He fixed her with the smile she loved, full of warmth and affection.

‘Why are you going away?’ he asked.

Vittorio Tazzini was waiting at the window, watching the street for the moment when his friend appeared. As soon as he saw Bruno he was at the door, almost pulling him inside.

‘Have you got it?’ he asked eagerly.

‘Vittorio, my friend, I’m still not sure this is wise. You’re obsessed, and that isn’t good.’

‘Obsessed! Of course I am. I’ve been cheated by two men: the first was one I called a friend, until he stole from me and vanished, forcing me to sell my home to pay his debts. His debts, Bruno, that he had persuaded me to sign for. The other was Joseph Clannan, who saw my desperation and used it to beat me down on the price. I sold for much less than the place is worth because I needed money quickly. If I could have got a fair price I’d have had enough to give me some hope for the future. I wouldn’t be penniless and living here.’ He cast a scornful look around the shabby rented room that was his home now.

Bruno regarded him with pity, which he was careful to conceal. They were both thirty-two, and had been friends since their first day at school. Nobody knew the fierce, embittered Vittorio better than his gentle friend. Nobody understood him as deeply, or feared for him more.

He was silent, watching Vittorio pace the narrow confines of the room, his tall, rangy body looking so out of place in it, after the spaciousness of the Villa Tazzini, that it was like seeing a wild animal trapped in a tiny cage. Sooner or later the animal would go mad.

Vittorio wasn’t a handsome man. His face was too harsh for that, his cheeks too gaunt, his eyes too fierce. His nose was irregular, so that people meeting him for the first time wondered if it had been broken. His wide, firm mouth suggested an unyielding nature, one that could love or hate with equal ferocity, and never forgive an injury from foe or lover alike.