There were the two shadowy figures speaking Latin in the courtyard. The crates with the stencilled letters. The weird chapel with the bowl of blood and the cockerel’s head. The dropped bracelet. The scarred man talking to Mr Cooper-ffrench behind the shutters.

The pieces didn’t fit together. James couldn’t make anything resembling a pot out of them. Why would a secret Italian society have a base in Eton? It didn’t make any sense.

As the day wore on and the sun climbed higher in the sky James began to feel dizzy and overheated. There was no shade where they were digging and the dirt clung to the sweat on his body. He had unearthed nothing more interesting all morning than some sharp basalt rocks and an ants’ nest. He eventually stood up, removed the straw hat he had been given, shook a spray of sweat from his hair and chucked his trowel to the ground.

‘What’s up?’ said Perry. ‘Not enjoying being a road digger?’

‘This isn’t quite what I was expecting,’ said James. His mouth was full of sticky saliva and he realised he hadn’t had anything to drink since breakfast.

He sat down and suddenly the sun was blotted out by a boy.

James squinted up at the familiar silhouette of Tony Fitzpaine.

‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,’ said Fitzpaine sneeringly. ‘I’m just waiting for the right moment. I must say I’m very glad you came on this trip, Bond. Away from Eton and the beaks, you’ve nowhere to hide. You’d better watch your back, pleb.’

‘Go away, Fitzpaine,’ said James. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘Don’t think you can speak to me like that,’ said Fitzpaine, and James laughed.

‘How do you want me to speak to you, your majesty?’ he said.

‘Your name is going to be mud at Eton,’ spluttered the older boy.

‘Is it really?’ said James. ‘Well, I shall have to live with that. But, as you say, we’re not at Eton now, Fitzpaine.’ James stood up and confronted the other boy. ‘We’re not even in England. Your name means nothing here. We’re just two boys in the middle of a very hot island in the Mediterranean… So maybe it’s you who should be watching his back.’

‘Are you threatening me?’ said Fitzpaine.

‘Yes,’ said James. ‘I think I probably am.’

James smiled at Fitzpaine and strode off to look for something to drink.

He found a big canteen under the canvas awning with some warm water in the bottom of it. He tipped some into his mouth and swilled it around before swallowing it.

‘Hot enough for you?’ Haight strolled into the shade from out of the harsh sunlight carrying his shoulder bag.

‘I had to get out of the sun,’ said James.

‘We’ll pack up for the day soon,’ said Haight, wiping his face with a handkerchief. ‘A couple of hours of this is about all anyone can take.’

He put his bag down on the table. It went everywhere with him and contained everything needed on the trip: all the official documents, the first-aid kit, charts and plans of the different Nuraghic sites, and several rolled-up canvases for sketching on. Since leaving England he hadn’t let the bag out of his sight. He removed a map from it and unfolded it on the table.