The beach is practically deserted. I suppose most Italians will have gone home, now that Ferragosto is over, or else they will sensibly have returned to their villas for a siesta. Sweat trickles down my temples as I slog across the soft sand. The bay is so bright, it’s like an over-exposed photograph. I would never have thought I could miss the cold, damp and drizzle of Bristol. I retrace Bethany’s footsteps in my mind – up the hill through the olives and then across the hillside and down towards the cliff edge, before she descended to the next beach. If I keep walking until I’m past the headland, I’ll come to the spot where Bethany was found.

I’m not really sure why I’m here. To achieve closure, as Maddison would say? One minute everyone is accusing a drunk bloke of attacking my sister, and now they all believe she was the drunk. I guess I want to see it for myself. Put my mind at rest. Move on. I climb up onto the flat rocks at the far end of the beach; the heat sears my feet, even through my sandals. The tide is halfway up the sand, lapping at the base of the cliff, but it’s low enough that I can climb over the jagged edges. The stone scrapes my toes, drawing blood. I cling to the cliff, my palms burning, and clamber round. I’ve reached the other beach. It’s a thin spit of white sand at the base of the cliffs; a jumble of dead seaweed and sea-bleached plastic, tangled at the tidemark. There’s no cafe or sun-loungers, no road down to it, only a crooked path that cuts steeply through the stone down to the shore: the route my sister took. I jump off the rocks and walk a little further. At some point, between here and there, is where it happened.

Did someone attack her? A drunk Italian who hated the idea of foreigners on his island? A sexual predator? Joe? Or are the police right, and she simply got drunk and fell over? I squint against the sun. The cliff looks lethal, even if one weren’t tipsy. Bethany must have collapsed above the line of brackish debris, or else, when the tide came in, she’d have drifted out to sea and drowned. I shudder at the thought. I scan the ground as I walk. Ruggieri is correct about one thing: the stones here are sharp as needles.