The Past is a Foreign Country E-Book

Gianrico Carofiglio

• Herausgeber: Old Street Publishing
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A stunner . . . an unforgettable novel' SUNDAY TIMES 'A crisp and chilling account of temptation and transgression that fans of Patricia Highsmith will adore' INDEPENDENT 'A fascinating, succinct and stylish thriller from Italy' GUARDIAN 'Raises the standard for crime fiction. Carofiglio's insights into human nature, good and bad, are breathtaking' JEFFERY DEAVER One hot summer, as world-weary bloodhound Lieutenant Chiti spends sleepless nights hunting for the serial sex attacker terrorising his city, trainee lawyer Giorgio is befriended by dangerously charismatic Francesco. Slowly the innocent Giorgio is lured into a corrupt world of beautiful women, card sharps and casual violence, in dingy poker dens and luxury villas. Then one terrifying night Giorgio is forced to realise just how far he has left his past behind... The Past is a Foreign Country is a stunning psychological thriller from an acknowledged master at the height of his powers.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title PageTranslator’s NotePART ONE12345678910PART TWO1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829PART THREE1234567891011121314Copyright

Translator’s Note

I should like to thank the members of my Italian translation workshop at the July 2006 summer school of the British Centre for Literary Translation in Norwich – Johanna Bishop, Mary Ledgard, Veronica Lloyd, Neil Roper and Shaun Whiteside – for their contributions to the translation of the opening section of Part One, Chapter 3.

The version of poker described in The Past is a Foreign Country employs a 32-card deck from which the cards 2 to 6 have been excluded. Aces count low or high.

PART ONE

1

SHE’S ALONE, LEANING on the bar, drinking a fruit juice. There’s a black leather bag on the floor by her feet, and for some reason that’s the thing that really draws my attention.

She’s staring so hard at me it’s quite embarrassing. When our eyes meet, though, she turns away. A few moments later, she looks at me again. This sequence is repeated several times. I don’t know her, and at first I wonder if she’s really looking at me. I even have the impulse to check if there’s anyone behind me, but I stop myself. There’s nothing behind me but the wall – I know that perfectly well because this is where I sit almost every day.

She’s finished her drink now. She places the empty glass on the bar, picks up the bag, and comes towards me. She has short dark hair, and the determined but not very spontaneous manner of someone who’s spent a lot of time struggling with shyness. Or with something else, something worse than shyness.

She reaches my table. She stands there for a few moments, not saying a word, while I try to assume what I think is a suitable expression. Without much success, I think.

‘You don’t recognise me.’

It isn’t a question, and she’s right: I don’t recognise her. I don’t know her.

Then she says a name, and something else, and then, after a brief pause, asks if she can sit down. I say yes. Or perhaps I nod, or make a gesture with my hand to indicate the chair, I’m not sure which.

For how long I don’t know, I say nothing. It’s hard to know what to say. Until a few minutes earlier, I’d been having breakfast, as I do every morning, preparing myself for an ordinary day, and now all at once I’d been sucked into a vortex and had come out somewhere else.

In some strange, mysterious place.

A long way away.

2

THERE WERE FOUR of us around the table. A thin, sad-looking guy, a surveyor by profession, Francesco, myself, and the man whose apartment we were in. His name was Nicola, and he was a fat man of about thirty, who smoked a lot and had difficulty breathing. He kept making a rhythmical, unnerving sound through his blocked nose.

It was his turn to shuffle the cards and deal. He repeated his little trick of shuffling them and dividing them into two smaller decks which he held between his thumb and index finger, but he was tired, and he was nervous. Half an hour earlier he had been up nearly a million, but in three or four hands he had squandered almost all his winnings. Francesco was winning, I was more or less equal with him, and the surveyor was losing a lot. We were beginning the last hand of stud poker.

The fat man cut the cards and said, ‘Five card stud.’ He said it in the same tone of voice he’d used all evening. What he thought of as a professional tone. A good way to recognise an easy mark at a poker table is to see if they use a professional tone.

He dealt the first card face down and the second one face up. A professional gesture, as if to prove my point.

A ten for the surveyor, a queen for Francesco, a king for me. His own card was an ace.

‘A hundred,’ he said immediately, throwing an electric blue oval chip into the middle of the table, and moistening his upper lip with the tip of his tongue. We all played. The surveyor lit a cigarette. The fat man dealt again.

An eight, another queen, an eight, and a seven.

“Two hundred,” Francesco said. The fat man flashed him a look of hatred, then also put two hundred in the pot. The surveyor folded. He had been losing all evening and couldn’t wait for the chance to call it a night. I played.

A ten, a king, a ten. It was my turn and I said two hundred. The others played. We came to the last card. An eight for Francesco, a nine for me, another nine for the fat man.

‘Last bets,’ I said, and the fat man immediately bet the equivalent of what was in the pot. Three eights were already face up. Did he have a straight? I looked him in the face and saw that his lips were tense and dry. In the meantime, Francesco put down his cards, said he wasn’t playing, and stood up for a moment as if to stretch his legs.

That meant that if I had more than a pair I could relax. The fat man didn’t have a straight after all. There was no way he could have one: the fourth eight was the card Francesco had face down. So I asked for time. To think, I said, but in fact I only wanted to savour that intoxicating feeling you get when you’re cheating at cards and are sure of winning.

‘I have no choice, I have to see you,’ I said after a minute, resignedly, like someone who’s sure he’s going to lose the hand, but has unfortunately been lured into it by a cleverer and luckier player. The fat man had two aces. I had three kings. That meant I won the pot, which was nearly three million lire – more than my father’s monthly salary at the time.

By now the fat man was really pissed off. Obviously, he didn’t like losing. But what made him furious was losing to a moron like me.

The surveyor won the next hand, but there was nothing in the pot except small change. Then it was Francesco’s turn to deal. He shuffled as he usually did – impersonally – cut the cards and dealt.

First a card face down, and then one face up. A queen for me, a king for the fat man, a seven for the surveyor, an ace for himself.

‘Two hundred. This is the hand where I recoup my losses.’

The fat man looked at him in disgust, as if to say, bloody amateur.

He put down the two hundred. I played. The surveyor didn’t.

The cards were turned over again. I was making an effort not to look at Francesco’s hands, even though I knew I wouldn’t see anything strange. And if I didn’t the others certainly wouldn’t. Another queen for me, another king for the fat man, another ace for himself.

‘If you want to play those aces you have to pay. Three hundred.’

The fat man paid without a word, with the same look on his face as before. I thought about it for a while, touched the chips I had in front of me and then put down the money, looking unconvinced.

The fourth card. A ten for me, a jack for the fat man, a seven for Francesco.

‘Another three hundred.’

‘I’ll see you,’ I said.

‘I’ll raise you five hundred,’ the fat man said in the same professional tone, moistening his upper lip and forcing himself to control his elation. The card he had face up was a jack. This was his hand, he was thinking. Both Francesco and I played. I looked like someone who thinks he’s in over his head and is scared shitless.

The last card. Another ten for me, another jack for the fat man, a queen for Francesco. Angrily, Francesco passed. Obviously he couldn’t play. He had thrown away a cool million. He said something to that effect but the fat man ignored him. He had a full house of jacks and kings, and was already enjoying his triumph. He was playing with amateurs, but he didn’t care. He said he was betting the equivalent of the pot and lit a cigarette. What he was hoping was that my face-down card was another ten. If that was the case, then I would also have a full house. I would play and he would tear me apart. The idea that I might have the fourth queen in the pack was obviously something he had never even considered.

I saw him. My card was, indeed, the last queen. Which meant that my full house beat his. Abandoning his professional tone, he asked how the fuck something like that was possible.

We wrote it down on the sheet of paper where debts were recorded. According to that sheet, the big man was already bankrupt. Then we played for about another forty minutes, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. The surveyor won back a little, and the professional lost another few hundred thousand.

At the end of the game I was the only winner. Francesco gave me almost four hundred thousand lire, the surveyor wrote me a cheque for just over a million, and the fat man another cheque for eight million two hundred thousand.

The three of us got ready to leave. At the door, I assured them I was available for a return match. I smiled modestly as I said it, like a beginner who’s won a lot of money and is trying to act appropriately. The fat man looked at me without saying a word. He owned a hardware store and at that moment, I’m sure, he’d have liked to smash my head in with a monkey wrench.

Once out in the street, we said goodbye and went our separate ways.

A quarter of an hour later, Francesco and I met up again at the railway station, in front of the bookstall, which was closed for the night. I gave him back his four hundred thousand and we went off to a fishermen’s bar for a cappuccino.

‘Did you hear the noise the fat guy was making?’

‘What noise?’

‘With his nose. It was unbearable. Fuck, can you imagine sleeping in the same room as him? He must snore like a pig.’

‘As a matter of fact, his wife left him when they’d only been married for six months.’

‘If he calls again, what do we do?’

‘We go back, we let him win two or three hundred thousand lire and we say goodbye. Debt of honour paid, now fuck off.’

We finished our cappuccinos, went outside where the boats were moored, and lit cigarettes as the sky grew lighter. It was nearly time for bed. In a few hours I would go to the bank and cash the two cheques. Then we would share the winnings.

Giulia and I had quarrelled the day before. She’d told me she couldn’t carry on like this and maybe it was better if we split up.

She was trying to provoke a reaction. She wanted me to say no, it wasn’t true, we were just having a little bit of a crisis, we’d get through it together, that kind of thing.

Instead, I told her I thought she was probably right. I had a slightly downhearted look on my face as I said it, because I thought that was the appropriate expression. I was sorry that she was sad, I felt slightly guilty, but all I wanted was for the conversation to be over so that I could leave. She looked at me, uncomprehending, and I looked back at her, but I was already miles away.

I’d been miles away for some time.

She started crying silently. I made some trite remark to soften the blow. I knew this must be painful for her.

When she finally got on her bicycle and rode away, the only thing I felt was relief.

I was twenty-two years old, and until a few months earlier nothing had ever happened in my life.

3

THERE’S A SONG by Eugenio Finardi about a guy called Samson. An ace on the pitch, and really handsome. Skin like bronze and eyes of jade. Looks like someone who’s never been afraid.

Francesco Carducci to a T.

He had a reputation, both as a footballer – top goal scorer in the university championships – and as the idol of all the girls. Even, if truth be told, of a few bored mothers. That’s what people said, anyway. He was two years older than me and was studying philosophy, but had fallen behind. I never knew how many exams he still had to take, whether he had chosen a dissertation topic, that kind of thing.

There was a lot I never knew about him.

Until one night during the Christmas break of 1988, we’d been merely casual acquaintances. A few friends in common, a few football matches, a quick hello if we met by chance in the street.

Until that night, during the Christmas break of 1988, our paths had barely crossed.

There was a party at the home of a girl called Alessandra, a lawyer’s daughter. Her parents were away at a ski resort, and the big, elegant apartment was all hers. People were drinking, others chatting, a few were rolling joints in the corners. But most were playing cards. For a lot of people, the Christmas holidays meant an endless round of card games. For money.

There was a baccarat table in the big drawing room, while in the living room they were playing chemin de fer. In the rest of the apartment, like I said, people were smoking and drinking. No different from hundreds of similar occasions. All perfectly normal.

Then the world, or mine at least, suddenly speeded up. Like a spaceship in a cartoon or a sci-fi film that shoots up into the sky and disappears amongst the stars.

I’d blown a bit of cash at baccarat and then gone into the room where they were playing chemin de fer. Francesco was at the table. I’d have liked to join in, but I didn’t have enough money. There were kids who came to these parties with rolls of banknotes and even chequebooks. But I only got three hundred thousand lire a month from my parents and earned a bit more by giving private Latin lessons. I was attracted to the idea of playing for high stakes – and winning, of course – but I couldn’t afford it. Or didn’t have the guts. Or probably both. So, more often than not, I just watched.

There were at least sixty people wandering around the apartment. Every now and again the doorbell would ring and more people would arrive, sometimes one by one, but more often in groups. Some were complete strangers, even to Alessandra. These parties worked by word of mouth. It was a common form of night-time entertainment over the Christmas break to go from party to party, sometimes gatecrashing ones you hadn’t been invited to, eat and drink something, and then leave without a hello or goodbye. That was the way it worked and there was usually no problem. I’d done it quite a few times myself.

So that evening no one paid much attention to the three guys who were roaming through the apartment without even taking off their leather jackets. One of them came into the room where people were playing chemin de fer. He was short and stocky, with close-cropped hair and a mean, stolid expression.

He rapidly eyed me and the others who weren’t in the game but were just standing around. He wasn’t interested in any of us. He went closer to the table to get a better look at the players. He immediately spotted the object of his search, quickly left the room, and returned less than a minute later with the other two.

One of them looked like a copy of the first, on a larger scale: quite tall and solid, with the same close-cropped hair. Not the kind of guy you’d pick a fight with. The third was tall, thin and blond, quite good-looking but with something sick about his features or his expression. He was the one who opened the conversation. So to speak.

‘You piece of shit!’

Everyone turned round. Including Francesco, who had his back to the door and hadn’t noticed the three guys until that moment. We all looked at each other for a few seconds, trying to figure out who they were after.

Then Francesco stood up and said calmly to the blond guy, ‘Don’t do anything stupid. There are lots of people here.’

‘You piece of shit. Come outside or we’ll wreck the place.’

‘Fine. Just let me get my jacket.’

Everyone was frozen, paralyzed with shock and fear. The people in the room, and others you could see standing in the corridor, behind the three guys. I was frozen too, thinking they were going to take him outside and beat him to a pulp. Maybe before they’d even got down the stairs. I felt humiliated. I remember thinking, in a bizarre flash of lucidity, that this was how it must feel when you were about to be raped.

Francesco had gone over to a sofa where all the coats were piled. I heard my voice emerging from my mouth of its own volition, as if it belonged to someone else.

‘Hey, you, mind telling us what your fucking problem is?’

I don’t know why I spoke. Francesco wasn’t a friend of mine and for all I knew he could well have done something to deserve what these guys had in store for him. Maybe the feeling of humiliation was just too much to bear. Or maybe there was some other reason. Over the years I’ve given it different names. One of them is fate.

Everyone turned to look at me. The short, stolid-looking guy came closer. He came really close, stretching his neck and shoving his face up at mine. He came too close. I could smell the mint-flavoured gum on his breath.

‘Mind your own fucking business, asshole, or we’ll beat the shit out of you, too.’

He really had a way with words.

I moved the way I’d spoken. Somehow, it wasn’t me doing it. I brought my head down hard, as if smacking a ball into a goal, and broke his nose.

He instantly started bleeding, so stunned that when I kneed him in the balls he didn’t even react.

What happened next I only remember as a series of still pictures, with a few slow-motion clips thrown in. Francesco hitting the tallest guy with a chair. Cards flying round the room. A few people coming in from the corridor and launching themselves into the fray.

The strange thing is that I remember all this without sound, like some kind of surreal silent film. One of the images in this film is a lamp falling off a little table and smashing. Without a sound.

We threw the three of them out, and then a strange feeling of embarrassment fell over the apartment. Some people knew, or thought they knew, the reason for this ill-fated punitive expedition. In other words, they knew, or thought they knew, what Francesco had been up to.

What they didn’t know, and couldn’t begin to imagine, was where I fitted in. And especially how I could possibly have done what I did. They stood in little groups, talking about it, and lowered their voices or stopped speaking when I came near. I wandered from room to room, feeling ill at ease, but trying to put a brave face on it. I thought I’d wait a while longer, and then leave.

Even I couldn’t understand what I’d done or why I’d done it.

I broke his nose, I was thinking. Damn it, I broke his nose. One part of me was astounded by the violence I’d been capable of, while another part felt a strange, shameful elation.

People started to disperse, silently. Obviously, the game hadn’t started up again after the interruption. I could leave now, too, I thought. After all, I’d come alone.

I put my jacket on and looked for Alessandra, to say goodbye.

What to say? I wondered. Thanks for the lovely party, I particularly liked the unscheduled part, it gave me a chance to let off steam and satisfy my baser instincts. But maybe she wouldn’t see the joke. Maybe she’d headbutt me herself.

‘Shall we go?’ It was Francesco, standing behind me. He also had his jacket on. He was smiling somewhat ironically, but there was something like admiration in his eyes, too.

I nodded. It was as simple as that. At that moment it seemed natural, even though we barely knew each other.

Maybe he’ll tell me what it was I just stuck my nose in, I thought.

We both went to say goodbye to Alessandra, who looked at us strangely. Her eyes were saying a lot of things. I didn’t know the two of you were friends. I knew you were trouble, Francesco – everyone knows that – but you, Giorgio, I never imagined you were just as much of an animal as he is. Jesus, there’s blood on the floor. The blood of the man you headbutted like a hooligan.

What her eyes were saying above all was: get out of here, both of you, and don’t show your faces here again until the next millennium.

So we left together. When we were out in the street, we looked round cautiously. Just in case the three guys were stubborn and vindictive enough to try and attack us after the thrashing they’d received.

‘Thanks. It took guts to do what you did.’

I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t that I wanted to seem like a hard man. I really didn’t know what to say.

We’d started walking.

‘Are you on foot?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I don’t live far.’

‘I have a car. Maybe we could go for a drive, have a drink, and I’ll tell you all about it. I think I owe you that.’

‘OK.’

He had an old cream-coloured Citroën DS with a burgundy roof.

‘So, what do you think that was all about? In your opinion, what did those assholes want?’

‘I don’t know. Obviously the blond guy was the one who was after you. The other two were his minders. Was it over a woman?’

‘Yes. That blond guy’s a bad loser. But I’d never have expected him to do something as stupid as that.’ He paused, as if he’d just thought of something annoying. ‘Do you mind if we go somewhere,just for half an hour?’

‘No. Where?’

‘I think I ought to make sure they don’t do anything else stupid. I need to talk to a friend of mine. This place we’re going, you can get a drink as well, if you’re not worried about the time.’

I nodded, as if I knew what was going on and felt comfortable with it.

In fact, I didn’t really know what he was talking about. I had a vague idea, just as I was vaguely aware that I was about to cross a threshold that night. Or maybe I’d already crossed it.

I took a deep breath, settled in my seat in the DS as it glided silently through the deserted streets, and half closed my eyes. Damn it, I thought, I didn’t care. I wanted to go.

Wherever we were going, I was ready.

4

THE FORECOURT OF an old municipal housing estate.

We got out of the car and walked into one of the big blocks.

There was no lift. A thin guy was standing on the stairs between the first and second floor, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Francesco greeted him, and he replied with a nod and then jerked his head towards me, questioningly. Who was I?

‘He’s a friend.’

That seemed to be enough. We passed and climbed two more broad flights of stairs. We knocked at a door, and after a few seconds – someone was looking at us through the spyhole – the door was opened by a guy who looked like the older brother of the man on the stairs.

The interior of the apartment was really strange. A little hall on the right led to a very large room. In it, there was a bar counter, the kind you find sometimes in small hotels, a few tables and a few people sitting drinking and smoking. They seemed to be waiting for something. A record player was playing, at low volume, a scratchy copy of the soundtrack from the film Cabaret.

There was a small room on the left, leading to another one on the far side. Green baize tables and people playing cards.

Francesco led me into the room with the bar. ‘Sit down, have a drink, I’ll be right back.’ And without waiting for a reply he went into the other room, walked across it, and disappeared from view. I sat down at the only free table. No one came to take my order, and there was no one behind the bar. So I sat there, doing nothing, sure that everyone was looking at me and wondering who I was and what I was doing there.

In actual fact, no one was taking the slightest notice of me. They were all talking among themselves, and every now and again one of them turned round to look towards the other room. They were almost all men. Surreptitiously, I started observing the only two women in the room. One was short and fat, with narrow eyes close together and a brutish expression. She was sitting with two nondescript-looking men, and she was the one doing all the talking, in a low voice and a tone of barely contained anger.

The other woman was a very attractive brunette – though she must have been at least fifteen years older than me. A woollen V-necked sweater gave a glimpse of cleavage. She was the only person in the room I’d have liked to notice me. But she seemed completely smitten with the guy next to her, who was wearing a jacket and tie and a solid gold watch.

I was fantasising about the brunette – not the kind of thoughts I could have discussed with my maiden aunts – when Francesco materialised on the chair opposite me.

‘Emma.’

I jumped slightly. ‘Sorry?’

‘Her name is Emma. She’s married to C.M., but they’re separated. You know who C.M. is, don’t you? The frozen food guy. Five million a month in alimony and a house on the Piazza Umberto. A bit touched up here and there, but quite a dish all the same. Didn’t you get a drink?’

‘I didn’t see anyone–’

Francesco stood up, went behind the bar, and poured two glasses of whisky. He came back to the table and handed me one. Then we lit cigarettes.

‘So, why did you do what you did tonight?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never headbutted anyone in my life.’

‘That’s odd, then. The way you broke his nose looked very professional. Did someone teach you?’

Yes, someone had taught me.

When I was fourteen or fifteen my friends and I often hung out in a billiard hall close to where I lived. Most of the time, we played ping pong, or sometimes pocket billiards. The place didn’t exactly attract a high class clientele, and once I said something I shouldn’t to this guy who was already a criminal at the age of sixteen. I mean a professional criminal. Dealing drugs, stealing cars, that kind of thing. I never found out his name, but everyone called him – when he wasn’t around – Stinky. Personal hygiene wasn’t really his thing.

Naturally, he played me like a bongo, while my friends did nothing. I almost expected them to look away and whistle. Anyway, while I was taking the beating and trying to limit the damage, another man stepped in. He was a criminal too, and all of eighteen years old. He was bigger than the other guy and, what’s more, he was well known for being a lot more dangerous.

His name was Feluccio. Feluccio the Big Man. He was into all sorts of dodgy business and kept order in the whole of the block where the billiard hall was located. Of course, his idea of order was a very personal one, but that’s another subject. For some reason, he liked me.

He bought me a beer and gave me a dishcloth with ice in it for the bruises. He told me I couldn’t just take the blows like that. I replied that I could, and I was still here to prove it, but he didn’t catch my subtle humour. He was worried about what was going to happen to me out in the urban jungle and decided I should be his pupil. He’d developed his own system of unarmed combat. If he’d been born in the Far East, he might have become a great master. Instead, he was here, in Bari, and he was Feluccio the Big Man, the street brawl and football stadium bust-up champion of the Libertà neighbourhood.

In the little yard at the back of the billiard hall, Feluccio the Big Man taught me how to headbutt my opponent, how to knee him in the balls, how to slap him on the ear to deafen him, how to elbow him in the chin. He taught me how to bring down someone bigger than me, by simultaneously pulling him by the hair and kicking him on the inside of the knee.

I don’t know how far we’d have gone if my teacher hadn’t been arrested one day by the carabinieri for a robbery. That was the end of my apprenticeship in the art of street fighting.

‘That’s how I learned to headbutt. At least now I know it works.’

‘It’s a nice story,’ Francesco said when I’d finished telling it.

‘You’re right, it’s a nice story. What is this place?’

‘Can’t you see? It’s a kind of casino. Illegal, obviously. This room is where people wait to play. The first room is for the smaller games. The other rooms,’ he made a vague gesture with his hand, ‘are where they play for serious money.’

He drank some of his whisky and rubbed his eyes.

‘I talked to that friend of mine,’ he said, making the same gesture with his hand. ‘We can breathe easily now. Someone will pay a visit to our friends from tonight and explain that it’s not a good idea to cause any more trouble. And that’ll be it.’

‘How is it that you know…these people?’

‘I come here to play sometimes.’

At that moment, another group of people arrived. Three girls, more or less my age, and two men, much older. About forty at least, with Rolexes, expensive suits and faces to match. One of the girls looked long and hard at Francesco, as if trying to meet his eyes. It didn’t work.

‘I think it’s time to go – unless you’d like to sit in on a few games.’

‘No, no. Let’s go.’

So we stood up and walked to the main door. Francesco made no move to pay for the whisky. I was about to say something, worried that some roughneck would follow us down the stairs and shoot us in the legs, as punishment. Then it occurred to me that Francesco knew what he was doing. Maybe he had an open tab in this dive – pardon, casino – and in the end I said nothing. The girl kept looking at Francesco as we left the room. We said goodbye to the guy at the door, and the one on the stairs, and walked back outside.

When we drew up outside my building, Francesco asked me if I fancied a game of poker one of these evenings. At the home of some friends, he hastened to add, noticing the look of hesitation in my eyes. I told him my phone number – he didn’t write it down, just committed it to memory – and we shook hands and said goodnight.

He owed me one, he said through the lowered car window when I was already out of the car and fiddling with my key in the defective lock. By the time I turned, he’d gone.

I went straight to bed, and stayed awake until the dawn light started to filter through the cracks in the shutters.