‘You don’t think she’ll get this bug too, do you?’ he asked uneasily, wondering what his own chances of succumbing to it might be.

‘I don’t think she’ll go down with the same complaint as your wife, no,’ said Dr Henry. ‘Nevertheless, I think you should be extremely careful of that little girl. She may be in some danger.’

He said he had another call to make in the hotel but would like to see Marnie as soon as possible. He emphasised that she needed to be found as a matter of urgency and he wished to be informed as soon as she had been located. Then he asked the way to the Contessa’s bungalow.

But Marnie could not be found and no one could remember when she had last been seen. The staff did not think she had come to breakfast. Stella walked round the grounds calling, ‘Marnie? Marnie, dear, are you there?’ on a note of rising hysteria. Dr Henry spent a long time with Luciana but had to leave without seeing the child, though he said he would be back later. It was hoped she would turn up when she was hungry – but Marnie, huddled under a bush, seeing and hearing everything, did not want food at all.

A rustle in the undergrowth and the feeling of being watched – that indefinable awareness of a presence – alerted Luciana, as she lay outside her room. When she sensed that the child was very close, she held out her hand and kept very still, as if in the presence of a timid animal. When she felt a small hand slip into hers, she closed her fingers very gently round it, and stroked it with her thumb. Then she reached out, put her arms round the child, and held her close. She could feel the thumping of a heart against her own and she thought it was a long time since she had been heart to heart with anyone.

‘Marnie,’ said Luciana, after a bit, ‘do you really want your mother to die?’

Very slowly the child shook her head. ‘I thought I did – but I don’t any more. I’m . . . I’m scared.’

‘Then,’ said Luciana, ‘I think it’s time you showed me where her diamond pendant is. Shall we go for a walk together?’

‘What will they do to me?’ asked Marnie, twisting her hair into strands and pulling bits out. Luciana did not think she was referring to her parents or the hotel management.

‘They won’t do anything to you. For one thing they won’t know, and for another, I shan’t let them.’