Dario Furlan

Dario Furlan is 44 and owns an electrical installation company with twelve employees, three vans and a contract too big for its size. He was born in Mestre, on the mainland across from Venice, the son of an electrician, and started working at 16, pulling wire behind his father. He opened the company at 30, on a loan, and has lived ever since on deadlines, invoices and reheated coffee.

He lives in a three-bedroom apartment in Mestre, in a pale brick complex, with his wife and two young daughters. The living room has a faux-leather sofa, an enormous television and a family photo album always open. In the yard, a garage where he keeps his father's old tools and a bicycle nobody uses. Every Sunday he has lunch at his mother's house in Marghera.

He has short brown hair with a receding hairline, stubble, deep dark circles and the calloused hands of a man who never stopped working with them. He wears a blue flannel plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, gray work trousers with side pockets and a metal-band watch. Friendly and talkative, he calls everyone boss and jokes when he gets nervous.

About the theatre job, his account is optimistic: the new wiring in the attic and the big chandelier was up to date, only the panel remained to be connected, and the handover would be next month. On the day of the fire, he signed out at eight sharp at the front desk, took the vaporettovaporetto The public water bus that runs along the canals of Venice. and went straight home to Mestre, where he watched the fire on television, like everyone else.

Dario speaks fast when he is tense and slowly when he wants to seem calm, and laughs before finishing his sentence. It may be the manner of a businessman who has spent his life convincing clients. It may be the way of someone who feels cornered and prefers a joke to silence. The detective will have to decide which.