Lack of cash was going to be our biggest issue and, time and again, we talked about how the Madonna del Mare would have solved all our problems if only we had it in our grasp. Without it, we had to improvise. We worked out what furniture we could sell; what would bring us the most profit. An antiques dealer from the city of Modica came and looked at the silverware, the clocks and the mirrors and took some items away for the following month’s auction. We waited for news from the police.

We had the Alfa Romeo, of course, and it would provide a temporary lifeline, but of everything we had, I knew that was the one item Joe really didn’t want to sell and I didn’t want him to have to sell it either.

Irma Arnone didn’t talk to us or approach us, but we were aware she was watching us, logging the comings and goings of the tradespeople and our friends; they saw her taking photographs of their vehicles as they passed by, making notes, they joked, of their registration plates. We didn’t know why she was doing this but suspected she was keeping a record in case she wanted to lodge a complaint at some future date. We feared she might try to stop us opening the villa up to paying guests; that there might be some local bylaw or something that would prove a stumbling block. We told Francesco to be very careful when he came by the cottage. His bike didn’t make a noise, but if Irma saw him, she was bound to take a photograph and she might well show it to Vito. This was a great worry to me.

We heard nothing more from Signora Romano. I considered driving over to the marshland and seeking her out to apologise directly to her father, but Joe persuaded me it was best to leave her well alone.

For a while, everything was okay, and then things started happening to our friends’ possessions while they were at the villa. Nothing terrible. Nothing that was obviously malicious, but small things that might well have been accidents. Nails in tyres; tools missing from the backs of vans; a car window broken by a rock, presumed thrown by children from the beach; a box of plants that were in the back of Fredi’s truck dying for no reason, as if someone had poured poison over them – but maybe they’d been damaged in transit; a wallet taken from the glove compartment of an unlocked car.