I turned Fiat Two so it was facing back towards the coast road, ready for a quick getaway, before I bumped it onto the dusty verge outside the house and climbed out.

The air was very still; it had a dank, marshy smell to it and was thick with the buzz of flies and mosquitoes. The land here was flat, only the metal towers, the pylons, transformers and girders that supported the cables of the electricity station shimmered in the heat of the horizon. Sweat slicked the surface of my skin. I reached into Fiat Two and lifted out the flower box.

The door of the house had been painted the colour of dried blood, although the paint was peeling, revealing older, black paint beneath. Rubbish bags were piled to one side, empty meat cans stacked haphazardly in a plastic crate with plastic milk cartons. I lifted the knocker and rapped on the door, half hoping that nobody would come and that I could leave the flowers, with a note. But I could hear the sound of a television turned up loud inside and, after a moment or two, bolts slid back and there was a fumbling at the latch and the door opened.

It was Signora Romano, only she wasn’t neat and tidy as I’d always seen her, now she was wearing a nylon housecoat that must have stifled her in the heat of that day. Her legs were bare, the skin mottled and hairy, and her feet were in slippers. Her hair was scraggy, like a bird’s nest, and her face, without make-up, wrinkled and coarse. One side was creased and flattened; she must have fallen asleep in front of the TV. Behind her, in the gloom, I could make out a wheelchair and the vague shape of somebody, with their back to me, sitting in it.

Signora Romano was confused for a moment, and then she recognised me and immediately stepped out of the door and pulled it to so that I should have no further glimpse into the house.

‘Edith,’ she said, flustered, scrabbling to make sense of my appearance on her doorstep.

‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Signora, but I brought you this,’ I showed her the box. ‘It’s a small gift to apologise for any trouble you went to over the villa.’

Signora Romano frowned. ‘What is it?’

‘Flowers,’ I said. ‘I thought you might like them.’

She took the box without grace, without a smile or a ‘thank you’ or any indication of being pleased by the gift. I had a feeling she would discard the arrangement as soon as I was gone; toss it out with the rest of the stinking rubbish. I felt a pang of pity for the flowers.