I followed him through alternating patches of golden sunlight and deep shade as the drive meandered to the left, then to the right. At every step, something new revealed itself; a wild creeper scrambling over a statue; a patch of bright orange poppies, the veins of the petals picked out by the sun; sparrows dust bathing; a lizard posing on a giant sundial with a crack in its centre; a huge old olive tree, its trunk gnarled and solid as rock. Then, at last, behind a line of topiary gone feral, an old, low-growing tree masking one corner of the building, we found the villa.

It was classical in design, two storeys high with a red tiled roof, whitewash peeling from plastered stone walls. A stone balcony ran beneath the three central, first-floor Palladian windows and beneath was an open, colonnaded porch. Although weeds were growing from the gutters and there were holes in the roof where tiles had slipped, the villa hadn’t lost any of its beauty. It was an ageing film star, a retired ocean liner – beautiful, abandoned, fading, but not yet destroyed and sympathetically lit by the dying sunlight. Time kaleidoscoped. I swear I could feel Joe’s ancestors moving around me, coming in and out of the villa. If I closed my eyes and concentrated, I would have heard the whisper of their voices.

A dove startled us, rising up from amongst the undergrowth, the sound of its wings like gunshot.

I came closer, until I was standing feet behind Joe; so close that I could smell the fabric of his shirt, his skin, his sweat.

The villa windows were covered by shutters reinforced on the ground floor by planks of wood nailed over them. They were strung with cobwebs, decorated with windblown petals, the paint peeling, the wood beneath bleached. The front door was barricaded too; two planks criss-crossing diagonally, bolted into the frame. The last people to come to the villa had made it secure before they abandoned it to the wildlife and ghosts.

In the next instant, I had the strongest feeling that somebody was watching from inside the building. I looked to the upper windows, my eyes scanning them one by one. If anyone was there, they were hidden behind the shutters and we’d never be able to see them from down here. Or perhaps they weren’t in the villa, perhaps they were in the garden. I turned, half expecting to catch someone peeping from amongst the undergrowth, but the only movement was butterflies flirting amongst the flowers. Still, the visceral unease grew stronger; someone was watching. I was sure of it.