like what?’
    Paulo fell silent.
    ‘You can tell me.’
    ‘There are times when I …’
    He fell silent again.
    ‘Go on, Paulo.’
    ‘No, it’s nothing.’
    ‘You can tell me.’
    Paulo wanted to say there were times when he longed to plunge a dagger into his father’s heart. To stab him. And twist the knife. To cut his throat and send all the blood spurting everywhere, like a pig. To stab him in the eye, to smash him on the head with a stone until everything was so destroyed that no one would know whose face it was; to sprinkle his bed with petrol and light a match, to set fire to the house and watchhim and Antonio burn until they were no more than two chunks of blackened meat; to shoot him in the mouth, to shoot him in both hands and feet, to cut off each finger, one by one, to cut off his nose, ears, lips, tongue, to cut off his penis and his balls. I think all the things my father knows I think, and he knows I have these thoughts because I’ve got tainted blood, I was born with it. It’s not like his or Antonio’s blood, I’ve got tainted blood like my mother’s family and he knows, because I’m no good and if I can’t drive those thoughts out of my head I’m capable of doing all that because I … because I have …
    Perverse desires, he would have said if he had been able to understand the meaning of what he felt and what remained with him each time his father thrashed him. All he said was:
    ‘Things. Bad things. Angry thoughts.’
    Eduardo couldn’t understand.
    ‘Why does your father treat you like that?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Doesn’t he like you?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘But if you solve this crime, he will like you.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He’ll be proud of you.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘If you prove it wasn’t the dentist who killed his wife, he’ll treat you differently, won’t he?’
    Paulo said nothing. He was staring across the road, his attention focused on a figure who was opening the gate toleave the dentist’s house and walking off in the opposite direction to them.
    They followed.
    Possibly because the surface was uneven, or because of the upward slope, the man was walking slowly along the middle of the road. Each time he came to the circle of light beneath a street lamp, they could make him out more clearly. Short. Thin. Wearing a loose jacket. White or greying hair.
    If he looked back he would see two boys, one taller than the other, creeping along as close as possible to the walls of the century-old houses, trying to hide as much as possible in the shadows, like the detectives in the films they had seen. But the thin, short man in the jacket with white or greying hair kept on going, unconcerned. Was he out for a stroll? At that time of the morning?
    He turned to the left,