‘The car is waiting, signore,’ he said, bestowing only the briefest glance on Holly.

Liza immediately put her hand in Holly’s and stood up.

‘I think you should use the wheelchair,’ her father said.

Liza thrust out her lower lip and shook her head. ‘I want to go with you,’ she said, looking up at Holly.

‘Then I’ll take you,’ she said. ‘But I think you should go in the wheelchair.’

‘All right,’ Liza said, docile as long as she had what she wanted.

The platform was the last on the station. Beside it was a wall, with a large archway almost opposite their carriage. It took only a few moments to leave the train and move beneath the arch to where a limousine was waiting. Liza sat contentedly in the wheelchair while Holly pushed her, praying that this would give her an extra disguise against any police eyes that were watching.

At the car door the chauffeur took the chair and packed it into the trunk. The judge got into the front, while Holly and Berta sat in the back with Liza between them.

Holly tried to believe that this was really happening. Even the noiseless, gliding movement of the car, as it left the station, couldn’t quite convince her.

A moveable glass screen divided the front from the back of the car, and the judge pulled this firmly across, shutting them off from each other. Holly saw him take out a mobile phone and speak into it, but she couldn’t hear the words.

They turned south and sped smoothly on until the crowded city fell away behind them, the road turned to cobblestones and monuments began to appear along the way.

‘They’re ancient tombs and this is the Via Appia Antica,’ Liza told her. ‘We live further down.’

About half a mile further on they turned through a high stone arch and began the journey along a winding, tree-lined road. The foliage of high summer was at its most magnificent, so the house came into view piece by piece, and it wasn’t until the last moment that Holly saw its full glory.