‘No, no, of course not.’ A fair-skinned blonde with a rounded figure she liked to show off, with clinging fabrics and low necklines, Ruth chuckled. ‘Ginty’s reasons for thinking he’s gay are totally spurious. She says no straight man would be so kind and good-tempered with his godmother – who’s obviously a bit of a handful, however gracious she pretends to be.’

‘Unless, of course, she was about to leave him her fortune … I hadn’t thought of that,’ Ginty mused, as she shot a sneaky glance across the room towards the pair in question, who were deep in conversation.

‘Stop staring! He’ll think you fancy him,’ Ruth hissed, playfully cuffing her friend’s arm and causing them both to break into schoolgirl giggles – fuelled, no doubt, by the copious quantities of Soave they’d consumed.

Connie had not, so far, considered Jared’s sexuality. He was certainly not a flirt – at least, not with her. Her overriding impression was of well-mannered reserve. She agreed with Ruth, though, that kindness certainly wasn’t exclusive to gay men, remembering Devan’s numerous acts of kindness over the years. Such as the hours he had taken patiently explaining – over and over again until he must have been nearly mad with irritation – the various tests and their significance to her frightened sister, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, years ago now.

She tried not to stare at Jared, although he and his godmother were in her direct line of sight whenever she looked up from her plate of delicious grilled sea bass and courgette fries. A dark horse, she decided, as the women chattered on.

The following day, Luca Pozzi, their guide, leaned against the stone wall near the jetty where the ferry docked, close to the tiny harbour in Varenna. He had a cigarette cupped furtively in his palm and tucked behind his right thigh, from which he took swift, shifty drags.

‘They know you’re smoking, Luca,’ Connie teased, checking the straggle of tourists taking final photos of each other against the backdrop of the lake as they emerged from the narrow streets after an afternoon in the pretty lakeside town. ‘The clue’s in those fumes pouring from your mouth.’

Smoking was supposedly forbidden for employees of the tour company, but Luca, who looked like the clichéd ageing Lothario with his tan and improbably gleaming white teeth, his turquoise open-necked shirt and dyed black hair, gave her a wide grin.

‘Che importa?’ He shrugged, then patted his chest proudly. ‘Tutti mi amano.’

And it was true: they all did love Luca. His English was impeccable, although still lyrically Italian, and he was so knowledgeable, so charming – he had a degree in Italian history, he was always keen to point out – that he had the whole group eating out of his hand.