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After turning on the light, she had made the gruesome discovery of her mother lying dead on the floor in the entry hall, with her mouth gaping in a grimace of pain, her eyes wide open, blood and brain matter spilling from one ear and a large hematoma on her head.

It would be established that the bruising had been caused by a heavy domestic vase being dropped onto the head, and on which the anatomo-pathologist would find traces of the victim's scalp. The doctor would also determine that, in all certainty, death was due to an ice pick pushed into the ear until it pierced the brain.

The dead woman’s daughter, who barely had time to drop onto a chair, had fainted. When she came to her senses around 10:10pm as she had ascertained on her wristwatch, she had managed to call 113 even though she was still in shock.

Around 11:00pm I had phoned Vittorio on my mobile phone to let him know about the new murder, fulfilling his request to inform him of any developments which might have arrived at the newpaper. Carla Garibaldi had told me about the new crime when I went past her computer station on the way to my desk. She had just had a phonecall from a colleague who, as a rule, hung out in the atrium of the Police Headquarters in the evening and into the early hours of the night, along with colleagues from the city’d other newspaper and the television stations, waiting for crime news. Carla's deputy had then rushed to the scene of the crime with the others, to give his boss any news.