Whilst peak season doesn't really get going until July, the Italian school year in fact finishes in the early part of June. From a British perspective, a three-month summer holiday might seem excessive, but then it's not often that our schoolchildren are required to sit in classrooms with no air-conditioning in thirty-plus degree temperatures. Though most parents will still be at work, fine June workdays see the local populous of bored, liberated teenagers flocking to the beach. At the weekends, meanwhile, daytripping families flood in from far and wide.
One such family that particular Saturday were the Terlizzis from Francavilla Fontana. Waking to unbroken blue skies and the weatherman's promise of afternoon highs in the mid-thirties, swimming costumes and towels were rounded up, panini and coca-cola packed into the icebox. The five of them squeezed into the cinquecento and headed out to Punto San Giacomo. The father, Giuseppe, 35; his wife, Silvia, 34; their twelve-year-old daughter, Francesca; her younger brother, Tommaso, 9; and last but by no means least, Pippo the basset hound.
With the family dog in tow, the primer, lido-owned beaches in the town centre were no-go. As was their habit, the family headed instead for the long stretch of public beach on the northern edge of town. Arriving early enough to find a space amid the line of cars parked along the curb of the coast road, they accessed the beach via a small stretch of dunes which separated two holiday bungalows.
Though their story would be well-chronicled in the local and national press, I recently took a ride over to Francavilla Fontana, accepted a glass of Silvia's homemade limoncello as they once more recounted the events of that fateful Saturday morning.
He'd thought one of the two bungalows between which they'd passed had seemed familiar, Giuseppe told me. The one on the left, yes - he was sure he'd seen it on the TV. Not being quite able to remember the details, he'd thought little of it though, continued onto the beach, icebox in one hand, a folded sun umbrella under other arm. It was as he was thrusting this latter into the sand - their chosen spot towards the back of the beach where they might enjoy a little more privacy - that the whole family noted it: Pippo had wheeled away a little to their left, not far from the corner of the bungalow's back garden. He whined and barked. Circled around, tail swishing, snout lowered to the sand.
Over my limoncello I would of course make his acquaintance too; or rather, perhaps it would more accurate to say Pippo made mine. A blur of white and tan toddled over to me as he returned from a walk with Francesca. There jumping into my lap, his bristly wet tongue slathering over my face, was the local hero himself. Originally bred as scent hounds for hunting rabbits and hare, Giuseppe informed me, bassets are second only to bloodhounds in the canine league-table of olfactory sensitivity.
And on that Saturday morning, it was clear from his excitement that he'd sniffed something a little out of the ordinary. Curious, Tommaso had began digging at the spot with his spade, Giuseppe later joining in as the dog's agitation had grown ever wilder.
And there sticking out of the sand about two feet down was what for all the world had looked like a human toe.
*
It was around two when I got there, the short ride from the vineyard prolonged by the diversion the carabinieri had set up along the coast road to accommodate the sheer volume of official vehicles near the scene. I had to park up in Pozzetta in the end, work my way down to the beach from the headland, trudge four hundred metres or so along the sand.
The carabinieri tape traced a ragged square of roughly fifty metres each side. Half a dozen officers were stationed at regular intervals inside its perimeter - amongst them Ciavarella and a couple of others I recognised from what was now almost ten months earlier. Beyond swarmed a crowd of onlookers, the majority half-naked. Those a little more conservatively dressed I assumed to be the first local journalists to have arrived on the scene. On the other side, I could see a professional-looking video camera on a tripod; behind it, a man was stooped on one knee, panning one hundred and eighty degrees. The images he was taking, I could only suppose, were those which would fill tens of millions of TV screens later that evening. I imagined the British tabloid journalists at that moment booking flights and hotels. Oh yes, the media circus was about to roll back into town.
Though most of the crowd stood in muted respect, others munched at focaccia, swigged back bottles of beer, held phones aloft to record the scene. As I approached, a volley of laughter peppered the air. Elsewhere, not many had stayed beneath their umbrellas. The drama playing out before them was, for the moment, the best show in town.
The object of everyone's attention was the large white gazebo-tent which had been erected in the centre of the square. Though the throng was four or five deep, my six feet and one inch of height afforded me a decent enough view. Every so often a white-jacketed scientifiche officer would swish back the side flap, take a breath of air; it must have been sweltering work there under the tent. Each time it happened the crowd caught a momentary, shadowy glimpse of what was happening inside. At one point I thought I spied Nuzzo's corpulent figure deep in conversation with someone. It was impossible to imagine how he must have felt that day.
And there just beyond the far corner of the square was a familiar white wooden gate, signor Caputo's vegetable patch...
Here, I thought. He'd been here all along.
*
Nuzzo would later allow me to have a flick through the crime scene photographs.
The scientifiche had dug a rectangular trench in the sand, its inside forming a kind of flat slab. On top of this, mostly uncovered, lay the unmistakable dirty-beige framework of human remains. The skull twisted to one side, the ribcage up, limbs wildly flayed. Almost as if it had been carelessly tossed there like you might fling a rubbish bag into a skip.
Given the timescale, the phase of decay was much less advanced than I'd expected, the exposed bones sheened by a faint greasiness. Green bone, forensic pathologists call it. Sand has a preservatory effect of course; it is for this reason the ancient Egyptians had buried their dead in desert.
The post mortem report would be typically indecipherable to any lay person such as myself, with only certain isolated phrases making much sense: skull to toe measurements of 182 centimetres... male pelvic structure... maxillary bone structure caucasian... skull sutures and general bone condition indicating an age range of between 20 and 45...
A medical degree wasn't required to figure out the cause of death however: a blow from a blunt object had accointed for the jagged, palm-sized section of skull bone missing from left temple. A whiskey bottle? It was possible, yes, but the general consensus seemed to be that it probably wouldn't have been heavy enough to have inflicted such damage.
A sample of bone marrow would be extracted for the purpose of DNA matching, but this of course was only a formality, a matter of following correct procedure. As with the corpse itself, so the sand had had a preservatory effect on the clothing. The sandals, for example, with a little brushing up could have still been wearable; the shorts and top had meanwhile become discoloured, mummified shrouds. The latter was noticeably ripped and shredded in the stomach area.
Just still visible over the place where his heart had been was the embossed tree symbol of Nottingham Forest Football Club.
*
I didn't stay there long; a few minutes, that was all. Just long enough to have a brief, private chat with Ciavarella, learn a little more about the basic details of the body's discovery and initial scientifiche findings our earlier telephone conversation had been too rushed to include.
As I trudged back along the beach in the burning early-afternoon sun, my thoughts turned inevitably to Sarah. To her girls. Alice and Sammy.
They would have already been informed, I could only suppose. I wondered who'd broken the news. DCI Tanner himself? One of his sergeants or constables? Some poor, press-ganged WPC? I know from regretful experience, the world holds no more difficult and terrible chore.
Had Sarah broken down into hysterical tears or else just nodded sadly, acceptingly? Was it something she'd prepared herself for or had she still secretly harboured a light-ray of hope?
Whichever was the case, I hoped the news would give her... what's that word the psychologists always use?
Closure.
Yes, I hoped it would bring her some kind of end. Some kind of new beginning.