They hurried the five minutes to the hotel in silence, Jared making no attempt to touch her. When they reached the door, it was locked, but a small polished-brass bell push was labelled ‘Night Bell’. Connie had never noticed it before. She looked up at Jared as she pressed it, in trepidation of who might come.

‘Go,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’ They mustn’t see him with me. Bianca knew all about Devan and her family, always asked to see the latest photo of little Bash.

‘OK … but will you –’

‘No.’ She pushed her palm flat to his chest, not wanting to hear what he was asking of her, just desperate for him to leave. ‘This was so wrong. I’m sorry, I –’

But he laid his finger gently to her lips. After a moment’s hesitation, he was gone, striding purposefully along the quay. She watched him until he was round the bend of the harbour road and safely out of sight.

No one was answering the bell. Anxiously, she pressed it again, smoothing her tousled hair and tucking it behind her ears, running a finger beneath her eyes to catch any errant mascara, applying lip-balm to her stinging lips. She knew she must look like somebody who’d been doing exactly what she and Jared had just done. What if nobody comes?

After what seemed like an eternity, she heard shuffling behind the wooden door and a gruff voice – not one she immediately recognized in her distraught state – calling, ‘Chi è?’

‘It’s Connie. I’m a guest.’

She tried to remember the words in Italian as the voice repeated more loudly, ‘Chi è là?’

‘Io resto qui,’ she said, as loudly as she dared, ‘in the hotel.’

There was the sound of a key grating in the lock, then bolts being drawn, deafening in the still night. She cringed, wondering if any of her group with the lake view were awake and listening. Then the door swung open and an older man, whom Connie recognized as Franco, the hotel’s handyman, was peering out at her, dressed in an old sweater and loose trousers, slippers on his feet. He’d clearly been asleep.

‘Franco, it’s me. Mi dispiace tanto …’

He stood aside to let her in, grumbling under his breath as he did so. But Connie didn’t care. She was safe. With a mumbled ‘Grazie … grazie mille,’ she raced up the stairs two at a time, fumbling with the key card until the green light flashed and she almost fell into her room.

Once inside she leaned against the door. The bedroom looked so normal, so exactly how she’d left it before her life had been turned upside down tonight. She began to cry. They weren’t tears of sadness, or even guilt. Connie was crying because the turmoil she was experiencing was so bewildering, so all-consuming, the exhaustion so great, that sobs simply burst from her throat, propelled by the maelstrom inside.