Ten past midnight, and the office has emptied. Brizio went down to the floor. Orso went with him and did not want to. The glass wall has the sea in it and nothing else.
Timo Corbelli does not sit down. He stands at the corner of the desk with the ledger open under one hand and the marker on top of it, and he reads the top line of it aloud, unhurried, the way another man would read a bill.
Timo:
"Nuno Correia. Three hundred thousand. Witnessed by my notary, who is the only man in this house I still trust to be boring."
He turns the page with one finger.
"You will want to know what I get. Sit down and I'll tell you what I get."