Joe pulled a jacket from the back seat, shook it ineffectually to smooth out the creases and put it on. He leaned down to comb his hair with his fingers using the wing mirror as a reflector. To one side of us, the seductive city climbed the mountain. To the other, the land dropped away steeply into a shrubby ravine. Goats were grazing in sandy patches amongst the black shade of trees dripping with long, pale catkins.

Joe retucked the hem of his shirt into the waistband of his trousers. He had a small belly now that he’d never had before and I tried not to notice it.

‘I should have brought a tie,’ he said.

‘I’m sure it won’t matter.’

‘You don’t think it’ll look disrespectful?’ This was typical Joe, becoming anxious, craving reassurance, whenever he had any dealings with authority. It was a window back into the past, to the insecure young man who was never good enough for his father, who struggled to cope at the expensive and brutal boarding school Patrick had insisted on, who had, right up until Daniel’s death, used humour to deflect criticism. Neither of us was laughing now.

‘No,’ I told him, ‘you look fine.’

Joe said, ‘Hmm,’ unconvinced, and patted his pockets until he found a folded letter with the address we needed on the heading. He tapped the street name into the map app on his phone and we followed the directions, climbing steeply uphill through narrow, stepped alleyways.

Close up, the city was as lovely as it had looked from the road, unexpected views announcing themselves as we turned tight corners: a wall overlooking a ravine with a church clinging to its side; falls of bougainvillea, swallows feeding above a grand fountain, splashing water poured from the urn of a statue into a great, green bowl; patches of dark shadow, patches of bright light, dappled ground around the trees. Birds sang from their perches on flag-poles jutting over secret squares; restaurants were tucked behind houses that were stacked tightly against one another; twisting alleyways barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side; steps leading upwards, or downwards to arched doorways and tiny, vaulted bridges; the smell of good coffee; the smell of cooked cheese. Carnations and pelargoniums planted in old olive-oil tins spilled red flowers like spots of blood; caged songbirds trilled from balconies; and washing dried on wire racks hooked to windows above our heads. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was Anna who had brought me to the place, if I could only have stopped myself from seeing the city through her eyes, imagining her imagining me and Joe here together, then I would have been utterly delighted by it. I had to clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from pointing out the wondrous views to Joe.