I didn’t feel pity. Anna had chosen her own path. She chose to keep the extent of her addiction a secret. If she’d been honest, then she could have been helped and Daniel would still be alive today. All my pain, and Joe’s, all of it was her fault. It was down to her and her pride.

I laid the diary down and wandered over to the window that overlooked the back garden. There was something about the villa that softened me; that brought down my barriers. Now I was alone, thinking of Daniel, I could indulge myself here, in a way that I could never do in England. If I narrowed my eyes, I could see my darling boy running across the patch of open lawn below, chasing after someone who was out of sight, running towards the pool. I leaned against the frame and listened to the sound of his laughter in my mind.

‘Daniel,’ I whispered, imagining him down there, safe and sound, having a wonderful time. I pictured myself going down to him, taking a towel to wrap him in, and he, wet and slippery from swimming, his goggles leaving a red line around his forehead, holding onto me as I patted him dry, wriggling on my lap, asking what he could have to eat, what we were going to do next.

I might have stayed there for hours, lost in my beautiful daydream, but a movement on the track beyond the boundaries of the garden caught my eye. A large, black car was bumping down the hill. I watched its approach. Joe hadn’t said anything about anyone coming, and given the morning’s events I would be cautious about unlocking the gates to another visitor. I put the diary in one of the three dressing table drawers, and, anxiously, went outside.

18

I arrived at the gates as the car pulled up and watched from behind the shrubs, where I could not be seen. The vehicle was a big old Mercedes, so battered its body had the texture of a hammered-out metal drum. On its roof was a Taxi sign, the plastic yellowed and the letters worn away. The car shook like a dog coming out of water as the driver killed the engine, then the door opened and a tiny woman climbed out, jumping from the seat down onto the ground.

She was as small as a bird, with a mass of black hair streaked white at the front, a little pixie face with pointed features, and spectacles in winged frames. Her shoes were black, slip-ons. Her dress was a floral print and over it she wore a lacy blue knitted cardigan. She looked like a character from one of Daniel’s favourite storybooks, Grandma Mouse. As she stood beside the car, I saw that she had put two cushions on the seat to raise herself to sufficient height to see over the steering wheel.