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disappearing down an alley.
    Eduardo and Paulo ran so as not to lose sight of him. They had no need to: he was still walking slowly, steadily.
    He came out into the next paved street, which was also lined with solid houses from the mid-nineteenth century, built for the region’s coffee growers when they visited or came shopping in the city. When most of them were ruined by the freeing of the slaves, they had to sell their town houses, or their impoverished descendants turned them into their permanent homes, driven from their parents’ and grandparents’ estates by debts they owed to banks, or by newly arrived immigrants from Europe. Only a few of the original houses were still preserved. Most of them were disfigured by additions or changes: modern façades, rounded stonesreplaced by the straight lines of bricks and cement, Portuguese tiles giving way to mortar and paint, pinewood window frames supplanted by aluminium, bevelled French glass panes by corrugated plastic newly made in the factories now multiplying in São Paulo. Two of the houses had caved in. A third one next to them had been demolished, and a two-storey, vaguely art-deco cinema had been built on the land.
    The man came to a halt outside the cinema. He seemed to be reading the title written in capitals on the black wooden billboard that was hanging from a thick wire grille: Shoot the Pianist . The film shown the previous evening. As with many other cinemas in cities of the Brazilian interior in those days, the programming at the Cine Theatro Universo was changed daily, except at weekends. The films could be French, Italian, Mexican, Argentine, German, Japanese, American or locally made. The film to be shown the next night was advertised on a poster standing on an easel in the foyer behind the iron gates. It was a Brazilian film: Um Candango na Belacap , starring Ankito and Grande Otelo. Paulo thought the actors were really funny, though Eduardo preferred Oscarito. In the external showcases was a poster in red, with its title in English: West Side Story , and another one in black and white, in which the photo of a blonde woman in a fountain appeared beneath the name of Federico Fellini and three words: La Dolce Vita .
    Paulo was behind Eduardo, and could not make out the features of the man they were following. That did not stop him announcing:
    ‘He’s a suspect.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Isn’t that what you say when somebody could be the killer?’
    ‘Yes, suspect is the word.’
    ‘Well, that’s what he is. Just look at him.’
    ‘He’s standing with his hands in his pockets, reading the film posters.’
    ‘If he’s not a suspect, what was he doing in the dentist’s house?’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘Hiding evidence of the crime! I bet he’s the real murderer.’
    ‘He’s as short as the dentist. And as thin.’
    ‘What if the two of them got together to murder her? While she was struggling with one, the other stabbed her.’
    ‘We didn’t see anything broken in the house. There was no sign of a struggle. We didn’t find any kind of evidence.’
    ‘Because the suspect turned up. We had to run off.’
    ‘If he’s a suspect, why is he so calm?’
    ‘So who is he then? And what was he doing in the dentist’s house?’
    Paulo’s suspect turned, walked a few steps, and entered the square bearing the name of a local hero who was killed at the battle of Monte Cassino in Italy during the Second World War, but which the local inhabitants still insisted on calling simply the Top Garden Square. In the centre stood a bandstand built like a Chinese pagoda. The man with white or greying hair climbed the four steps up to it and leaned on the wrought-iron balustrade which imitated bamboo. He looked all round the garden, came down the steps again and sat on a bench.
    ‘Did you see his face?’ asked Paulo.
    ‘More or less.’
    ‘Who is he?’
    ‘I don’t think I know him.’
    ‘You’ve never seen him?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
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