I swing back round. ‘If it was at work, there’ll be CCTV of you leaving; a record of you clocking out; the security staff at the back gate – they’d have recognized you. Noticed if you were… upset.’

She shakes her head and then sucks her teeth. ‘Not going to do that. His word against mine. End of my career.’ She dries her face with the now sodden and bloodstained tissue.

I’m not sure what to say. All the time, this abuse had been going on and I never even knew, because I only ever looked at my sister’s Instagram account, instead of actually speaking to her. And even I can see this is really not the right time to ask her about Dad’s dementia appointment and why she lied about it. I’ll do that tomorrow, I tell myself.

‘Nick, get me out of here. I want to go home.’

‘But…’

‘Come on! The Carabinieri have left. I can have a check-up at St Michael’s Hospital when we’re in Bristol. I’ll go mad if I have to keep staring at these four walls for a nanosecond longer.’

This sounds more like Bee. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll ask Dr Virgili.’

‘For God’s sake, stop being such a limp dick and just book the fucking flights! If we leave tomorrow morning, I’ll have been here for forty-eight hours, and that’s enough time to make sure I’m not going to collapse and die of a brain haemorrhage and sue their sorry asses!’

‘Glad to see you’re getting better,’ I say, hauling myself to my feet.

I’m about to take my laptop out of the hire car and go to a cafe that has Wi-Fi so that I can rebook the tickets, when I have a better idea. I grab a taxi back to our holiday house, but instead of turning along the path through the olive grove to Maregiglio, I ask the guy to drop me off at the beach. The barman is clearing tables. I go inside the wooden hut and take a ciabatta stuffed with salami and Pecorino. I leave some money on the counter. I almost grab a beer too, but think better of it.