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of Via della Pelliccia, a blue light flashing justification for the disruption. Now he went over to it, removed a bag from the trunk, took off his jacket, which looked too small when it was on him but huge as he held it in his hand, then his V-neck, which, she noticed, was pocked with moth holes. He folded them with more difficulty than care, then opened the back door of the car, and tossed them in.
    “You missed the seat,” said Caterina as he slammed the car door shut.
    He strapped the bag over his shoulder. “Never mind.”
    They walked back to the piazza, open again to its residents. The small police tent in the middle lent the piazza an air of slight gaiety, as if someone had set up a food stall, though the festive effect was spoiled by the presence of a blue van of the Mortuary Police.
    “Those bastards take their own sweet time,” said Blume. “The body went in the back forty minutes ago.”
    Blume went over and seemed to get into a vicious argument with one of the men inside the van, but when he came back he was laughing.
    “It won’t start. The battery’s flat. He says it happens all the time. Nice to see the police aren’t the only ones with vehicles that don’t work.”
    “Is that so funny?” she asked.
    “No. Just something the driver said about the guy lying in the back enjoying the air-conditioning, while he had to sit there . . . never mind, there’s Grattapaglia.”
    Grattapaglia came out of the pink building to the left accompanied by two policemen. They watched him send them to the next building, then he came over.
    “Nothing, no witnesses, most people at work. Six officers are going around all the local bars to see if there were any incidents, arguments.”
    “You and Inspector Mattiola here can do a bit of door-to-door, then come back here to me in about a quarter of an hour or whenever you see the van leave.”
    Blume went over to Inspector Rosario Panebianco who had been maintaining the scene, watching the forensic teams, and re-examining the area.
    “Anything else here?”
    Panebianco tutted dismissively. “Nothing, Commissioner. Surely this is just an accident scene? That’s what I feel at least.”
    “Yes,” said Blume, “but there’s the question of the mugger. Maybe this was a mugging that went wrong.”
    “He had his wallet.”
    “He might have put up a fight and the mugger fled without taking it. The victim is foreign, like the mugger’s preferred targets. For the Questura and the press, we need to be careful how we treat foreigners.”
    “Dear me, has anyone ever mentioned that to Grattapaglia?”
    “Don’t even talk about that,” said Blume. “Just to be clear: you found nothing new here?”
    “Nothing. No real evidence of a crime.”
    Blume watched as the last of the forensics team packed away their stuff. A thin man in cotton blue coveralls came walking around the corner. Tucked under his long arm as if it weighed nothing was a gray Magneti Marelli battery. He gave a cheery wave to the driver of the mortuary van, as if they were old friends. Two patrolmen busied themselves taking down the tent, the electrician went to work under the hood of the van, passersby cast curious glances. Ten minutes later, the mortuary wagon drove off, the electrician sitting squeezed in between the driver and his companion, the three of them chatting and smoking. With its departure, the only sign that anything had happened at all was the unusual number of policemen coming in and out of the buildings around Blume and the broken strands of police tape fluttering at the corners of the piazza.
    A few more minutes passed and Inspector Mattiola and Sovrintendente Grattapaglia came out of the building to his right.
    “How many people did you two manage to talk to?” asked Blume.
    “Two,” said Grattapaglia.
    “Five,” said Caterina.
    “So which is it,” said Blume. “Five or two?”
    “Seven,” said Grattapaglia.
    “Ah,” said Blume. “You split up.”
    “It was quicker that