The fire brigade arrived in a giant contraption that came through the gates and churned up the flower beds, digging into the gravel of the drive. The officers made everyone move back and they set up their hoses and pumps and we stood and watched as they sprayed water into and onto the building, dousing the burning furniture and dampening the walls and floors and ceilings until the fire was exhausted and the flames had nowhere left to go. The fire still danced in my eyes and I kept imagining I saw new flames breaking out. I kept sensing them behind me.

The fire officers went through the villa to be sure no tiny remnants of the fire were still smouldering quietly, sneakily, under the floorboards or in the cupboards. Steam drifted from the windows and dissipated into the night air.

I couldn’t see, but I imagined people gathered on the harbourside at Porta Sarina, watching the fire, and now its aftermath, from the other side of the bay. I imagined them talking about the haunted villa, blaming us, perhaps, for bringing trouble to the headland.

Some of the strangers had stayed to watch the fire being extinguished. They were saying things like: ‘It could have been so much worse’ – and they were right, it could have been. The damage appeared to be more superficial than structural, but the beautiful furniture in the living room was ruined; the glass in the doors of the bookcases had cracked and smoke and water had spoiled the books; the rugs, the wallpaper, the curtains, everything that made that room what it was, had been destroyed. The chandelier in the hallway had fallen to the floor. The firefighters had stomped all over it. If the Madonna del Mare had been hanging in its alcove, it would surely have been ruined too.

When they were satisfied the villa was safe, the fire officers left and the strangers drifted away. The kittens came creeping back, sniffing the air. The night became very quiet. The villa no longer seemed viable to me. It looked like something dead. Wisps of residual steam were its spirit, departing.

‘They think it was an electrical fault,’ said Joe, answering a question I hadn’t asked, ‘a loose wire that made a spark that caught on a piece of dry timber inside the wall.’

I didn’t bother to argue. We both knew this wasn’t an accident.

In my mind, Signora Romano’s words echoed. ‘You’ll lose everything,’ she’d said. ‘Everything.’ It looked as if her premonition was already starting to come true.

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