To go and see her grandfather, first of all, Cassanu Idrissi, and call a family meeting with Mamy Lisabetta, perhaps even with that witch Speranza and her grandson Orsu? And the dog Pacha as well. Install all those lovely people under the holm oak in the yard at Arcanu, then place on the table the revelation that was eating away at her: that her parents hadn’t been the victims of an accident. That the steering system of the Fuego had been sabotaged.

Answer: YES, even if it wasn’t yet clear what form this meeting would take.

And then secondly, should she talk to Franck? Talk about the policeman’s revelations. Show him the photographs of the bolt and the blasted steering rod, ask his opinion, his advice, he could identify anything under a car bonnet.

Answer: NO! Under no condition did she want to face his sarcasm once more, his appalled pity, his simplistic binary solutions – to put in a complaint or let the matter drop.

And last of all, whether she should take a trip to Punta Rossa, via the customs path along the Revellata, just something casual, a stroll up to the lighthouse, enjoying the panoramic view, like dozens of other tourists, and why not bump into Natale, who might be busy mending a net, smoking a cigarette on his terrace, watching the world go by.

Answer: NO. Definitely NO!

~

The speakers spat out a crackly version of ‘Life is Life’, which didn’t stop the crowd from responding in chorus, with no need for rehearsal.

Clotilde and Valou walked among the dancers crowded on to the little beach of Oscelluccia. Slotted in between two tongues of rock, the little inlet was another of those small pieces of paradise that had been confiscated by Cervone Spinello. The closer you got to the sea, the more the stones and pebbles on the path seemed to have been crushed by thousands of tourists’ feet, in a hurry to reach the water, the stones reduced, summer after summer, to coarse sand whose quality, according to certain tourists, depended on the number of people visiting the beach.