That was the museum of inquisitional torture, and he had ended up inside it – how? There were several people strolling through, and they all went from case to case, presumably thinking similar thoughts: What ingenuity. What cruelty. What disregard for human rights, and what pleasure in pain – what sadistic delight and what confidence! What relish for the tearing of flesh – so much more creative than simply throwing someone under a train! Of course, the implements came from a very different age, when people were heretics and traitors. That was the age when heresy and treason mattered, and when the mangled body dangling in the city square was a true deterrent. ‘See what will happen to you if you break the rules!’ In any case, perhaps people didn’t feel pain as acutely in the old days? Perhaps they felt so much that they were numb. Michael wondered if agony could reach a peak beyond which there was no feeling. Would you end up in ecstasy? He’d heard that the art of the torturer was to ensure that peak of pain was never reached.

He’d walked through that museum nearly thirty years ago. Elizabeth waited on the terrace, and he left the place feeling shabby. She was deep in her novel – but they’d kissed, and he’d held her tight, blonde hair drawn back and tied with a band, her face very slightly cat-like and her dress so simple. Green and red diamonds, cool in the heat – shapeless, and perfect for her fine, slim body. Days later they were driving out of the town to the little village of somewhere, in search of the casa that a woman called Elouisa lived in and rented out – the name of the place had long since faded from his memory. Narrow, turning roads, rising up into the hills – Elizabeth nervous at the wheel, with him navigating. The higher they went the hotter it got, and they knew they were lost moments before they came to the church they’d been told to look out for, for the place was hidden in a forest of volcanic flowering shrubs and the only sounds were the occasional clunk of a goat’s bell, and a bee.

‘I don’t see a slaughterhouse,’ said Elizabeth softly. ‘It’s paradise.’

‘Where’s she live, though?’