He started the engine again and we carried on slowly, zigzagging down the side of the hill until we reached a sharp turn, the road looping around a ramshackle cottage surrounded by a higgledy-piggledy yard. Chickens were scratching amongst laundry hung from the branches of twiggy old trees that cast long shadows in the evening light.

‘That’s the mafia cottage,’ Joe said in a quiet voice.

‘Mafia?’

‘Yep.’

‘What, mafia mafia? Like The Sopranos?’

‘Yep.’

We drove slowly past. An old woman in a headscarf sat on a step in the shade shelling peas into a colander. She peered forward as we passed, squinting to see better. Nearby, an old man sat on a stool in the shade of an olive tree. One hand was on the bowl of a walking stick dug into the ground beside him, the other was holding a length of plastic twine. The twine was attached to a head collar worn by a small, brown and white goat that was feeding from a bucket at the old man’s feet. His shoulders were hunched, his ears stuck out like bats’ wings, his head was shiny, sun-browned and age-spotted, with a wisp or two of hair. ‘Is that him?’ I whispered.

‘Yep.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Mafioso before. What did he do?’

‘Killed a couple who were living in one of the beach houses.’

‘Killed them? Oh God! Why?’

‘To prove himself to the mafia bosses. The couple were gay and the mafia thought they lowered the tone.’

‘That’s awful! Did he go to prison?’

‘He was never convicted. He was only a teenager, people believed he was too young to have actually done it. But he did. And he threatened a woman who was cheating on her husband and later she was found dead in the marshes.’

‘He killed her too?’

‘The story was that the woman got lost in the dark and fell in the marsh, but everyone knew she’d been murdered. Even her husband spoke of it openly.’

‘Was he convicted that time?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the police, back then, were sympathetic to the husband.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yep.’

I glanced back over my shoulder. The old woman was still watching.

‘Didn’t your grandparents mind having someone like him just up the road?’

‘It was how it was. They used to have him in to do odd jobs sometimes, building work, that kind of thing.’

‘What? They had a murderer in to fix their walls? Why would they do that?’

‘Because he was a good worker, I expect. Convenient.’

‘Oh my God!’

Joe gave a short laugh, but I was shocked. This was a part of his family history of which I’d been completely unaware.