‘I will have to go back immediately,’ said Victor on the way down in the carriage. ‘I am so sorry, James. This has ruined your holiday. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if you should come back with us. It might still be dangerous. But what else can you do?’ He looked out of the window and slammed his hand on the glass. ‘I should never have come here.’

He sat down heavily on one of the benches, his head slumped in his hands.

James decided to try and change the subject to take Victor’s mind off his troubles.

‘What were you doing up at the dam?’ he asked. ‘I saw you looking at something through your field glasses.’

‘I was inspecting the rocks,’ said Victor, raising his head and wiping his face. ‘Ugo is crazy. He should never have built a dam there. Any engineer would have told him so. It is not safe.’

‘Not safe?’ asked Zoltan. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. Will we be drowned in our beds?’

‘I hope not,’ said Victor, trying to smile. ‘But the rock ledge along the northern side of the lake does not look stable. Ugo has drilled deep into the mountain; he will have weakened something that was already weak. These mountains are mostly limestone, which is very soft. He was lucky that one of his explosions didn’t loosen anything. It would not take much to undermine that rock ledge. The water in the lake may already be doing it.’

‘Ugo always did have big ideas,’ said Zoltan. ‘But he will listen to no one.’

At the piazza Zoltan said goodbye and Victor and Poliponi went off to collect their belongings from the palazzo. James and Mauro transferred to the other funicular railway and when the adults returned a few minutes later they all made their way down to the valley.

Sant’ Ugo was even more crowded than before and it was a struggle moving through the packed streets. When they reached the main square James was surprised to see Peter Love-Haight and a group of Eton boys, including Perry Mandeville.

‘Look!’ he said excitedly to Victor. ‘It’s my friends from Eton.’

James called over to them and shoved his way through the milling throng.

‘What are you doing here?’ he yelled, delighted to see some familiar faces.

‘Mister Cooper-ffrench heard about the carnival and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss,’ said Haight. ‘We’re all staying in a campsite just outside town with a lot of Sardinian schoolboys.’ Haight stopped and frowned at James. ‘How are you?’ he said. ‘Are you all right? You look done in.’

James introduced Victor and Poliponi to Haight and told him what had happened.

‘This is awful,’ said Haight, shaking his head. ‘Quite appalling. You must be particularly upset, Signor Poliponi.’

‘My paintings are my children,’ said Poliponi, who had never married and had no real children.