We made our way to the same semi-circular appendage to the promenade where we'd sat the previous September. The exact same places it seemed - the third or fourth step up, northwards facing. Today we had the place all to ourselves.
A mile or so in front of us - beyond the multi-coloured, ever-narrowing stripe of the lido beach umbrellas - jutted the first of the two headlands. Like a faded kind of echo, the seawards tip of the second headland was just visible beyond - the vantage point from which Rocco Quaranta had almost certainly seen distant figures on the beach below in the early hours of Monday, August 27th.
"I owe you an apology, ispettore." These were Nuzzo's opening words as we grimaced ourselves down onto the stone steps, pressed ourselves as much as possible into the meagre wedge of shade offered by the mid-afternoon sun. "The last time we were here, I remember it well. You said some things - some very wise things - but I didn't listen. Didn't want to listen."
I swept a dismissive hand; I'd lived in Italy long enough now to have developed a certain instinct for gesticulation.
"You did what you had to do," I stated simply.
The comment drew a glance, one which seemed to convey a sense of gratitude. "Duty, si. I did my duty." Crunching down the last of his cone, he wiped at his hands with a paper napkin, pushed his face into a pensive frown as he took in the view. The customers of the nearest lido dozed still in the protective shade of their umbrellas - a knee-bent leg was visible here, a sideways-dangled upper arm there. Only a dog and its sunhatted, stick-throwing owner splashed around amidst the gently lapping waves.
"But you, ispettore," Nuzzo continued. "You are free of such restraints. Duty, responsibility." His lips curved momentarily into a wry grin. "Superior officers." I felt his eyes on me then: earnest, searching. "And that is why, this time, I will listen to you." As if to underline his point, he angled his bulky frame a little towards mine, the re-shifting of his lower back muscles provoking a wince. "So, we play the game." A rolled, theatrical hand marked its opening. "We imagine that the old man saw that what he said he saw. We accept that maybe he was a little confused about the time, that it was nearer to three o'clock than two o'clock...." A flourished, upturned palm indicated that I should take up the narrative.
The truth was however that I had no real hypothesis to offer. No clear, filmatic scenario running through my head. As with so many aspects of the case, what we were dealing with seemed seemed frustratingly vague, illusionary almost. Mere shadow play, that was all.
"I just think it's possible," I responded, "distinctly possible, that it was them he saw. The Bracewell brothers."
"And if so", Nuzzo pressed, "who was the third figure? The one a little behind?"
There was, perhaps, only one likely candidate: "Olivia," I replied.
The comandante nodded. "Olivia, si. It is this which I think also." Squinting his eyes against the sun, he peered once more into the distance - seemed, almost, to glimpse right through the headland, lock onto the exact spot where Sean Bracewell's remains had been found. "We know she is good at telling lies."
I too crunched down the last of my cone, wiped my hands with the proffered paper tissue. "Better even than we thought perhaps..." I mused. I took a moment to think things through a little. "If it was her then she must have woken up when the brothers came back from the cigarette machine. Went for a walk with them." If anywhere near the mark, the implications were quite shocking. "What if she actually saw the murder? Helped Lee dig the grave?"
Nuzzo seemed to ponder this, his eventual conclusion an unconvinced shake of the head. "Sarah said that Olivia was in bed for maybe only thirty minutes when the brothers left the house. It's strange, don't you think, that someone who sleeps for so little time suddenly wakes up and goes for a walk?"
"Maybe she hadn't actually fallen asleep," I replied. "Going to bed and falling asleep can be two quite sepatate things." My voice carried the authority of recent personal experience; given the ever more drooping folds of skin under his eyes, Nuzzo was almost certainly no stranger to the concept either. "Maybe Lee had snuck back into the bedroom for something," I continued. "I don't know... a jacket perhaps, see if he still had half a packet of cigarettes lying around somewhere. And there was Olivia wide awake, or at least not yet quite fully asleep. Last night of the holiday - a little stroll along the beach, a nip of scotch, just to round things off..."
Nuzzo pushed his lips together in thought. "Hmmm." He was still far from convinced it seemed. "But why did one of the figures stay behind the other two? Why weren't they all close together?"
"Maybe it was Sean," I reasoned." Had lagged behind a little, given the couple a bit of privacy."
The comandante shifted his weight, folded his arms across chest, his body posture now closed. I felt like I'd just undergone some kind of test, one which I'd miserably failed.
"This morning I spoke with the daughter of Rocco Quaranta," he informed me. "On the phone from Milano. She could remember her father having mentioned the figures he'd seen that night, apparently. At the time the old man had thought little of it, had just assumed them to be courting teenagers with nowhere else to go. It wasn't until he saw the story on the regional news bulletin the following evening that he began to wonder if there might be something suspicious." Nuzzo nodded to himself, almost certain. "Courting kids, si. Half Moon Bay is darker than the beach in town. Quieter also." His tone was somehow authoritative, his eyes glazed over in wistful nostalgia; glancing across at me, the left corner of his lips wriggled upwards into a smirk. "Less chance of being seen."
The thing about meeting someone for the first time when they're sixty is that it's virtually impossible to imagine they'd ever once been sixteen. That the balding, overweight figure there beside me had at one time been an adolescent lothario.
I wondered if he'd ever taken the girl who would later become his wife for a late night 'stroll' down along that stretch of beach. She'd been a local girl, hadn't Ciavarella said?
Rather than somehow unveil the man, I realised, the previous night's revelation had only served to deepen his mystery. That first time he'd brought me here for ice-cream, I remembered how surprised I'd been by his atypical prudence at the wheel. Had the accident been another driver's fault, I wondered, or his young wife's own...?
What was it that Diane had said? That everybody gets over everything in the end. At the time I'd believed her - a torchlight of hope shone into the unimaginable blackness of my final years - but now, reflecting on it once more, I wasn't so convinced. Surely there are things which stay with us always. A never-quite-healed bruise on the inner wall of our beating hearts.
*
By the time we parted company, the town was beginning to rouse itself from its post-lunch slumber. Passers-by had thickened in number, scooters were droning along the inland streets; further along the beach, one of the lidos had begun blasting out its disco beats once more.
We'd halted ourselves on the pavement, the point at which he would turn left towards the caserma and I head right towards where I'd parked the van.
"I spoke about you to my mother," he said, his tone hushed and serious as if making a terrible admission. I could only wonder as to the exact nature of their conversation. "She says that a house with no woman is like a heart with no hope." The old girl was of a poetic disposition it seemed. "This Sunday," he continued,"you come to ours for lunch. She is making lasagna." It wasn't so much an invitation, more a command. "Around one o'clock let's say."
With that he turned, began waddling away.
"Kids, ispettore," he called back over his shoulder. "Probably just kids."
*
33 degrees announced the electronic sign above the chemist's as I trudged my way back towards the van. Then, a few seconds later, the formation of green lights changed to remind passers-by of the date: 28/6. It would be Heather's birthday in a few days, I realised. Her sixtieth.
I ducked into the nearest tabacheria, picked out the least crass of the limited range of greeting cards on offer, asked for the correct value of stamp to go with it. Borrowing a biro from behind the counter, I filled out the card and envelope there and then; there was a postbox a little further up the street.
My message was short, to-the-point. Happy birthday, have a great day, little more. Even so, I hoped she would realise that it was my way of saying thankyou. Of saying how very, very sorry I was.