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       PROLOGUE

      For all of his sixty-three years Gennaro Tucci had lived in the same small cottage on the edge of the same rural village in Umbria. He had been a carpenter much of his working career, but now spent most of his time pottering about his house and garden, keeping himself to himself with little need for much in the way of a social life, apart from a cat. He was a simple, gentle, kindly man with few needs and no regrets in life, whom it took little to make happy. Every Friday morning, Gennaro would amble up the road to the tiny village church, which was usually empty, sit in the same pew within its craggy whitewashed walls and bow his head and offer a few simple prayers. Then he would amble home again, feed his cat and while away the rest of the morning until lunchtime.

      One particular Friday morning, in the summer of what would turn out to be Gennaro’s final year, he arrived in the church to find that it wasn’t empty – though he took little notice of the well-dressed stranger sitting in one of the pews across the aisle, a man of the same approximate age as he was, with grey hair turning white, and a broad, deeply lined face with penetrating eyes, who had looked at Gennaro fixedly as he came in.

      Gennaro never asked himself who the stranger was, whether a newcomer to the village or someone just passing through. He smiled, nodded politely and got on with his habitual prayers, oblivious of the way the stranger kept staring at him. He remained in his pew the same length of time he always did, then left the church and began walking home under the warm sunshine, sniffing flowers and feeling happy at the beauty of the day.

      Had Gennaro Tucci’s mind not been

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