The next morning Caroline set out for the flat she had inherited. She decided to wait before checking out of the pensione, just in case the place was not immediately habitable. There were sounds of hammering and distant voices but no sign of Luca as she went up the stairs and unlocked the door leading to her great-aunt’s hideaway. In bright sunlight the view was spectacular. She could see right across the lagoon, and she stood at the window for long minutes before she set out to investigate the rest of the rooms. To one side was a small kitchen with pots and pans, including two cups and plates on a draining board. Through a doorway was a bathroom on one side and a bedroom behind it. The bed still had sheets on it, although there were signs that mice had found it a comfy refuge.

“New bed,” she said to herself. Then she opened drawers and saw they were full of clothes, rumpled together in haphazard fashion. This in itself was strange, as her aunt had always struck her as meticulously neat. In addition to this, how strange that Aunt Lettie had not taken anything with her when she left. The whole place looked as if she expected to return. Then she stopped, surprised: amongst her aunt’s clothing, there were some items that appeared to belong to a child. A girl’s jumper and skirt. A pair of socks. Who on earth had stayed at the flat with her great-aunt? Maybe Luca Da Rossi’s grandmother would know more.

She looked up when she heard feet coming up the stairs and then a tap on her door. Luca came in, breathing heavily. “It is quite a climb,” he said. “You will be very fit if you live here.”

“I won’t be living here,” she said. “I have a life in England. But I should like to spend holidays here. Maybe I will rent it out during the summer.”

“I congratulate you,” he said. “I have talked with our lawyer and senior managers, and they are all as perplexed as I am that someone in the company granted a lease to part of our property. But the city has declared the deed to be valid. I can say no more.” He walked over to the window. “You have one of the best views in the city.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ve just started to look around, and it’s so strange. It’s as if she left everything, expecting to be back. Look—the cups beside the sink. There is even a caddy with tea still in it. And all her clothes in the drawers in the bedroom. And some clothing belonging to a child.”

“Your aunt had a child?”