Everything happened very quickly, too quickly for James to be scared. There was a chaotic, noisy blur of hurtling bodies, crashing furniture and yelling voices.

Horst screamed and ran around the kitchen like a headless chicken, shouting about bandits in a strangulated high-pitched whine.

Isabella was braver. She threw a saucepan of boiling tomato sauce over one of the men, who yelled and tore at his clothing. But two of his friends grabbed her before she could do any more damage.

James picked up a chair and battered one of the men off Isabella, and out of the corner of his eye saw Horst fleeing out of the back door. Mauro, meanwhile, had picked up a big kitchen knife and was attempting to fend off the fourth attacker. He cut him badly across the forearm but two more men appeared. One of them hit Mauro with a wooden club, knocking him to the floor. James ran to his side and swung his chair at the man with all his strength, smashing it across his back and scattering splintered wood around the kitchen.

He helped Mauro up and they tried to make a run for it out of the back door, but the next thing James knew someone had pushed a gun in his face. He caught a brief glimpse of a masked face and a red tattoo of the letter M on the back of the man’s hand. James jerked his head out of the way, then there was a terrific bang and a blinding white light in his eyes, and after that, blackness and silence.

The whole thing had taken less than 30 seconds.

James awoke in the middle of the night, lying on the kitchen floor amid a wreckage of broken plates and furniture, with a terrible ringing in his ears.

He ran his fingers over his face. His first thought was relief that he hadn’t been shot. There was a huge, painful lump on the back of his head, however. When he fell he must have struck the floor and knocked himself out. The men had probably left him for dead. He struggled to his feet and saw Mauro. It looked like he hadn’t been so lucky. He was lying beneath the table in a pool of sticky red stuff.

‘No,’ James gasped and went over to him. Mauro’s face was streaked with red gore. Fighting back tears, James wiped the hateful stuff away with his hand.

He smelt tomatoes. He licked his hand. It wasn’t blood at all; it was Isabella’s tomato sauce. He laughed and went to the sink to fetch some cold water. When he got there he saw his reflection in the window. He too was covered in dried sauce. But as he cleaned himself he realised with a shock that the stuff that was dripping down out of his hairline actually was blood.