Chapter XXII
When I came to, in front of me was... a ghost.
Caiman Crispy was curled up on the ground like me, against the wall opposite, and was staring at me.
I stared, my eyes wide open.
"Mr. Velli," the spectre began, with a flat soulless tone, as soon as he saw me conscious, "we are both prisoners of Nuto Marradi. He's watching us." He had looked up at a camera spying on us from above.
Like Crispy, I was tied by the wrists to chains planted in the wall. There were no windows. A powerful ceiling lamp illuminated the cramped room, all in reddish, damp brick, almost certainly a basement. A small door on the wall to my right opened to who knows where.
"Yes, Marradi is watching us and listening," Crispy had insisted.
For a moment I was sure I was dreaming: "... but you’re dead! It i
