The policeman said nothing for a few seconds, looking into the distance, then back at Frannie. ‘For sure, it is best not to cause any trouble while you’re here,’ he said softly. He had heavy-lidded eyes, cheekbones so defined it looked like somebody had taken out two great round scoops from beneath them. ‘No shouting in the streets.’

‘He smoked over my fucking baby,’ Frannie said, uncharacteristically coarse. Cathy found the development of Frannie’s maternal instinct fascinating. Previously passive, she became occasionally fierce. It presented itself in myriad ways, Cathy remembers; in the early days, Frannie was smilingly unable to concentrate on anything but Paul, her gaze constantly trained on him, laughing off nights of no sleep. That’s love, Cathy assumes.

‘It is not nice for a young woman like you to harass men,’ the policeman said. ‘Or to swear at people when I only try … to help.’ He puffed air out of the side of his mouth, a small, contemptuous laugh that seemed, to Cathy, to say: you have no idea how powerful I am.

That was the catalyst. The first domino. The innocuous, stupid market altercation that led them to where they are now.

Cathy stares down at her handbag, which sits at her feet on the grey floor of the empty bus. Afterwards, she is going to Juliet’s Balcony. She comes each time they visit. She wanted to go, was saving it, but now she’s got to go to cover up what she’s really doing here. Covering up cover-ups.

She leans her head against the window as the bus pulls up near the old amphitheatre. As she steps off the bus, the sun runs warmth up her body, starting as her legs hit the sun, and moving upwards.

She thought she’d prefer some time by herself, but it feels like her heart is straining in her chest. She keeps thinking of William. His parents. A girlfriend? A child? The wallet seems to weigh down her bag more heavily than before.

Verona looks just the same as earlier in the week. Tourists out in the sun in the little alleyways, half in shade, half in light, drinking coffee, laughing, shading their eyes against the glare. Cathy walks into the main square, past the amphitheatre. She looks down one of the tunnels leading to the centre, sees blood-red carpets. All that history. Those sacrifices. Performances. Power. She turns away from it. She can’t bear it.

She needs a newsagent off the main thoroughfare. She walks up Via Carlo Cattaneo. Grey stone beneath her, azure above. Cathy is a dot in the universe.

She blinks slowly. They’re going to try to make William’s family – whoever they are – believe he is alive. She catches her reflection in a window. Shorts, a t-shirt. Sunglasses. She looks like a normal woman, but she is a monster. Must be. Is her own family worth so much more to her than another’s? And why?

Pastel-coloured buildings crowd in. She feels like she’s on a boat, like the floor is moving underneath her. She stops for a moment by a window with bars across it, like a cell, but then she has to keep moving again. Keep moving forward. Cover it up. Think about it after. Put as much distance between yourself and the crime. Deny, deny, deny, and Cathy is excellent at denying herself things. It’s not such a stretch to deny that something happened too.