When Signora Romano was gone, I walked back to the old villa, warming itself like a decrepit, elderly relative in the sun behind me. It creaked in the heat.

‘Well,’ I said out loud. ‘That was an unexpected development.’

The villa seemed to sigh and settle as if it had been holding its breath.

I put the box Signora Romano had given me on the kitchen table, picked off the tape that held the lid down and opened it. Inside was scrunched-up newspaper and inside the paper was a wooden doll, a puppet, about eighteen inches long. It was dressed as a medieval lady, with a painted wooden face, crudely made clothes.

I lifted the marionette out of the box and dangled her by the handles. She did an odd little dance, then swung on the end of her strings as if she’d been hanged. I could appreciate that some skill had gone into making the doll, but it was an ugly, unpleasant thing. I imagined myself showing it to Fitz, the two of us laughing over its macabre dancing, its bland face with two red circles for cheeks and spidery, drawn-on eyelashes, the tiny hooks screwed into the backs of its hands, feet and head to thread the strings that made it move. Its hair was brown, wiry and curly. I shuddered and put it back into the box, replaced the lid so I didn’t have to look at it.

Instead, I turned my attention to the wallet the lawyer had given us which was still on the kitchen table and found a typed document labelled Inventario which could only mean ‘inventory’.

In the glass-fronted bookcase in the living room, there was an Italian/English dictionary. I took it back to the kitchen and sat at the table. Helpfully, in the wallet was a plan of the villa, with the different rooms labelled, so I had no trouble identifying the hallway – corridoio, and from there I translated the items within it until I came to quaddro, which meant ‘painting’, together with the title – La Madonna del Mare – and the name of the artist – Guido Reni.

At the end of the inventory were three signatures, each witnessing the others: Claudia DeLuca, Joe’s grandmother; Anna Cadogan-DeLuca; and Ignazia Ganzaria, domestica, the housekeeper. I tapped my fingers on the tabletop and stared at the inventory. So, the painting had been in the hall when the villa was closed up. Either it had been stolen, or it must still be here, somewhere.

There was the curtained alcove in the master bedroom.

No, I wouldn’t look there on my own. Anyway, the inventory clearly stated that the picture had been left in the hallway.