Free When the Dead Awaken by Steffen Jacobsen

again. He had spent his life in courtrooms and no one, least of all a green assistant public prosecutor, would ever catch him out in a contradiction.
    â€˜I was being kind, dottoressa.’

CHAPTER 8
    Castellarano, Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy
    The small town rested on a slope under a pure blue sky with a river that wound through the low brown mountains like a green ribbon. The birthplace of Lucia Forlani. The city wall embraced the sand-coloured houses. Sabrina had parked the Opel in the almost empty car park outside the tourist office. She walked under an archway and felt momentarily disoriented in the confusion of small streets behind the city wall.
    It was outside the tourist season, and she wandered across piazzas where most of the cafés were boarded up. Chairs and tables were stacked, secured with long chains and padlocks, parasols were leaning against walls; the foliage of the plane trees had started to wither and drop. The leaves lay still on the cobblestones in this strangely airless town. She passed a small medieval castle with a hexagonal tower that she, with the help of a tourist brochure, identified as the Castle of Countess Mathilde. Oneof the Medicis. Everything was well cared for, in good condition, freshly painted and clean. There was no rubbish in the streets, no graffiti on the walls. It was hard to believe that Naples and this little town existed in the same country. This place could have been in Switzerland.
    She walked through a labyrinth of narrow streets, where women with all the time in the world sat on doorsteps or white plastic chairs. They greeted her with a nod and a smile. Sabrina smiled and nodded until her jaw started to ache. Most shops were dark and deserted. Even the ‘For Sale’ signs were faded and tattered. A few shops survived by selling regional culinary specialities and the usual rustic tourist tat.
    The streets started to climb upwards. The cobbles had been laid in wide, shallow steps and she could see the sky open up ahead. She reached a park from where she could get an overview of the river and the mountains – and a bit of a breeze.
    Sabrina had the park to herself. She walked past a long washing trough carved out of granite. A jet of water spouted from the mouth of a crusader and golden leaves whirled on the black surface of the water. She sat down on a marble bench and surveyed the soaring towers, walls and battlements of Castellarano’s famous convent school. Behind the convent lay a wide, green common, the playing fields alive with tiny figures playing lacrosse, football, or sprinting round the orange surface of the athletics track.
    Lucia Forlani – or Lucia Maletta, as she then was – had once run around down there, Sabrina thought. She had probably striven for academic and sporting excellence. She knew that the convent school was one of the most desirable south of the Alps and that its students came mainly from Europe’s wealthiest families, but twenty per cent of each year’s intake was made up of poor or orphaned girls who could pass the entrance exam and be found deserving by a selection committee. The scholarship covered the cost of tuition, books, clothes, pocket money, board and lodging. Lucia Forlani had been one of the lucky ones. Depending on how you looked at it.
    Sabrina pressed the palms of her hands against the cold marble of the bench and raised her face towards the sun. She closed her eyes and let herself sink into the sunlight, listening to the distant sounds from the playing fields and the rustling of leaves across the cobblestones.
    â€˜Excuse me … ?’
    The tall woman was watching her with a smile. She gestured towards the bench and Sabrina moved up.
    â€˜Thank you.’
    The woman sat down. She placed her shopping bag between her feet and stretched out her arms towards the sun for a moment. She lifted her face and closed her eyes. The woman was slim and well built; probably in her early