Vito whistled between his teeth. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘what a mess!’

I stiffened. When I looked at the gardens, I did not see a mess, I saw wild beauty. I saw a place where children could run and play, where babies had been buried, where generation after generation of the DeLuca family had grown vegetables, fruit and flowers. What right did this man have to come and criticise our villa? I felt a buzz about me, a swirl of anger. Vito Barsi was an intruder. The DeLuca ghosts didn’t want him here any more than I did.

‘These old palazzos are money pits,’ Vito continued in the relaxed way that people talk when returning to a favourite theme. ‘You spend money fixing one thing and before it’s done, the next thing goes wrong. Plenty of folk have gone bust trying to live out their pipe dream in some place that was beyond saving. Most times, it’s cheaper to knock them down and start again. Most times, the land’s worth more than the buildings.’

I didn’t like the thought of the villa being demolished to be replaced by a huddle of carbon-copy holiday lets. But it’d be all right. Matilde Romano had no intention of knocking it down. She loved the place.

We came round the corner and there was the villa in front of us. Each time I saw it, its size and its beauty took me by surprise. That afternoon, the sun was lighting the façade in a particularly lovely way. If I narrowed my eyes, I could blur the slipped roof tiles and the holes in the plaster; the weeds growing out of the cracks in the wall. If I didn’t look too closely, I could make the villa perfect.

‘Look at that,’ Vito said. ‘It’s a miracle it’s still standing. You want to offload this as soon as you can – that’s if you can find anyone mad enough to take it. A developer’s your best bet. Someone looking for land to build holiday homes. Have you been down the cellar yet?’

Joe and I looked at one another. ‘We didn’t know there was a cellar.’

‘Where there’s a palazzo, there’s always a cellar. Rich folks always need somewhere to store their wine!’

‘There’s no cellar inside the house.’

‘Nah, the entrance is round the side. Follow me.’

Vito led us round to the back of the house, past the terrace with the table and the vine. Beyond, separate from the villa, was a dilapidated archway, and beneath the arch were steeply descending steps.

‘There!’ said Vito. ‘What did I tell you? Once I’ve been in a place, I never forget it.’

We followed him down the steps. The step-well was full of dead leaves, and broken pieces of roof tiles.

Vito tried the handle of the door at the bottom. ‘Look at that! It’s open!’