He couldn’t suppress a note of pride. ‘I like to make beautiful things. This will be the topmost point of an orangery roof. The joiner has the tooling and manpower to build the main structure, which I don’t, and I have the patience and time to design this artisan touch, which he doesn’t.’ He took out his phone and flicked through his photos until he found what he was looking for. ‘I made this for Emiliano’s kids, Camilla and Cristian.’

Zia stepped closer to inspect the image of two children beaming beside a child-sized wooden house with a green door and jaunty little windows. ‘A play house? How awesome! Not many children have anything so wonderful. It’s like a fairytale cottage. Look at the curly bits around the roof.’

‘That’s what Americans call “gingerbread trim”.’

She passed the phone back. ‘You must be Uncle Popular with your niece and nephew.’ Even in the harsh overhead lights her skin was as smooth and brown as a hen’s egg. Then her phone rang. ‘Do you mind if I take this?’ she asked.

As her conversation was obviously with Ursula about dinner he began to switch off lights. When she’d finished he said, ‘I’ll show you the shorter route back, through the cypress trees.’ And, contrary to his usual policy for Bella Vista guests: ‘Come to Il Rifugio at any time.’

Chapter Five

On Friday morning Ursula was ready for the holiday to begin. ‘How about a walk to the market in the centre of Montelibertà?’ she suggested.

Zia laughed. ‘Three miles each way? Coming back uphill? You? In flip flops? You’ll have sprouted blisters before you’ve covered the first mile.’

Ursula trailed a finger wistfully over the Google Earth-generated landscape on her phone screen. ‘You’re too practical. I was enjoying a romantic notion of drifting through vineyards and olive groves.’

Zia examined the image, too. ‘I’m not sure the owners of said vineyards and olive groves would welcome us as I don’t see footpaths. And it’s already thirty degrees Celsius at ten a.m.’ She jingled her car keys temptingly.

Ursula put away her phone, eyes dancing. ‘A gentle stroll around the piazzas might be nice too … with pauses for vino and gelato of course.’

With an answering grin, Zia grabbed her bag. ‘Durante recommends parking on Via Virgilio just before we get into town. It’s free and will give us just a little walk.’ Soon they were joining the public road where she’d stood with Piero the evening before, traffic buzzing in both directions to reinforce his comments about it being a major route. Rock ran alongside the road for nearly two miles then gave way to a country park crowded with pine trees shedding needles into dusty beige drifts. Cars were parked in the shade and she caught sight of picnic tables in glades.