Soon enough, we reached the villa. Joe parked the car in the same spot as before. The sun was high in the sky, the colours dazzling. Light shone on the whitewashed façades of the beach houses, it glared from windows, roof tiles, parked cars. The beach was busy; littered with parasols and towels. Close to our end, a small white dog ran at the sea, chasing the rippling frill as the waves broke along the shore. A young woman in a red bikini clapped her hands and laughed at the dog’s antics. ‘Bravo, Toto!’ she cried. ‘Bravo!’

I helped Joe unload the bags of cleaning provisions and food and we carried them through the gates, up the drive and to the front door of the villa. The garden was lovelier in the bright daylight than it had been in the glow of dusk; its rampant, gleeful chaos, the jungle of greens and the jewelled colours of the flowers seeming more alive than ever: fronds and tendrils and opening blooms reaching up into the beautiful blue of the sky; lemons and oranges grew profusely on the trees, insects and birds were everywhere. I wondered where the graveyard was, where the three lost babies had been buried. The thought of them lying somewhere nearby sent a chill the length of my spine, but I dismissed it. It was a beautiful day and we were in a lovely place; the sun was shining and I’d be an idiot to be distracted by the darkness of my imagination.

Joe and I were outside the villa’s front door, in the same spot where Anna and her two friends had posed for the picture reproduced on the poster on the memorial wall. I sat on a stone planter that contained nothing but dead foliage and waited while Joe prised away the planks that had been hammered over the front door with the claw end of a hammer. The wood splintered as he pulled. He tossed the planks down to one side, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm and turned to me. ‘Where’s the key?’

I gave it to him and he put it in the lock, turned it. The door swung open with a sorrowful groan. We exchanged tentative glances and then Joe stepped into the gloom. I followed. Something crunched beneath the soles of my trainers.

‘What’s that?’

‘Salt.’

‘Salt?’

Joe kicked at a small ridge of grubby crystals spread the width of the front door. He picked up the plastic sack that had once contained the salt granules to show me.

‘Why is it there?’ I asked.

Joe mumbled something.

‘What?’

‘It’s to protect the villa. It’s a Sicilian thing.’

‘Protect it from what? Slugs?’

‘It’s just what they do here,’ said Joe, defensive again.

I heard something, like a sigh. I turned; nothing was there.

‘What was that?’ I asked Joe.

‘I don’t know.’