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he did. Not since I knew him. That’s where the tortured bit came in. That’s why I knew it was him you found dead. And you still haven’t told me where.”
    “Piazza de’ Renzi. Know it?” asked Blume.
    “No. Is it near his house?”
    “Yes,” said Blume.
    She touched the tiny hollow above her upper lip. “I really need to get home,” she said. “I can’t just stay here.”
    “We need you to show us around, I’m afraid,” said Blume. “Are there many more rooms?”
    “Just two. Both slightly smaller than this. One for Nightingale, one for Treacy.”
    Caterina shifted in her seat and leaned forward. “Where is home, by the way?”
    “Via della Lupa, number 82b.”
    Caterina wrote it down. “What’s the postal code?”
    “00186.”
    “That’s very central.”
    “Yes. I walk to work.” The girl’s eyelids flickered slightly as she looked at the Inspector. “It helps keep me in shape.”
    “I walk everywhere, too,” said Blume.
    “How much is the rent?” asked Caterina.
    The girl rolled her blue eyes sideways as if trying to remember. “Around two thousand six, two thousand seven, I think.”
    Caterina lowered her notebook. “You think, but you don’t know?”
    “I don’t pay it.”
    “Who does?”
    “Galleria Orpiment.”
    “Galleria Orpiment or one of your employers or both?”
    “It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
    “No.”
    “John Nightingale, then. He’s the one who organizes most things.”
    “How much do they pay you here?”
    The receptionist looked at Blume. “Do I have to answer that?”
    Blume nodded. “Yes, you do, I’m afraid. Though I can’t see why it should be a problem.”
    “I feel as if my privacy is being violated.”
    “Well, perhaps,” said Blume. “We’re investigative police. Violation of privacy is basically what we do.”
    Caterina waved her notebook impatiently. “How much?”
    “I get € 4,700 a month, OK?”
    Jesus, thought Blume. That was about what he and Mattiola made between them.
    Caterina arched her eyebrows, then asked, “What does your mother do?” She pushed out her hand to ward off the beginning of a protest from the girl. “Everything’s relevant. Just answer.”
    “She works in a bank. She’s a teller. But if you were to ask her what she does, she’d say she was an artist.”
    “There’s that unlovely word again. You don’t like artists because your mother is one?”
    Manuela wetted her lip with the tip of her tongue, and Blume stood up abruptly and wandered off to look at the paintings on the wall.
    Caterina slid into his chair, which was closer to Manuela, and said, “But her works don’t sell?”
    “No, they don’t. She can’t even give them away.”
    “And your father?”
    “I don’t have a father. Just my mother.”
    “So Ludovisi is her name, your mother’s name.”
    Manuela hesitated. “No. It’s my father’s name.”
    “You just said you didn’t have a father.”
    “I don’t. My mother gave me his surname to shame him into returning, but he never did.”
    “And so, your mother’s name is …?”
    “Angelini. Chiara Angelini.”
    “Where does she live?”
    “Pistoia.”
    “So you’re from Pistoia, too?”
    The girl hesitated.
    “Just say yes or no, it’s not a trick question,” said Caterina.
    “Yes.”
    “You went to school there?”
    “Yes.”
    “What was the name of the school?”
    “Um . . . Liceo Classico ‘Niccolo’ Forteguerri.”
    “May I see your identity card, please?”
    The girl brought up a square black handbag from below the desk, and Blume came over to watch. From the neatly divided contents, she plucked out a compact Fendi wallet and produced a surprisingly battered-looking ID card, which Caterina looked at closely before handing back.
    “What’s the bank she works in?”
    “Carismi.”
    “Carismi?”
    “It’s short for Cassa Di Risparmio Di San Miniato.”
    Blume continued staring at the dull portraits on the walls as Caterina asked the girl more