‘Unless she know he takes them,’ Ruggieri says, looking at my niece. Chloe flushes a deep pink and looks down at her hands. ‘This journal and the iPad are not reported stolen. You say only missing and then you find them?’ He turns his flat, hard gaze on me and I nod. ‘It is his house. He come to check you are okay – you need anything. Three of you see him the afternoon your sister go missing. It is hard to believe he have the time to attack your sister. What is his motivation?’ Ruggieri places his hands together in the prayer position and then pushes them out towards us in a sudden movement: ‘Allora. We will speak with him and the famiglia Donati. We think it is most likely that your sister take a walk on the beach. She meet a drunk man, someone celebrating Ferragosto.’

‘And that’s it? You’re not going to—’ Amy says.

‘We keep looking for the person who attack her, but I warn you, it is difficult. A lot of people here. People on holiday from the rest of Italy. There is no CCTV, apart from two cameras in the town centre. There is only the polizia – Martelli and Pianozzi you meet already. Now that Ferragosto is finished, everyone leave. When the people go, it is impossible.’

Amy, Chloe and I drive back to the hospital as soon as Ruggieri and Biondi have left.

Dr Virgili is waiting for us. ‘She has regained consciousness,’ he says, with a smile, ushering us into the ward.

Bethany opens her eyes as we burst in. The whites are bright red and I have to look away for a moment.

‘Bee! Oh, thank God!’ Amy’s eyes fill with tears and she kisses her sister on the cheek.

‘Hey,’ Bethany says, and her voice is a guttural whisper.

‘How are you feeling? What happened?’

Before Bethany can respond, Chloe throws her arms round her aunt, who does her best not to wince. Chloe cries noisily, and Bee strokes her head and gives us a half-smile. I stand about with my hands in my pockets, feeling like a spare part. Bethany’s face looks worse than it did yesterday: her lips are swollen around the cut; her eye is so puffy she can barely open it; and the skin below her bandage down one side of her face is a livid red and grape-black. Where her hospital gown gapes, I notice twin bruises below her collarbone, as if a man’s thumbs had pressed into her flesh. Who would do this to her?

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’ She swallows hard. It sounds as if it’s painful for her to speak, and not just because of her lip.

‘Do you want a drink of water?’

‘Yes.’

The nurse helps her sit up and Bethany cringes as he hoists her up the bed.