Present Day Venice Maria Carvalho, the forty-two-year-old wife of the Carabinieri major, has been helped into bed by her sister Felicia. She's already asleep by the time Vito eventually makes it home.
Maria has multiple sclerosis. It mugged her on a Wednesday morning eleven years ago, when her physician gave her the life-changing explanation for her tremors, balance problems and blurred vision.
Maria's illness is the reason her husband quit his job in Milan.
As a high-flying homicide detective he'd just been offered promotion but opted instead for a sideways move to the backwaters of Venice. He never told Maria what he'd turned down. He said there were cutbacks, reshuffles in the unit, and he was out of favour. A move would be good for him. A clean start.
Work and Maria are the two most important things in Vito's life, but not in that order. And not for one second has he regretted his decision to leave Milan.
But tonight, he's feeling rusty. Slow.
A murdered fifteen-year-old.
A killer on the loose.
These things were bad enough.
But a dead colleague. One whom he'd mentored, thought of like a son. Well, this is too much to cope with.
He flaps down a cupboard door in a cheap teak wall unit and grabs a bottle of brandy and a tumbler. These are his two friends for the evening. They know him of old.
He takes a long slug of a '76 Vecchio. Lets it set fire to his mouth. Feels it roll like lava into the pit of his stomach.
The apartment is small. The living room almost silent. Sadness seems to amplify every sound. A clock on the fireplace clunks. Maria's tiny movements upstairs in bed make the floor-boards creak and groan. Even his own swallows of brandy sound like drains emptying.
Vito puts the glass down and stares at the ceiling. He tries not to recall the faces of Antonio's parents as he broke the news. Tries not to remember how Valentina struggled to be brave in front of him.
Gradually the brandy sinks in and he starts to unwind. There's a chance he would have fallen into a comfortable sleep at the table, had his cellphone not rung.
The major grabs it quickly so it doesn't wake Maria. 'Pronto.'
The caller is Nuncio di Alberto. A young officer working the night shift in the murder incident room. Vito listens carefully. The news instantly sobers him up.
Things are going from bad to worse.
'You're sure of it? There's no mistake?'
Nuncio says he's as sure as he can be. 'I tried Lieutenant Morassi, sir, but she's not picking up on her cellphone.'
'Don't bother her again. She can pick things up in the morning.' He glances at the clock. Midnight. His day should be finished, not just beginning.