‘Why?’ His voice was stern, but the expression in his eyes told another story. ‘Do you want to be kidnapped and held for ransom while I have my wicked way with you?’

Penny looked out to sea so that he couldn’t see the response that flickered in her eyes.

‘That’s how they made their money, the French corsairs here on Kyri.’

‘Yes,’ Penny was grateful for the change of tone. ‘Moira was telling us about the pirate who found a statue of Venus that the French king wanted so much, he offered him freedom. And then the king double-crossed him, so he hid it in a cave.’

‘She’s well informed, your friend. Olivier de Menton. And no one yet has managed to find it. That would certainly put Kyri on the map.’ Together they climbed some steps and he opened the front door straight into one large single room, with a balcony hanging right over the sea.

It had the kind of simplicity that could easily have been the work of a smart interior designer, had it not been saved by one or two reassuringly down-to-earth touches. An old door painted bright teal served as the dining table.

‘Doesn’t your glass of wine fall off the panelling?’ Penny asked with a smile.

‘Yes,’ he said, holding her smile with his eyes. ‘But the door came from my parents’ house. They didn’t have any antiques or pictures, just a portrait of the pope, and as I’m not religious I preferred the door to remind me of them.’

To the left was a wall with shelving, on which were ranged about twenty wooden boats.

‘You collect boats, I see.’ She smiled again. ‘Always good to have a hobby.’

‘Thank you,’ he replied, laughter in his voice. ‘In fact I made them. They are kaikia, Greek fishing boats. I make them from driftwood I find on the beach.’

Penny picked up a boat and examined it. It was about a foot long, in driftwood painted duckegg blue with a mast and two sails plus a jib at the front, a proper wheelhouse and a ladder for the imaginary sailors to climb. It was perfect, down to the anchor chain and mooring ropes fashioned out of old string. It was beautiful in its craftsmanship and simplicity.

‘I love driftwood,’ Nikos explained. ‘The idea that it has lived before. Perhaps been a boat already. I hate to see it wasted.’

Penny felt such a powerful answering emotion that she hardly knew what to say. She hated waste with a passion. Colin liked their huge American fridge to be full to bursting, ‘in case anyone drops in’, as he put it. ‘It would be embarrassing not to feed them.’ But no one did drop in. And every week she had to throw away mountains of expensive food, or put it in the compost heap.