The old who refuse to die merely on principle live on forever, to hate life and complain of all the things they could have been spared had they the good sense to die young.

The words ‘when I take you home’ echoed in the captain’s mind, caroming off that private place where all his suspicions and uncertainties slept.

A heart? Peppone knows where one is to be met with. There is always someone in the black market in need of dying early.