‘Why don’t we take half each?’ I suggested.

‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘But just make sure you announce yourself as a close relative to the switchboard, maybe a granddaughter’ – Floriano shot me an ironic glance – ‘otherwise they won’t give you any information.’

For the next fifteen minutes, Floriano disappeared downstairs with his mobile and I remained up on the terrace with mine, working through the list of numbers. None of them brought any joy, with everyone we spoke to confirming that a Senhora Carvalho had not been admitted in the past twenty-four hours. When Floriano eventually reappeared carrying a tray, his face told a similar story.

‘Don’t look so downhearted, Maia,’ he said as he placed a platter of different kinds of cheeses, salamis and a fresh baguette onto the table. ‘Let’s eat and think.’

I ate hungrily, realising it was now past six in the evening and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. ‘What was the mystery you thought might be solved by something you’d read in Bel’s letters?’ I prompted him, as he finished eating and wandered across to the open part of the terrace to light a cigarette.

‘Well,’ he said, leaning over the balcony and gazing out into the descending dusk. ‘The young woman whom Bel mentions in her letters, Margarida Lopes de Almeida, was always thought to have been the model that Landowski used for the Cristo’s hands. In the letters, Bel confirms that Margarida was indeed in Landowski’s atelier and was also a gifted pianist. For her entire life, Margarida never denied the rumour that they were indeed her hands that graced the sculpture. And then, on her deathbed a few years ago, she retracted, saying that they were not her hands Landowski had used.’

Floriano watched me to see if I could follow where he was leading.

‘Bel writes that she also had her hands cast by Landowski at the same time as Margarida,’ I answered.

‘Exactly. Of course, it may be that neither of the moulds Landowski took were used in his final sculpture, but perhaps Margarida always knew there was some doubt. Who knows? Maybe instead the hands were those of Izabela, the young woman who was with her at the atelier at the time.’

‘My God,’ I breathed, hardly able to compute the enormity of what Floriano was suggesting. That it might actually be my great-grandmother’s hands that reached out so iconically, loving and protecting the world beneath them.

‘To be honest, I doubt we will ever be able to ascertain the truth of the matter, but you can understand why the letters have excited me so much,’ said Floriano. ‘And would excite many others too, if Yara ever agrees to you sharing their contents with the world. So, not just for the sake of discovering your own heritage, Maia, but for that of Brazil’s too, we must not give up on trying to find out more.’

‘No, we mustn’t,’ I agreed. ‘But surely now we’ve come to a dead end?’