Helen’s love affair with Venice began almost at the moment that the jet dipped and swung round to make its final approach. Beneath her was shimmering pearl-grey water, and wide flat plains shrouded in vaporous pearly mist so exactly the same colour that it was impossible to tell where earth met water and sky.

The airport was identical to all other airports, but for Helen it was magical because the signs all read Venezia.

Waiting to meet them with Masefield’s Mercedes was the Italian version of Hobbs. But the Italian had quick black eyes under his peaked cap, and he smiled at the three of them with open admiration. His way of handing each of them into the car was a beguiling mixture of formality and flirtatiousness. Pansy flung herself back against the cushions with a sigh of pleasure.

‘Oh, it’s good to be here. If only it was going to be just the three of us.’

Helen was silent. Her eyes were fixed on the low, misty horizon, waiting. The drive from the airport was only a few miles. Then without warning, they were on the great bridge that spanned the lagoon. Helen drew her breath in so sharply that the others glanced at her rapt face and smiled. The oil refineries and chimneys of Mestre smudged the skyline with dirty smoke, there were sprawling developments of ugly new buildings on either side, but ahead of them, shimmering, drowning in the light between water and sky, was Venice.

They were across the lagoon and plunging into a tangle of cars. The chauffeur wrenched the wheel, jammed his finger on the horn and swore in a muted torrent of Italian.

‘This is Tronchetto,’ Pansy said. Magically, a space opened up for them. ‘The car stays here.’

A string of olive-brown boys appeared and, with the suitcases borne in procession in front of them, they emerged from the oily caverns of the garages. Helen blinked in the pure lemon-yellow light. She was standing on a stone-flagged quay but there was water all around her. It splintered with reflected sunlight and with the criss-crossing of boats of all kinds. At the quayside, bobbing on the wavelets, was a trim little white motorboat.

Masefield’s driver pulled off his peaked hat and threw it into the boat. He ran his hands through his hair and laughed at them so that all his white teeth showed.

‘Much better, yes?’ he chuckled in English as they climbed into the rocking boat. The engine coughed and then with a high-pitched roar, they swung in a wide arc and a shower of spray away from the quayside.

‘This is the Grand Canal,’ Pansy murmured beside Helen. ‘Wrong end.’