Trotti had seen his first corpse when he was seventeen years old. A couple of partisans, not much older than himself, in shabby clothes, the red scarf still around their necks, had been strung up by the repubblichini and left to bleed to death. At the time he had wondered what had become of the amputated hands. The smell, the dark blood on the cobblestones and the flies - they had been part of his nightmares ever since.
Magagna knocked and entered carrying a small tray; the air of the dingy office filled with the reassuring aroma of coffee.
'Grappa?'

Photo copyright: Publifoto 1992