‘We climb over?’ Ellis suggested, pulling his wallet and mobile phone from his pockets and handing them to her. ‘In case they fall out,’ he shrugged by way of explanation. ‘I’ll go first and then you can come over and join me.’

‘What?’ Grace exclaimed, aghast. ‘You’re not serious, are you? We can’t just break in to Connie’s house. We don’t even know for certain it’s the right villa – I can’t see the Casa di Donato name plaque anywhere, can you?’ she said, stalling for time as she racked her brain to try and come up with a less risky option.

‘No, but it has to be. The guy in the hotel told you so; he even said Mr Donato lived here. Come on, it’ll be fine. There’s nobody in there, you can see the shutters are all down on the windows. Maybe it’s a holiday home now …’

‘But it’s still wrong. What if there’s security inside? You know, guard dogs and such like. And look up there.’ She pointed to a CCTV camera at the top of the pillar. But before she could stop him, Ellis had stuck his foot on a groove in the ironwork of the gate and managed to pull himself up high enough to swing his other leg up and over the top. Within seconds he was jumping down onto the grass on the other side of the gate with a boyish grin on his face, his dark brown hair flopping into his eyes, and Grace couldn’t help but see a glimpse of a much younger man, the boy he’d once been, and it was appealing to see this fun, effervescent side of him. Even if he was scaring the hell out of her with his risk-taking. The cat, keen to see who the intruder was, came running towards Ellis, before brushing up against the side of his leg, then did a little spin as if trying to catch its tail like an excited dog.

‘See, the cat is pleased to see me. He doesn’t mind us being here at all,’ Ellis said, crouching down to stroke the cat’s head. ‘Ah, look, she’s called Gypsy,’ he added, taking a look at her pink velvet collar. ‘Come on,’ he encouraged, pushing his hand through the railings. ‘Put my phone and wallet through and then pass me your bag. I can probably cup both hands together around one of the railings if you want a leg up.’