The Collini Case

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Later, they would all remember it: the floor waiter, the two elderly ladies in the lift, the married couple in the fourth-floor corridor. They said the man was gigantic, and they all mentioned the smell of sweat.

Collini went up to the fourth floor. He checked the numbers. Room 400, the ‘Brandenburg Suite’. He knocked.

‘Yes?’ The man in the doorway was eighty-five years old, but he looked much younger than Collini had expected. Sweat was running down the back of Collini’s neck.

‘Good evening. Collini from the Corriere della Sera.’ He mumbled slightly, wondering whether the man was going to ask him for his ID.

‘Yes, glad to meet you, come along in. We might as well do the interview here.’ The man offered Collini his hand. Collini flinched. He didn’t want to touch him. Not yet.

‘I’m sweating,’ Collini explained, and was angry with himself for saying so; it sounded odd. It’s not the sort of thing you would say normally, he thought.

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