'My name is Axel Moen, DEA. I work out of Rome.'

'You've come from Rome?'

'Don't interrupt me, Miss Parsons. I'm sorry, where can I smoke?'

'Sort your answer out. What on earth are you doing here, prying and poking. Come on.'

But a small grin was on her face. She marched him back out into the hall, and grabbed a heavy coat off a hook, and then through a darkened dining room. She unlocked the doors, and let him into the garden. The kitchen lights washed half of the patio, but she led him beyond the light and onto the paving slabs outside a garden shed. She turned to face him, looked up at him, and the flash of the match caught her face.

'Prying and poking, so what the hell's your answer?'

'I work out of Rome – you should listen to what I say. I work in liaison with the Italian agencies. I work against the Sicilian-based organization La Cosa Nostra. You were employed by Giuseppe and Angela Ruggerio to look after their son at the time their daughter was born. They have written you to say that two months ago they were

"blessed" with the birth of a second son, Mauro – just listen – and they have asked you to return to them to do the same work as four years ago. They live now in Palermo.'

He threw down the cigarette, half smoked. His foot was moving to stamp on it, but she crouched and picked it up and handed it back to him. He stubbed out the cigarette on the ribbed sole of his shoe, then placed the dead end in the matchbox.

'They live now in Palermo. How do I know? Giuseppe Ruggerio is sporadically under surveillance. There are not the resources, such is the scale of criminality in Sicily, for the surveillance to be full time. From time to time he is targeted. Tailed, wire-tapped, mail watch, electronic stuff, it's routine. It's a trawl. The letter showed up.