‘Well,’ he began, blowing out his lips. ‘He’s about fifty.’

‘Forty-eight,’ she amended. ‘Lucia’s already told me he lives in an apartment on the edge of Montelibertà with his wife Ilaria. They have three children – Riccardo, Laura and Caterina. But what’s he like?’ Her gaze focused in on Piero as if wanting to extract every drop of meaning from whatever he had to say.

Piero drank a mouthful of coffee, rich and black, while he thought. Carefully, he said, ‘I don’t think he’s a particularly strong person.’

‘He’s ill?’ Her fine eyebrows met quizzically.

‘No. He’s just …’ He touched her hand to soften what he was about to say. Her fingers were slender, her skin soft. ‘He’s not good at keeping a job or looking after money and doesn’t spend much on new clothes or haircuts. He has a favourite bar.’

Her eyes darkened. ‘He’s a waster?’ she demanded baldly.

‘I didn’t say that.’ But it was pretty much what he thought. He chose to hint. ‘In every country there are people who work only sometimes. And then for cash.’ That was why he avoided Gerardo, who’d accost any likely employer with requests for cash-in-hand work, then prove unreliable. Piero had only known Zia a few days but what he’d seen made him suspect that this would disappoint her.

The way she wrinkled her nose only confirmed it. ‘Is Ilaria like that, too?’

Piero shook his head. ‘She has a regular job. I should think she keeps the family afloat.’

Her lips had parted distractingly as she listened. She licked them before speaking again. ‘And what about … his children?’ She didn’t call them her siblings. It was as if she somehow had no right to claim the relationship.

‘I know he has children but I don’t remember meeting them.’

‘Oh.’ She picked up her coffee and sipped, staring thoughtfully out through a window. At this time of day, the mountains were more green than purple, like immense slumbering lizards. The vines were greener still, though only a segment of the vineyard could be seen from here. When the harvest began, people would look like ants working along the lines of vines seven days a week and Emiliano would be concentrating fiercely on sugar levels and picking at the perfect time.