‘Joe! Joe! Look at you!’ she cried and she pulled herself up on her stick to embrace him. He had to bend almost double to kiss her, she was the size of a child. When they’d finished their embrace, she took my hand and indicated that I should sit on the chair beside her, which I did. I showed her a picture of her and her husband taken more than three decades earlier. The couple were standing outside their cottage, and with them was a little boy with dark hair and a solemn expression. He was holding the housekeeper’s hand.

Signora Ganzaria laughed. ‘You were a handsome little chap even then, my Joe!’

‘You were biased, Signora Ganzaria. You always were on my side.’

She reached out and touched his wrist. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she asked. ‘You were such a good boy. You were like your mother. You didn’t have a bad bone in your body.’

We stayed for an hour, until Signora Ganzaria’s eyes became heavy and her head started to nod. Then we stood up to leave and the niece, who had been hovering around us for the duration of the visit, said: ‘Wait, my aunt has something for you.’ She touched the old lady’s arm. ‘Shall I give it to them now, auntie?’

‘Yes, yes, it’s under the bed,’ Signora Ganzaria said.

With some difficulty, the niece got down on her hands and knees and pulled a battered old suitcase from under the bed. She blew dust from its surface and Joe helped her lift it on to the bed.

‘Open it,’ said Signora Ganzaria. ‘Go on, Joe, look inside. It’s something of yours. Something I’ve been waiting a long time to give back to you.’

He flicked open the catches and pushed up the lid. Inside was a bundle of rags. He unwrapped the rags. Carefully, he lifted out the object they contained.

He turned to show me what he held in his hand.

It was a 400 year old Renaissance masterpiece; Guido Reni’s Madonna del Mare.

Signora Ganzaria had been thorough with her attempts to keep the villa safe: a bag of salt spilled at every doorway; olive oil smeared on the frames; as many sheep and goats’ horns spread about the place as she could manage, but she wasn’t sure it was enough to keep the evil out. Too many people knew the villa was unoccupied and the painting was still there, she said. Irma Arnone knew about it. Vito Barsi knew about it. And Matilde Romano was always snooping round the headland, using any excuse to come into the villa grounds, even at night. Signora Ganzaria had never liked that woman, never.

She and her husband had talked about it a great deal and between them they’d decided to go back to the villa and remove the painting for safekeeping. She’d been keeping it safe, under her bed, ever since.