‘I don’t have any idea what you’re going to do, Mauro,’ said James, aware that the boy wouldn’t understand half of what he said. ‘But so far so good. Just get on and do it.’

Without another word, Mauro gripped James’s foot and started pounding his heel with the stone. James howled and tried to struggle free.

‘Is OK,’ Mauro repeated as he carried on working away with the stone and he was right, the pain was lessening still further.

Horst appeared and came over to see what was going on. He was stripped to the waist and had a towel round his neck. Up close his bulging muscles looked ugly and unnatural. He chatted briefly with Mauro and Luigi in Italian.

‘He is doing the right thing,’ he said to James after a while. ‘Smashing the spines with a rock breaks down the poison and crushes the tips to dust so that your body can easily deal with them. If the spines are left in they can be the devil.’ He bent down to take a closer look. ‘You are lucky he didn’t let Luigi try and do it his way,’ he said, straightening up.

‘What did he want to do?’ said James.

‘He wanted to urinate on your foot,’ said Horst and he laughed loudly before slapping James on the back and wandering off.

James didn’t know what to think about Horst. When he had written to Mr Cooper-ffrench, describing life at the villa, he had put in a lot about him and his ridiculous bodybuilding. He had tried to make it as funny as possible in the hope that Cooper-ffrench might read it out to the other boys. He wasn’t completely sure that Cooper-ffrench had a sense of humour, however.

That night James ate supper at the big wooden table in the kitchen with Mauro, Horst and Isabella, the cook. Mauro enjoyed telling Isabella about James’s crazy dive and the incident with the sea urchin. Isabella tutted and clucked and kept firing off bursts of Italian at James, who couldn’t understand any of it, but between them they managed to patch together some sort of conversation.

There was a happy atmosphere, with much laughter, and James realised how much more relaxed he was now that Mauro was on his side. This was his favourite type of meal, with good, simple food, fresh bread and friendly chatter. How much more enjoyable it was than the ghastly formal affair he’d sat through with Count Ugo and his weird sister.

Isabella had just got up to go to the stove and serve second helpings when James heard a sound from next door.

‘What was that?’ he said.

‘What?’ said Horst.

‘I thought I heard voices,’ said James.

‘Maybe Victor is back already,’ said Horst but, as he stood up to go and investigate, four armed men burst into the kitchen and the atmosphere was suddenly changed.