Once we were safely back in the villa’s gardens and the gate was locked behind us, I held the torch for Joe while he dug a grave for the cat. It was hard work; the soil layer in the spot he’d chosen was shallow and the blade kept clanging onto rock, but at last the hole was deep enough. Joe put the shrouded cat into the hole and covered it over.

At the last moment, before the soil fell on the bag, I panicked. ‘Joe, are you sure she’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Only I’ve heard about people who buried animals and…’

‘She’s dead, Edie. She’s stone cold.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

He looked at me, and in the torchlight I saw sympathy in his eyes.

I moved the torch so the beam didn’t blind him and he finished the burial. We put stones on top of the grave to stop other animals attempting to dig the cat up and walked back to the villa, Joe leading, me following so closely behind that I kept treading on his heels. I was scared about whoever had brought the dead cat to the villa and I was worried about the kittens. I strained my ears, listening for mewling. I tried to stop my mind going down tiny holes, imagining them blind, helpless and terrified. I tried not to think about owls, or wildcats, or foxes that might be out hunting. I tried not to worry about the possibility that some malevolent observer, the killer of the cat, was still lingering beyond the villa’s walls.

Inside the villa, I climbed the stairs, lit the candles in my bedroom, took off Anna’s earrings and let down my hair. I stared at my reflection, ghostlike in the darkness of the wardrobe mirror, candlelight refracting in odd zigzags from the faults in the glass. I used to think myself the kind of person who wouldn’t let life slip through my fingers. When I heard people complaining about the hand they’d been dealt, I vowed I wouldn’t become like them. I would live expansively, experiment and be bold. Life hadn’t turned out the way I’d expected. It had closed around me, becoming narrow and small; I lived in a rut – not a terrible rut, but a rut nonetheless. It was Anna who’d done this to me. She was responsible for my walls and here I was sitting in her family’s villa staring at my reflection in her mirrors.