As she waited for them all to gather before boarding the ferry, Connie checked her phone again. There was still nothing from Devan in response to her message nearly two days ago now. She felt a small spike of worry, suddenly visualizing all the things that might have happened to him. Maybe his back had seized up and he couldn’t reach the phone. Or he’d fallen in the shower. She dismissed the doomy scenarios. I’ll call as soon as we get back to the hotel.

Looking up from her screen, she saw Terry, Sandra’s husband, approaching at a run, his face a picture of concern.

‘It’s Walter, Connie. He’s come over faint and says he can’t walk.’ Terry spoke breathlessly, his normally solemn face suddenly animated. ‘Sandra’s with him. And Jared. But we don’t know what to do.’

Connie and Luca hurried after Terry to the café-bar, a short way up one of the town’s narrow streets. Walter – a tall American from Ohio in his seventies, who seemed to wear exclusively beige, even to his cotton flat cap – was sitting at an outside table. Sandra was beside him, self-consciously holding his hand, Jared and Dinah hovering nearby. His face was pale, with a sheen of sweat, his breathing shallow.

Connie bent down, a gentle arm around his shoulders. ‘Walter?’ She knew, from their pre-trip phone call, that he had a heart condition. But he had assured her it was under control with a battery of daily drugs. ‘Do you have any chest pain?’

‘No, no.’ He glanced up at the sound of her voice and seemed suddenly to become aware of the ring of concerned faces looking down at him. ‘Just give me a second, I’ll be fine. This happens sometimes …’

‘Do you have your medication with you?’

He stared at her blankly for a second, then nodded slowly, indicating his canvas man-bag, lying at his feet. Luca lifted it and handed it to Connie.

‘May I look?’ she asked Walter.

He nodded again and she began to rummage, quickly finding a white plastic bottle of pills, which she handed to him.

‘I ought to take them three times a day,’ he said, with an apologetic smile, ‘but sometimes I forget, you know.’

‘Shouldn’t he go to hospital?’ Jared asked, his phone poised in his hand. ‘I can call an ambulance.’

Connie hesitated. Getting an ambulance down the narrow Varenna streets would be a nightmare and take for ever. ‘Hold off for a moment, Jared. Let’s see if he’s all right when the pills have had a chance to kick in.’

She could tell from his face that Jared wasn’t convinced. ‘There must be a doctor somewhere here. I could ask at the bar,’ he said, glancing around, as if he thought help might spring out from one of the low bushes bordering the café garden.