‘Oh it’s fine,’ Larry said gently. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ and he tapped a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Besides, how else are we going to get in touch with her. Which year is it? The diary … anything recent to give us some clues as to where she might be now?’

‘Sorry, no. And at first glance there doesn’t seem to be any kind of order to the diaries and notes written on scraps of paper. Everything is very sporadic and with some of the diaries completely empty, or with just a few lines written in them here and there. Though I did manage to find this one, dated 1955, which is pretty full up – where she’s living in Italy and it sounds so idyllic. Listen to this.’ Grace quickly reopened the diary and read a section of it aloud. ‘The warm, salty sea air is infused with the marvellous scent of citrus from the lemon and orange groves further down on the hillside. The dazzling azure-blue sea laps gently in the distance and I simply can’t imagine a more perfect place to be than standing here on the veranda with my truelove watching the plump, pink sun setting on the horizon.’

‘Well I never!’ Larry folded his arms and nodded slowly, clearly impressed by Mrs Donato’s prose. ‘Those are mighty fine words, and with a clue for us right there too.’

‘A clue?’

‘Yes … a truelove! With any luck, he’s Mr Donato by now. So we’ll find him and he will lead us to Mrs Donato. Yes, that’s what we will do.’ Larry nodded, clearly resolute about the best way forward for solving this matter.

Grace pulled out her phone and tapped through to her To Do list to make a note to read on through all the paperwork in unit 28 to see if she could find mention of a Mr Donato. Or a wedding. Surely, Connie, being the romantic she appeared to be in the diary, would write about her own wedding.

‘It’s all there in gorgeous detail. Connie is an incredibly romantic writer,’ she told Larry. ‘Reading her diary is like reading a beautiful, romantic novel. And she lived in a powder pink villa surrounded by lemon and orange groves on a hilltop in Santa Margherita. I googled it and it’s part of the glamorous Italian Riviera and just along the coast near Portofino in Italy, apparently. Imagine living somewhere as wonderful as that? Or she did in the 1950s! But I’m guessing that’s not the case any more if her stuff is in our storage unit here in drizzly south London.’ Grace patted her curls, which had turned into a giant auburn frizz ball after falling victim to the inclement weather at this time of year in London, when she got caught in a sudden downpour while counting the steps to the bus stop this morning.

‘Connie?’ Larry asked.