In two weeks, I’ll be going back to Rome. G’s going to be on her own in Porta Sarina with that asshole Gabriele sniffing around her like a dog. I keep telling her she needs to be careful, but she just laughs and says she knows what she’s doing. I don’t like this boy. He looks like a prince but has the reputation of a thug.

The following week there was a shock entry:

M knows. She saw G and me together ‘accidentally’. She made out she was so upset that we could have ‘betrayed’ her like this. ‘Oh, how could you do this behind my back? Aren’t I your best friend? Don’t I care about you the most? Haven’t we been friends the longest?’ etc. I’m sure she’s been spying. She says we can trust her, but sometimes I catch a look in her eye and it tells me quite the opposite.

I closed the diary and sat back against the wall.

Oh, I thought, that explains everything.

Anna loved Gina and Gina loved Anna. Of course, their love had to be secret! They lived in a small town in Sicily, where homosexuality was regarded as such a deviance that the mafia executed a gay couple to make an example of them and as a warning to others. And Matilde knew about Gina and Anna. Matilde who loved Anna, who loved Anna’s parents, who believed herself to be like a sister to Anna. I could see how, to Matilde, Anna and Gina’s relationship would have seemed a betrayal of her loyalty and friendship.

Matilde would have told Anna’s parents what she knew, I was certain of it. She’d have seen it as her duty but that wouldn’t have been her only motivation. She must also have been painfully jealous. Telling Anna’s parents about their daughter’s love affair was the most effective way of making sure Gina and Anna were separated. And once the DeLuca parents knew, once they realised the danger Anna was in, it was no wonder they kept her away from Porta Sarina. No wonder they sent her to a psychiatrist to try to ‘cure’ her. Now everything made sense.

Behind me now, behind the bed frame on the wall, was the drawing of the two female figures. Matilde Romano had drawn our attention to them; she said they represented herself and Anna, but Matilde wasn’t the artist, Gina was. Gina had painted the beautiful portrait of Anna; Gina, I was certain, had drawn the sketch in the diary, Gina had made the drawing on the wall.

Matilde had lied about the image. She’d lied because even when Anna was dead, her jealousy knew no limits. She would not acknowledge that Anna had ever loved Gina, not even now. She was crazy.

I slid off the bed and went to find Joe.