Lucio shifted his now-extinguished cigarette in his mouth.

‘See this?’ he said, raising his right arm, which ended in a stump.

‘Yes’, said Adamsberg, with respect.

‘I lost that when I was nine years old, during the Civil War.’

‘Yes.’

‘And sometimes it still itches. It itches on the part of my arm that isn’t there, 69 years later. In the same place, always the same place,’ said the old man, pointing to a space in the air. ‘My mother knew why. It was the spider’s bite. When I lost my arm, I hadn’t finished scratching. So it goes on itching.’

Fred Vargas, This Night’s Foul Work, 2008