‘Because the DeLucas were superstitious about such things. They just wouldn’t do that.’

‘Where did it come from then?’

‘I don’t know!’

I felt the chill of those old bones in the puddle at the bottom of the pool. I felt the dread in my own bones. I recalled how Gabriele Arnone was drawn to this old pool, how I’d found him standing, staring into it.

‘You’d better go and call the police, Edie,’ said Joe. ‘Tell them what we’ve found. I’ll stay here and talk to Francesco and Valentina.’

It was still early, not yet seven o’clock. Less than twelve hours had passed since we set off for Porta Sarina to return Valentina’s handbag; it felt like a lifetime.

I walked up the hill for the second time that morning. The sun was growing stronger now; the earth was drying. I could smell the fallen rain as it evaporated back to the sky. My mind clattered with all that had happened. That body must have lain in its secret grave beneath the swimming pool for years. All that time, those bones were in the dark, underground, the flesh rotting in the cold, while just above them children played; that poor lonely body below and all the happy, warm bodies above, kicking and diving, floating on lilos, doing handstands on the base of the pool – so much living above such a lonely resting place.

When I had a signal, I called the commissariato in Ragusa and explained what we’d found. The officer didn’t speak good English but managed to convey that police were already nearby and that they would be with us soon.

I started walking back towards the villa, but something was niggling at me.

On the night of the fire, I’d thought it was the flames that drew Gabriele Arnone to the villa, but it wasn’t the fire, it was the pool; he was obsessed with the pool. And hadn’t Anna mentioned in her diary that a local contractor had been employed to build the new pool, and hadn’t she said that Gabriele was one of those called upon to help with the construction work?

The pool was being built that same summer that Anna and Gina had been planning to run away to Australia together.

An awful possibility was dawning on me. I knew what had happened to Anna but I had no idea what had become of Gina. I hoped with all my heart that she was alive and well and living a good life, but it was entirely possible that some harm had been done to her while poor Anna was being held captive by her father in Rome.

‘Think!’ I told myself. ‘Who would know about Gina’s fate?’