‘That would be wonderful, if you’re going anyway.’ Durante beamed, clinking bottles with him.

Piero clinked back. ‘My pleasure.’ He changed the subject, updating Durante on the remarketing of the vineyard, skating around Graziella’s part in bringing that about. Durante and Lucia had known Salvatore for a long time and he didn’t want them to know his father had been, in his own words, a puppet.

Durante was instantly diverted. ‘Amico mio! If Il Rifugio was safe too, I’d sleep soundly at night.’

‘Yes.’ Piero could barely imagine being free of that anxiety. It clung to his skin. Shadowed his patch of land. They drank another beer, then after checking that his friends wouldn’t starve that evening – Zia had already offered to cook, apparently – Piero rose to leave. ‘What time does Zia fly tomorrow?’

‘At 11.20. We’d planned to leave at eight,’ Durante replied.

‘Tell her I’ll pick her up then.’ Piero took himself home to wind down at the end of an emotional day.

And wait for Zia.

It took a couple of hours for her to appear, striding through the trees in the luminous dusk of Apennine Umbria, some of her hair tied up on top of her head and the rest flying loose around her shoulders. By then Piero had showered, changed, eaten, and was lounging on the paved area outside the kitchen with his fourth beer of the day, a few unopened bottles of Ichnusa, the Sardinian beer he liked, beneath his canvas chair. His bare feet were up on the chair’s twin, a movie playing on the phone in his lap. When he spotted Zia, he paused the movie and called out to her in case she missed him in the twilight.

She turned like a missile. As she homed in on him, he removed his feet from the spare chair and gestured to it, politely inviting her to sit. ‘Buona sera.’

‘Buona sera,’ she returned shortly and all but threw herself in the chair, turning it so it faced the view rather than him.

Solemnly, he broached what he gleefully knew to be on her mind. ‘I understand I’m to have the pleasure of your company in the car tomorrow.’ He reached beneath his seat, pulled out a beer, tweaked off the cap and offered her the bottle.

She took it automatically. ‘Durante shouldn’t have agreed to you taking me. I suspect you only offered to make me uncomfortable.’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Not only.’ He sobered. ‘I have to visit the builders’ yard so why not? You wouldn’t make Lucia drive you if she’s recovering from stomach ache?’

‘She’s still got it, unfortunately,’ she said. ‘So, I’ll drive myself and leave my car there.’