Tobias Jones - The Salati Case

The phone started ringing. I got up out of the chair half wondering if this was the missing link already. I put the phone to my ear all excited, but it was Mauro.

‘You know what propolis is?’ he asked.

‘Sure.’ It was one of the most annoying aspects of beekeeping. It was a dark brown substance like chewing gum that the bees got from plants and used as a glue to plug holes in the hive and kill off fungal infections. My bee suit is all stained with the stuff. ‘What about it?’

‘I met a woman the other day who’s into alternative medicine.’

‘And?’

‘She’s looking for a source of propolis and I mentioned you. Apparently it’s quite valuable.’

‘It’s useless to me.’

‘Then sell it to her.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Just a woman I met.’ It always amazed me how many women Mauro met.

‘Bring her to the Circolo,’ I said.

‘I was thinking of somewhere slightly classier.’

‘Bruno’s then.’

We agreed to meet for dinner. The woman must have been something special because the Circolo was usually quite classy enough for Mauro. Not that Bruno’s was that much better, but at least they served something other than cotto and crudo .

I was glad of the distraction. If it weren’t for Mauro and my bees I wouldn’t ever stop thinking about work. So Bruno’s was fine by me. And besides, if we went to Bruno’s there was always an outside chance I would run into Serena again. Anything’s possible in a city this small.

Tobias Jones studied at Jesus College, Oxford. He was on the staff of the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday before moving to Parma in 1999. Since the publication of The Dark Heart of Italy he has written and presented documentaries for BBC Television and radio and for RAI 3. He is a regular contributor for the British and Italian press and is a columnist for Internazionale . His second book, Utopian Dreams , was published in 2007.