‘Hey, you!’ Ursula sounded both happy to hear from her and keen to know all about Lucia’s homecoming.

Zia felt soothed just to hear her best friend’s voice. ‘Poor Lucia looks ragged after her surgery and Durante’s hovering over her. They’ve both gone to sleep, bless them. I’ll go to the supermarket in a minute while they nap.’

Ursula made a sympathetic noise then asked casually, ‘No Piero to welcome Lucia back?’

‘Busy, I expect,’ Zia said vaguely. Inwardly, she sighed as she realised she’d instinctively avoided confiding in Ursula about the shittiness of Gerardo after Piero’s high-handed interference and Zia steaming over to fling it in his face. Bloody Stephan bleating to bloody Brendon had affected what she could say to her bestie. Instead, she directed the rest of the conversation to Ursula’s life in Brighton.

On Thursday Zia awoke early, a ball of apprehension that Fiorella was due to come to work, the first time they’d see each other since the scene with Gerardo. Was the secret Gerardo had kept so long finally out? Had Fiorella, who Zia was becoming fond of, fished enough from the shouting match conducted in a muddle of English and Italian? If so, what happened now?

Was she emotionally resilient enough to deal with it if Fiorella and Roberto were cold or dismissive? On top of worrying over Lucia and losing Piero, she wasn’t sure.

As her apartment’s door was standing open, she heard Fiorella arrive shortly before 10 a.m. and the jangling of Zia’s nerves was only heightened when she heard Roberto’s voice too, asking Durante if Lucia was up to visitors. Durante replied that Lucia was sore and easily tired. Roberto agreed to keep the visit short. Their voices faded and Zia heard a door shut.

Silence, but for the whisper of the breeze and the buzz of insects.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

As the Brits who’d stayed in Villino Il Pino had already begun their trek north she decided to shoot off to begin on the cleaning while Fiorella was indoors with Lucia. Squaring her shoulders, she smoothed her hands down her shorts to dry her palms and stepped out onto the terrace.

Fiorella was sitting outside, her gaze trained on Zia’s door.

Zia halted, heart banging like the bass in a metal band. Slowly, Fiorella rose, smoothing her palms down her flowered dress in an echo of Zia’s own gesture a moment before. ‘Gerardo told me,’ she said simply.