I held up my hands to calm her. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Gabriele is fine, he’s outside. He was at the villa…’ I pointed behind me, ‘but I brought him back. He’s here. A casa. Outside.’

I showed her and she relaxed and touched my arm in gratitude.

‘Grazie!’ she said. ‘Mille grazie!’

We went out and she tied up the goat and then led Gabriele back into the cottage, one arm around his waist. His lips still moved silently. She indicated that I should wait while she took him into the bedroom and I heard her scolding him one moment and muttering endearments the next. I imagined her sitting him on the bed, taking off his shoes.

I looked about me. The interior of the cottage was cosy in the lamplight. It wasn’t fancy, but nowhere near as run down as I’d imagined from the state of the exterior. On the wall was a photograph of Gabriele and Irma on their wedding day: Gabriele standing proud, puff-chested, squeezed into a suit that fitted badly, his hair oiled back. Irma was tiny beside him, wearing a dark dress that came to just below the knee. There were flowers in her hair, but her shoes were old and shabby. Shortly afterwards, it seemed, babies came along; here was Irma, still very young, holding a bundle of bonneted lace in her arms and Gabriele slightly to one side, a cigarette held to his lips, his eyes narrowed against the smoke, swaggering, proud, not so much of the infant, but of his own potency and masculinity. He had once been a good-looking young man.

‘Oh God!’ I whispered as I realised that I recognised him. I stepped closer, studied the photographs again to be sure. There was no doubt. The Gabriele pictured here, on his wedding day, was the same youth from Anna’s photographs, the young man I’d assumed was her boyfriend. Here he was a little older, a little more confident, certainly, by this time a killer, definitely the same man.

I stepped away from the photographs as Irma emerged from the bedroom, the palms of her hands flat together in a praying gesture. Behind her, I could see Gabriele in bed, lying flat on his back, his head on the pillow. My heart was pounding. If things had been different then Anna might have ended up married to Gabriele Arnone! Only she wouldn’t have, she couldn’t have, her family would never have countenanced such a union.

While all this was rushing through my mind, Irma went to the dresser, opened a drawer and took something out. She pressed a little plastic key ring into my palm. Attached to the chain was a plastic charm in a shape that I took at first to be a chilli fruit. Then I realised; it was a horn. Irma was giving me a gift to protect me from bad luck.