She looked up the hill behind her, wondering how long it would take to walk here via the path over the hills from the harbour. The route didn’t look that steep. She’d ask Ariadne. She was almost at the beach bar when she got an overwhelming temptation to check out the olive grove and see if she could still smell myrtle. Dora couldn’t tell a pine from an oak, but she stood among the trees looking round her intently.

There were about fifty trees, many with amazing gnarled and knotted trunks, fanning out like umbrellas, their silvery leaves rustling in the breeze, their tiny berries pale now but starting to ripen into the familiar black. Many of them seemed to be dead or dying as Xan had said. She suddenly felt ashamed that she had hardly even known olives grew on trees instead of coming ready to use in a tin or supermarket container. She was like one of those deprived kids they had on the news who’d grown up in environments so urban they didn’t know milk came from cows.

It was so silent here, you could almost imagine nymphs and satyrs playing hide and seek behind the massive tree trunks and falling together in a lascivious heap amongst the fallen berries.

Dora breathed in deeply, but there was only the smell of the sea and a faint apricot scent coming from the pink oleander bushes that had seeded themselves here and there. They really ought to be the national flower of Greece, since they seemed to grow in every garden and on every motorway reservation, gaily reminding people their holidays had started.

Today there were no nymphs or satyrs or goddesses; only the goat, and absolutely no scent of myrtle. She glanced round for any sign of the cliff roses Xan Georgiades had claimed were growing here. Zero.

She turned round to head back to the path when another, more daring idea occurred to her: she would just have a glance at the existing house he had bought from old Yannis.

It was more of a cabin than an actual house. The sides were built of what looked like driftwood, and the roof of corrugated concrete. It was certainly not a place of beauty, except for its amazing uninterrupted views of the dazzling Aegean Sea below. Dora could see the arguments for demolishing and rebuilding. She started to laugh at the idea of the louche and aristocratic Xan living here.

‘I’m glad you find my humble abode so entertaining.’ The voice behind her made her jump and step backwards onto the goat, who protested loudly.

She willed herself to keep her cool. She had addressed conferences full of tough ad executives – she could handle one posh if extremely angry Greek.

‘I was on my way to the beach bar,’ she said coolly. ‘And I thought I’d make a detour to look for these cliff roses.’