Friday pouted. Her time in detention had taught her something, when you have leverage, you should negotiate. She had leverage now. She knew something they wanted to know. She could get something in exchange.

  ‘I’ll tell you what the problem is with the water heater,’ said Friday. ‘But I want something in return.’

  ‘What?’ asked Ian, suspiciously.

  Friday racked her mind to think of something she did want. She realised she was not very materialistic. It was hard to think of something. ‘I want . . . a large prosciutto pizza and a word that rhymes with Trojan.’

  ‘Geologian,’ said Ian.

  Friday thought about this for a moment and shook her head. ‘Doesn’t work. It’s okay, I’ll find something that rhymes with horse.’

  ‘Are you going to tell us?’ asked Ian.

  ‘The water heater is new and it’s top quality,’ said Friday. ‘Every part is there and in perfect working order. The only thing broken is Inspector Benatti’s relationship with his neighbour.’

  ‘What?’ said the Inspector.

  ‘I want to hear this theory,’ said Mrs Benatti, gleefully.

  ‘Let’s look at the facts. You wake up in the morning and the water is stone cold,’ said Friday. ‘When you call out a plumber, they can’t find anything wrong. The water heater is working perfectly. This happens again and again. Correct?’

  ‘Yes, I know, I lived it!’ wailed the Inspector.

  ‘So, the water heater is not the problem,’ said Friday. ‘A person is the problem. Some person is doing something to the heater.’

  ‘What?’ said the Inspector. ‘That’s insane!’

  ‘The obvious suspects would be your own family,’ continued Friday.

  ‘Hey!’ said Tatiana.

  ‘This is better than the soap opera on the television,’ said Mrs Benatti.

  ‘You are an angry man,’ continued Friday, explaining to the Inspector. ‘You cannot be easy to live with. You repeatedly arrest your own son. You glower at your daughter’s boyfriend. You yell at your lovely elegant wife because of a plumbing failure that is in no way her fault. It could be any one of them doing it as an act of revenge. In domestic disputes, it is always the small petty grievances that eat away at people and make them lash out in strange ways.’

  ‘How dare you?’ bellowed the Inspector. ‘You insult me and malign my family.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re becoming so emotional,’ said Friday. She rarely expressed emotion herself. ‘You’re a professional investigator. You know that investigations inevitably turn up unpalatable truths.’

  ‘Friday,’ said Ian, ‘you’re pushing your luck.’

  Friday observed that the Inspector’s neck was going a disturbing shade of red, so perhaps it was better to wrap things up.

  ‘But I don’t believe it was a member of your own family,’ said Friday.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Inspector, sarcastically.

  ‘Because all three of them are equally miserable at their lack of showering,’ explained Friday. ‘So, it must have been someone else.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Ian. He liked to see the Inspector being driven nuts, but even he was getting impatient with how Friday was drawing this out.

  ‘Your upstairs neighbour,’ said Friday, pointing to the ceiling.

  ‘Dr Fallaci?’ said the Inspector. ‘He is a pillar of the community. He delivered Tatiana.’

  ‘He really really hates you,’ said Friday.

  ‘We had a little dispute about the parking space downstairs,’ said the Inspector. ‘But that was last year. The magistrate settled it amicably.’

  ‘Amicably for who?’ asked Friday.

  ‘I get to park my car there,’ said the Inspector. ‘I need to for my work.’

  ‘And an obstetrician doesn’t need a car to get to work?’ asked Friday.

  ‘He has a parking space further down the street now,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘That would do it,’ said Friday. ‘That is the sort of thing that would burn at a proud man. Top of his profession. Respected by his peers. Adored by his patients. But can’t even park in front of his own building. He hates you.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘But people do go crazy,’ said Friday. ‘When they’re sleep deprived and it’s late at night. Their hatred burns and there is no-one else awake to talk them round. Every time Dr Fallaci is dragged out of his warm comfortable bed in the middle of the night to deliver a baby, he remembers that he is going to have to trudge all the way down the road to get to his car and he hates it, and he hates you and he wants revenge.’

  ‘So, he smashes my heater?’ asked the Inspector.

  ‘No,’ said Friday. ‘He simply flicks a switch as he walks past the fuse box on his way out of the building.’

  ‘But he’s a doctor,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘Statistically medical doctors are much more likely to commit murder than almost any other profession, other than butchers,’ said Friday. ‘They’re used to playing god in other people’s lives. They have to be inured to the suffering of others or they wouldn’t be able to function professionally. I bet when he lies in bed in the morning he can hear you screaming as you step into that cold shower and it makes him smile.’

  ‘That’s so petty,’ said Ian.

  ‘Yes, and the genius of it is,’ said Friday, ‘that when he returns after delivering the baby, he always flicks the switch back on, so that when you call a plumber they can’t find anything wrong.’

  ‘You can’t prove that,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘Of course I can,’ said Friday. ‘Just fingerprint the switch. Or better yet, tell him you fingerprinted the switch. I bet he’s so proud of his prank he’ll be itching to confess so he can gloat about it.’

  ‘So, can I take a shower?’

  Friday was surprised to find herself being addressed by the statue of David. Even though she knew this was Roberto, he was so convincing it was surreal.

  ‘It’ll take an hour or two for the water to get hot again,’ said Friday.

  ‘It will be worth the wait,’ said Roberto, grabbing Friday by the upper arms and planting a kiss on each cheek. ‘Thank you, thank you so much.’

  He disappeared in the bedroom down the corridor.

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ said Ian. ‘Via the pizza shop.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Friday. All the detective work had made her hungry.

  ‘I like this girl,’ said Mrs Benatti.

  ‘She’s very rude,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘That’s what I like about her,’ said Mrs Benatti.

  Friday and Melanie were sitting in the cafeteria of Florence’s Santa Maria Novella train station while they waited for their trip to Pisa. The cafeteria was on a mezzanine level above the main lobby, so people could keep an eye on the departure board as they ate.

  There were fifty or so students slouched about. Half from their tour group and half from Ian’s school. Outwardly, they were eating and talking. But they were all hormonal teenagers so really they were all taking part in complex mating rituals, establishing dominance and attraction through every little gesture and flick of the hair.

  There was very little adult supervision. Mr Maclean was downstairs, fussing about the tickets. Mr Nestor was reading a guide book, pretending not to notice anything, so he wouldn’t have to intervene. And Mrs Cannon wasn’t paying any attention at all. She was flirting outrageously with the baristas as they made espressos. She’d drunk three free coffees already.

  Friday was trying not to look at Ian as he lounged idly next to Tatiana. His arm draped across the back of her chair.

  ‘Would you like to swap seats with me?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘What?’ said Friday. She hadn’t been paying attention. Tatiana had just picked a piece of fluff off Ian’s jacket. Friday was fighting the urge to rush over and slap her.

  ‘I know it’s painful for you to see Ian with another girl,’ said Melanie. ‘If you sit here, you won’t be able to see him.’

  ‘I’m not looking at him,’ said Friday.

  ‘I know when you’re lying,’ said Melanie, setting her milkshake on the balustrade by the table. There was no room for the drink on the table because Friday’s books were taking up all the space. ‘And not only because I can always tell when someone is lying. It’s been seven minutes since you last turned the page of your book.’

  ‘Have you been timing me?’ asked Friday.

  ‘This is a train station,’ said Melanie. ‘Everyone here is watching the time. There are clocks everywhere. Including a massive one on the wall behind you.’

  Friday turned around. There was a huge digital clock. It would have been visible from almost everywhere on the lobby below.

  ‘May I sit here?’ asked Pietro. He indicated a seat between the two girls.

  ‘Of course,’ said Melanie. She slid her chair sideways to give Pietro more room, but as she did so, her elbow bumped the milkshake she had balanced on the railing and it toppled over. ‘Oh dear,’ said Melanie.

  They heard a splat and a scream.

  Friday leapt to her feet and looked over the edge. Worst-case scenarios flicking through her mind – the frozen drink landing on a baby in a stroller, or on the head of a policeman, or a frail elderly lady who reacted to the cold beverage by going instantly into cardiac arrest.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Friday.

  The milkshake had landed on top of Mr Maclean, coating the top of his head in the thick, pink liquid.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ called Melanie, waving to Mr Maclean in a friendly manner.

  ‘Who did it hit?’ asked Pietro, still sitting in his seat.

  ‘Mr Maclean,’ said Friday.

  ‘He’s quite a sight,’ said Melanie, glancing back over. ‘But it’s not so bad, with his olive skin the pink suits him.’

  There was a loud thud and a cry of ‘Ow!’ from Mr Maclean.

  ‘Ooh,’ said Friday, wincing.

  ‘What now?’ asked Melanie, turning back for another look. ‘Why is he lying on the ground?’

  ‘He slipped on the milkshake,’ said Friday.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Melanie. ‘Mr Maclean, you really need to be more careful!’

  ‘Is he all right?’ asked Pietro.

  The sound of Mr Maclean swearing could be heard even from his distance on the far side of the table.

  ‘I think so,’ said Friday. ‘He can’t have spinal damage. He’s waving his arms and legs around too much for that.’

  ‘It’s certainly quite a sight,’ said Melanie. ‘Oh look, there’s some Japanese tourists taking photos. That’s nice. He’s been a highlight of their day.’

  ‘They probably think it’s performance art,’ said Friday.

  ‘Mr Maclean, stop lying on the floor,’ called Mrs Cannon. She had stopped flirting with the baristas long enough to come and see Mr Maclean for herself. ‘You’re representing the school. I’d hate for Dr Belcredi to learn about this.’ Mrs Cannon then held up her phone and took a photo. No doubt to send the picture to Dr Belcredi and the rest of the staff back at Highcrest so they could all enjoy the sight.

  Melanie sat back down next to Pietro. ‘Are you excited to be going to Pisa?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘Not so much,’ admitted Pietro.

  ‘Because you’ve been there so many times?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘No, I have never been,’ said Pietro. ‘It’s just a tower of a church. We have so many here in Italy.’

  ‘It’s more than a tower,’ said Friday. ‘It’s the location of Galileo’s experimentation into the force of gravity, which was a fundamental step forward in the evolution of knowledge in the field of physics.’

  ‘But here, everywhere is something,’ said Pietro. ‘Galileo dropped a cannonball here, Leonardo painted a picture there, Dante wrote a book over there. You can’t go and look at everything.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Friday. She pretty much had the polar opposite view. But she realised it would be rude to start yelling at Pietro in a public train station.

  They were interrupted by the sound of Mr Maclean clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. He was standing up on one of the cafeteria chairs so all the students could see him. He had managed to clean most of the milkshake off. You could barely tell what had happened except that his hair was slicked back, and there were pink stains down his shirt.

  ‘Right, all of you,’ said Mr Maclean. ‘We board our train in eleven minutes. You will all get on the train, carriage E. Which carriage are you getting into?’

  All fifty students stared at him blankly.

  ‘E,’ said Mr Maclean. ‘Remember that. Now, when we get to Pisa, I am holding prepaid tickets for entry into the leaning tower. They were very hard to get and they were very expensive. I had to stay up half the night filling in online forms to make sure I had enough. I only got three hours sleep and I used up all the bandwidth on my phone, so when we get there, you are all going up the tower. There will be no excuses. I know how lazy you all are when asked to perform even the most minuscule act of exercise. Well, not today! You are all going up that tower, no exceptions!’

  Mirabella put her hand up. ‘But my ENT says I shouldn’t let my heart rate go above 70 per cent if I’m more than three hundred metres above sea level.’

  ‘I DON’T CARE!’ yelled Mr Maclean. ‘I don’t care if you are hooked up to a dialysis machine, both your legs are broken and you have a wart on your face the size of a rockmelon. You are going up that tower.’

  Mr Maclean got off his chair and marched over to the coffee shop to try to get Mrs Cannon to take her fifth free coffee to go.

  ‘I don’t think lack of sleep agrees with Mr Maclean,’ observed Melanie.

  Friday really enjoyed train travel. It was exciting getting tickets and allocated seating, and being on a train with a buffet car. It was like being in Murder on the Orient Express only way less glamorous because there were no movie stars or billionaires in her carriage, just fifty obnoxious teenagers. But the view out the window was the same as it would have been for movie stars and billionaires when they had travelled in the golden age of the railway.

  Everything always looked good out of a train window. Trains were higher than cars, so you could see more. And trains were more likely to cut right through farming land, so you got a real sense of the landscape. As opposed to a view of a series of advertising billboards between petrol stations and really bad roadside fast food restaurants.

  Melanie was sitting in the seat next to her and she was already fast asleep. They were across a table from Mirabella Peterson and Trea Babcock. Friday was trying to use Buddhist meditation principles to block out their inane conversation. It was really hard. Trea was complaining that her mother totally didn’t understand that if she wasn’t going to get her a working lightsaber then she had to have a ferret. Mirabella was agreeing with her while not listening, and instead concentrating on applying mascara using the camera in her phone as a mirror.

  Breathing slowly through her left nostril while counting to ten was not cutting through, she couldn’t drown out Mirabella’s voice. Friday tried counting in other languages, then counting backwards, then reciting the decimals of pi in Arabic, but none of it worked. She could still hear how Trea’s mother had cut the power cable off the television to stop her from watching too much Netflix. Friday could sympathise with Trea’s mother. She wished she could cut Trea’s power cable.

  All of a sudden there was a deafening screeching sound and Friday was thrown forward so her ribcage crashed into the table, and her head slammed into Mirabella’s iPad.

  Melanie had been thrown forward too, but being asleep, she was completely relaxed, so her upper body simply rolled onto the table. Meanwhile Mirabella and Trea were pushed back into their seats by the force of momentum. The screeching went on and on. The train was braking hard. But it takes a long time to bring six hundred tons of metal travelling at 250 km per hour to a halt. It felt like being in an incredibly long and drawn-out car crash. The forward thrust was still driving Friday into the table. She used her hands to push her torso upright and looked about the carriage. Bags had been flung everywhere, into the aisle and strewn across seats. With one final lurch the train came to a complete halt.

  Most people were okay. Aside from Mr Maclean. He had evidently been drinking coffee when the train lurched. Now he was wearing coffee. Friday hoped he took his coffee with milk, then at least the temperature would have been lower.

  ‘Is everyone all right?’ called out Mr Nestor. Although he was not okay himself. Mrs Cannon had been flung out of her seat onto his lap. Mr Nestor was pinned beneath her much larger frame. Friday’s brain puzzled over this for a moment.

  ‘How did Mrs Cannon end up on Mr Nestor’s lap?’ asked Friday. ‘She was sitting with her back to the direction the train was travelling. She should have been pushed into her seat. Not thrown in the opposite direction.’

  ‘I guess the force of Mrs Cannon is greater than any force of physics,’ said Ian.

  ‘Well, she is called Mrs Cannon,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Did you just make a pun?’ asked Friday.

  ‘I think so,’ said Melanie.

  Friday was impressed. ‘Well done. My brain doesn’t do those.’

  ‘There are lots of things your brain doesn’t do,’ said Ian. ‘Are you all right, Barnes?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Friday. ‘Why do you ask?’ She suddenly realised it was odd that after the accident the first thing that Ian should do was walk down the aisle and check on her. He had been sitting right down the other end with Tatiana.

  ‘You broke my iPad!’ wailed Mirabella.

  Friday looked at the iPad that had been lying on the table. The screen was a cobweb of cracks, with a red smear in the middle.

  ‘How did that happen?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Your head,’ said Ian.

  ‘My head?’ asked Friday.

  ‘It’s bleeding,’ said Ian, pointing to the middle of his own forehead to show her where.

  Now that Friday thought about it, she realised that her head did hurt, and there was something warm running down the outside of her nose. She reached for her face.