She began to laugh, holding her arms out to the people who swirled around her, tracing circles of colour in the air with her fingertips. Her heart was beating very fast and she wanted to embrace them all, but she was laughing too much. A surge of joy rushed through her, and she felt as though she could fly, out and away across the piazza into the whirl of sound and colour on the horizon.

‘Come, cara. Come outside with me.’ His head was swaying on his shoulders, and his voice sounded strange and high as he led her through the pulse and spin of the room and down to the square below. She was still laughing as she climbed up on to the edge of the fountain, leaning over to catch the drops of water as they tumbled and leapt and chased one another through the air in a silver arc.

‘Come home with me,’ Roberto said, pulling her back from the water’s edge. ‘I have good hashish at home, and we can smoke it and play together. Come.’

She followed him to the car and lowered herself into the seat beside him. But now the buildings around her began to press downwards so that she felt they might fall and crush her, and she was suddenly frightened. There were people on the street with masks covering their faces, but she could see the glint of their eyes and the envy in their stares. Figures appeared out of the luminous fog that wrapped itself around her, and they were grotesque and cruel. When the car stopped at an intersection, she turned to find a man staring in at her through the window. As she gazed at him his face darkened and became black, and she saw that he had a knife in his hand, a panga-type knife with a sharp blade, and that he was raising it into the air as the traffic lights changed and they sped away. She cowered in her seat, whimpering, clinging to Roberto’s arm, leaning back. Her eyes were tightly shut, but a series of floating faces pressed through her eyelids, angry and threatening. Roberto was speaking to her, but she could not hear what he was saying above the babble of other voices. As they drove through the city she saw the street lights bend and sway above the car, like giant hooks reaching down to trap her, to scoop her up and hurl her into some far abyss.

When he stopped the car and helped her out, Camilla realised that they were back at the hotel. He put his finger against her lips, and she looked at him in terror.

‘Don’t talk while we are in the lobby,’ he said. ‘Just ask for your key, and I’ll take you upstairs. Don’t worry, Camilla – everyone has bad trips. It won’t last. I’ll stay with you until it’s finished.’