As he’s leaving, Amy notices that he looks around, maybe to check everything is as it should be, although there’s something about his gaze that seems almost proprietorial. He steps out of the kitchen into the darkened archway, just as her stepdaughter and her sister emerge from the other side and stroll past him in their bikinis. Carlo pauses momentarily and gives them a quick salute, but she notices how his eyes skim their bodies.

‘Anyone want to come for a quick run down to the beach?’ says Joe, bouncing in, pushing his sunglasses back on his head.

Luca glances at her.

‘You’re on holiday, Luca.’

He smiles. ‘I am happy to help.’

‘Thanks. It’ll be nice to have a break now and again,’ she says, ‘but please, feel free to go to the beach if you want to.’

He nods at Joe.

‘I take my trainers.’

‘Okay, see you out the front in five,’ says Joe, and she catches sight of him a moment later, doing windmill stretches and jumping jacks in the driveway. She marvels at how quickly men can get ready, although it’s a lot easier for them: no sports bra; not having to make sure they’re suitably covered up and not exposing too many dimples or bulges; no decisions about whose turn it is to look after the kids or cook dinner; no discussions about how long you’re allowed to be away for.

She and Matt unpack and sort out the children, slathering them in suncream and wrestling them into swimsuits and rash vests, though neither of them seems that keen on going in the pool. Lotte is anxious about Pearl, Ruby-May’s doll, which she’s brought with her. Amy puts Pearl on one of the sun-loungers and Lotte becomes a little less fretful.

‘Pearl hasn’t got a swimming costume,’ she says.

Amy fills a jug of water and chops up the watermelon she bought before they caught the ferry. When she carries everything back out to the pool, Matt is setting up the sun parasols. Someone has put Lotte’s bikini bottoms on Pearl, hooking the pant legs over the doll’s shoulders to keep them on. Chloe and Bethany are stretched out on the sun-loungers, and she’s struck by how similar they look. They’re both tall and lean, although Chloe still has the skinniness of a teenager and Bethany is solid, with more muscle definition. They have long, straight dark hair, brown eyes and pale-gold skin. Chloe’s mother, Sara, is half-Chinese, and you can see a hint of her ethnicity in the set of Chloe’s eyes, but if you only glanced at the two of them, you’d think they were sisters.