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‘Make the most of it, because the Ministry’s been in touch. Someone named Brugnoli. He wants to see you in Rome tomorrow.’

‘I don’t want to go to Rome.’

‘Well, I do. And you have to. I’ve booked us both seats on the nine o’clock.’

‘What have you got to do with it? You don’t work for Brugnoli. Or do you? Is that it? He planted you on me at the beach back in the summer to…’

‘Calm down. I just want to do some shopping.’

‘Fine, but I have to work. You can’t just expect me to drop everything, escort you round the shops and then take you to lunch.’

‘I prefer to shop alone, and I’m lunching with a friend.’

‘A friend?’

‘Her name’s Fulvia. We were at school together. We’ll take the train down together in the morning and then back again in the evening, leaving the car at the station here in Florence.’

‘But…’

‘You’re just tired. And a bit drunk, I think. It’ll all make sense in the morning.’

‘No, it won’t.’

‘All right, then it won’t. Is getting worked up about it now going to change that?’

‘Why do you always have to be right?’

‘Why do you always have to be wrong?’

‘I’m not always wrong!’

‘No, but you think you are. You even want to be. Well, I want to be right. And I usually am. I took a chance on you, don’t forget. A very big chance. Was I wrong about that?’

‘No, you were right.’

‘I rest my case. Now you rest, and I’ll drive.’

VI

Once the sun had set into a distant bank of clouds to the southwest, Gabriele opened the trap-door in the floor, lowered the ladder and clambered down. After that it was easy: the precipitous sets of stairs leading to the second floor, then the much grander and gentler stone sweep to ground level and the stately entrance hall of the bocchirale running the entire length of the building, its wasted space and elaborately frescoed ceiling proclaiming the status of the landlord.

He opened the front door to the vast courtyard, with its slightly raised and cambered threshing floor framed by shallow drainage channels, and walked diagonally across to the last of the seven arched openings of the cloister-like barchessale, where the farm machinery and equipment had once been stored. As a child, he had kept his bicycle here, and that was where he kept it now, well out of sight of any casual — or not so casual — visitors.

Ten minutes later he was pedalling steadily along the dead flat, dead straight lane that passed the property, flanked by deep ditches on either side, the desolate flatness of the landscape making the lines of poplars, pollarded to break the wind, stand out like architecture. Timing was crucial to the success of this outing. There was still enough light for him to see, but little enough to make it unlikely that he would be seen. Apart from the invariable ground mist that was already starting to creep up, the nights had been consistently clear, and the moon would rise just in time to light his way back. When he was a boy, there had been no electricity at the cascina. During the many summers he had spent here, he had been keenly aware of the rising and setting times of the sun and moon, and of the latter’s phases. It was a form of respectful attention which he had now effortlessly regained.

The trip was still a risk, of course, but a minimal and necessary one. He would be taking back roads to his destination. Given the massive depopulation of the whole area, these were almost unused, particularly after dark. With any luck, the shopkeeper would be the only person to see his face, and with his newly grown beard and dark glasses even his sister would have had difficulty in recognizing him. Besides, the batteries for the camping lantern that he had brought with him from Milan had almost run out, and without that substitute for the oil and acetylene lamps of his boyhood, he wouldn’t be able to function at all during the hours of darkness.

To be honest, he would have had to get out, however briefly, in any case. The rectangular block of the cascina, totally sealed off from the outside world except for its two gateways, and surrounded by a wide drainage ditch like the moat of a medieval castle, had an overwhelming sense of being cut off from the outside world. This had initially seemed comforting, but by now Gabriele was starting to suffer from what he and his friends in the army had used to call ‘barracks fever’.

And there was another factor. He was starting to feel a bit of a ninny. That’s how his father had sometimes referred to him in a tone of contemptuous affection — il babbione — and as so often in the past it was beginning to look as though he had been right. Ten days gone, and nothing whatever had happened. More to the point, it was getting difficult to see what could happen to justify his panicked flight to the family’s former rural property.

He remembered having read somewhere that the difference between a theory and a belief rested not on proof but on the possibility of disproof. No matter how many observations appeared to corroborate the theory of relativity, for example, it could never conclusively be proved to be true. Its scientific respectability rested on the fact that it could instantly be proven false should contradictory evidence come to light. The same did not apply to the idea that God had created the world in six days and then faked the fossil record to suggest otherwise, which is why this amounted to nothing more than a belief. As did his fears about his own safety, he now realized. They weren’t rational, and therefore could not be dispelled. What would have to happen to prove that he had been wrong, that in fact there was no threat, nothing whatever to fear?

Not that he wasn’t quite comfortable where he was. Indeed, that was part of the problem. The nights were still quite mild for the time of year, and the camping gear he had bought before leaving Milan — for cash, in case anyone was tracing his credit card records — was perfectly adequate to his needs. He lived as simply as he did at home, on pasta, parmesan, oil, salumi and dried soups, occasionally supplemented by a hare or pigeon he had trapped and prepared using his army training for living off the land. His only other purchase, before slipping on to a train bound for Cremona from the suburban station of Lambrate, had been this second-hand bicycle, on which he had invisibly arrived at his refuge, and which was always available for trips like this. The water from the well was better than what came out of the tap in Milan and he had brought plenty of books from the shop to keep him amused.

Best of all, absolutely no one knew where he was! Not just his enemies, but his friends, acquaintances and associates, not to mention his sister Paola and her thirty-something, live-at-home son. To think of all the time and affection he had lavished on the idle cipher that his nephew, so charming and intelligent when young, had turned out to be as an adult. But it had been his own fault. People always let you down. You were better off without them. Another of the things he had realized here — there had been plenty of time to think — was that he had always secretly dreamed of disappearing, of becoming invisible, wholly a subject to himself but in no way an object for others. That was what he had always wanted, and now, to all intents and purposes, he had it.

The bike rolled easily along, with an endearing little squeak from the rear axle. It was an old-fashioned ladies’ model, the black-painted frame elegantly bowed like a harp. There were three gears, two brakes and no gadgets. Gabriele had fallen in love with it at first sight, a cotton print frock amidst the massed acrylic sports gear of the ATBs, and the price had been absurdly low.

The light was fading fast now, but he would almost have known his way blindfold. All he needed was a glimmer to keep him from falling into one of the deep ditches that lined every road and track in this territory reclaimed centuries ago from the monstrous Po. He had covered them all as a boy, often walking and cycling for ten or twelve hours a day, and sometimes sleeping rough if he got lost or the bike broke down. No one had worried if he didn’t return by nightfall. In those days, the world had been hard but benign; now it was soft and malevolent.