We were sitting in voluptuous chairs by the swimming pool and sipping something cool and alcoholic from tall glasses. I had swum six lengths of the pool, paced easily by Mrs Salton, and then had flopped thankfully ashore trying not to feel ashamed of my winter-white English skin. The heat dried the bubbles of moisture from my torso even as I watched.

I was waiting for her to come to the point, to come out with what she wanted to ask me. She wanted something or she wouldn’t have invited me back to the house.

‘Kemp,’ she repeated. ‘William Kemp. What do your friends call you?’

I turned my head and looked at her. She filled her bikini rather better than Mrs Haslam, I thought uncharitably, but then she had youth on her side. ‘I’m known as Bill.’

‘And I’m Jill.’ She stretched out a hand, which I reached for amiably. It was a little late for this kind of introduction, but I went along with her.

‘On Campanilla we’re more informal than in England, especially when lounging by a pool.’ She put down her glass with a click. ‘Mr Stern is a wee bit stuffy but he means well. He’s trying to look after my interests.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ I said, not feeling at all sure. A widow with as much money as she had could prove to be quite a temptation.

‘You said you spoke to Don Jackson at the Chronicle. What did he tell you?’

‘This and that,’ I said offhandedly. ‘Political stuff, mostly. Background material.’

‘About David?’

‘Apparently he was on course to be the next Prime Minister.’

She nodded. ‘It was very likely.’

‘I read one of your husband’s speeches,’ I said. ‘He was having quite a go at the government. But there was one reference I didn’t understand – he said something about hired bully boys. What would he have meant by that?’

‘Merely political rhetoric.’

‘No basis in fact?’

‘Maybe a little,’ she admitted. ‘The elections were coming closer and tempers were rising. Politics can be rougher here than in England, Bill.’

‘I can understand the bully boys,’ I said. ‘But what about the hired bit?’

‘David was a politician,’ she said. ‘He used words like weapons.’

‘And to hell with the truth. Is that it?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she said, with force in her voice. She took a deep breath. ‘I see that Jackson has been dropping poison in your ear.’

‘Is that what you think? You don’t seem to like Jackson.’

‘I don’t.’ She was silent and I waited for what she had to say next. At last she said, ‘All right. He once behaved towards me … rather objectionably.’

‘He made a pass at you?’

‘If you want to put it that way.’

‘It must have been a heavy pass,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you have him fired?’