No. He couldn’t do that. He would lose face. They would laugh at him and he would never be accepted. He knew he was showing off, coming up this high when he could have simply dived from the lower point, but part of him needed the thrill of danger.

This was the Danger Society all over again.

It was also his chance to conquer the fear of heights that had taken hold of him at Sant’ Antine. If he could pull this off, he would prove to himself that he wasn’t scared, that the incident at the tower had been a one-off, that he didn’t suffer from vertigo.

He would show Mauro that he was not some soft English sap.

Since his arrival, Mauro had become, if anything, even more rude and stand-offish. His duties as Victor’s houseboy appeared to leave him a lot of free time and he came and went as he pleased. James had been largely keeping out of his way, but on one or two occasions they had both been on the beach at the same time and had sat as far apart as they could, both pretending that the other wasn’t there. And since Victor had left the day before, Mauro had got even worse.

Just as he had predicted, Poliponi had persuaded Victor that they should attend Count Ugo’s carnival in the mountains. The artist had pleaded and sulked and teased Victor until he had given in. He had steadfastly refused to take James with them, though.

‘If your Aunt Charmian found out that you had been mixing with people like Ugo Carnifex,’ he had said, ‘she would never forgive me.’

This had caused Poliponi to scold Victor again. ‘We need more people like Ugo Carnifex,’ he said. ‘Europe is falling apart. You cannot hide from the world forever, Victor. I know you Swiss are proud of your neutrality. You will not join in our wars, but you still must live in our world.’

‘I came to Sardinia to escape,’ said Victor. ‘To live in peace by the sea.’

‘One small carnival in the mountains is hardly the end of the world!’

The original plan had been for Mauro to drive them there, but Ugo had sent his seaplane for them and Poliponi had gone off like an overexcited child.

Now Mauro was acting as if he owned the place and James was damned if he was going to take any more from him.

This afternoon he had thought that he would have the beach to himself, but a small sailing boat with a triangular lateen rig had arrived, skippered by a friend of Mauro’s called Luigi. Mauro had come down from the villa to meet the boy and they’d sat about smoking cigarettes and chatting. Every now and then one of them would look over at James and say something and the other would laugh.