I was glad that Anna’s postcard had reached Gina. At least she’d have known that Anna hadn’t forgotten her or changed her mind about their plans.

‘So do you think Gina might have gone to Rome to try to help this friend?’ I asked, turning the key ring that Irma had given me between my fingers. Sister Alfonsa frowned. ‘No, not Rome. She didn’t go to Rome.’

The younger nun asked: ‘But she did go somewhere?’

‘She left to catch the bus for work at the usual time and I didn’t give her any more thought until later that morning.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Someone came to collect Gina’s belongings. She said she was a friend of Gina’s and that Gina wouldn’t be coming back. I asked why not and she said because Gina had gone to Australia. I said it was strange, people don’t just up and go to Australia like they’d up and go to the shops, and the visitor said Gina had been secretly planning the trip for weeks. I didn’t believe it.’

Now my heart was racing. I could hardly bring myself to ask the next question in case the answer confirmed my worst suspicions.

‘Why didn’t you believe it?’

‘Because Gina was a thoughtful girl. She wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. She wouldn’t have left the day before Ferragosto, leaving her colleagues at the bakery in the lurch on its busiest day of the year. And if she’d gone to Australia, why would she have left everything behind? Her bag, her clothes, the letters from her friend?’

‘Do you still have the letters?’

‘She took them.’

‘The other friend? The one who came here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you report Gina as missing?’ I asked.

‘We spoke to the police. But it turned out that Gina had bought a ticket for Australia and she’d mentioned her plans to a girl she worked with in the bakery. That was enough proof for the police that she’d gone of her own free will. We waited and waited, but we never heard anything from her. Not so much as a postcard. But what could we do, apart from pray and ask the dear Lord in his mercy to bring our girl back to us safe.’ At this juncture, both nuns murmured some kind of prayer and crossed themselves. I waited until they’d finished.

‘This person who came for Gina’s belongings,’ I asked, ‘do you know who she was?’

‘Oh yes. She’s a neighbour of ours.’

‘Neighbour?’

‘Si, si,’ said Sister Alfonsa, nodding her head vigorously. ‘She lives in the thin house on the marshes. La figlia del tassista.’ The taxi driver’s daughter.

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