‘There’s nothing strange about it,’ Joe said defensively, even though I hadn’t said anything at all to suggest there was. ‘It was a way of remembering, that’s all. Keeping memories alive.’

‘Sure,’ I said. I wondered if, privately, Joe had been harbouring hopes similar to mine, that some part of Daniel might still exist somewhere in the world.

And then I remembered something I hadn’t thought about in years: a conversation I’d had with Anna when Daniel was only a few months old. She’d told me that before she was born, her mother had delivered three stillborn children; one after the other. Anna’s three dead siblings hadn’t been baptised and couldn’t be buried in consecrated land, so her father had buried them in the villa’s gardens. Her mother had kept the baptismal gowns she’d hand sewn for each baby and a photograph of each of them hung in an alcove in her bedroom, where she knelt to pray several times a day.

Anna had been drinking when she told me this story. When she wasn’t drinking, she was quiet and private. After a bottle of wine, she became more willing to talk about herself and her feelings. That day, she’d been trying to explain her relationship with her parents and how heavily the burden of their expectations had weighed upon her shoulders.

I’d held my baby to my shoulder and rubbed his back as Anna had talked. Daniel’s head had lolled against my neck, fitting the space exactly. Anna’s breath was warm and musty and her face had softened as she recalled how, when she was alone as a child, playing in the villa’s gardens, she used to go to the little graveyard and summon her dead sisters and brother to play with her; how they were her imaginary friends, older than her, and younger at the same time. She used to sneak into her mother’s room to talk to the photographs of the babies; she brought little gifts to the graves to keep them happy. Usually they were kind: when she was lonely or frightened, they came to her and comforted her, but sometimes they were jealous of Anna, because she was alive and they were dead. Then they’d play tricks on her. They’d break glasses and plates and Anna was blamed, or they’d lock her out of her room or shut her in a cupboard.

‘That must have been frightening for you,’ I’d said. We were sitting together in the front room of her London house, sunlight streaming through the window.

Anna took another sip from her glass.