He nodded. Leaning forward he kissed her cheek gently, and walked away.

Gino slipped into the house quietly, but his caution was wasted, as he had feared that it would be.

‘Good evening,’ Rinaldo said, without looking up from the computer screen where he was doing the accounts

‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ Gino asked.

Rinaldo didn’t answer this. Dragging his eyes away from the screen he leaned back, stretching like a man whose limbs had been cramped too long.

‘You look like the cat that swallowed the cream,’ he observed. ‘I hope the cream was good.’

‘Don’t be coarse.’

‘I also hope you didn’t forget that you were there for a purpose. You haven’t just been enjoying yourself, you were supposed to be neutralising a threat.’

‘Alex is no threat. She’s trying to be as helpful to us as she can.’

Rinaldo groaned.

‘She really got to you, didn’t she? Well, before you get too starry-eyed, remember that this is the woman who was negotiating with Montelli at our father’s funeral.’

‘She wasn’t negotiating. He just walked up to her. In fact he did it again today and she drove him off with threats of violence. I heard her.’

‘He was there again?’

‘They were in the coffee shop when I arrived, and she sent him packing.’

‘Of course-because she saw you.’

‘You’re a cynical swine, aren’t you?’

‘I know more about women than you do, and a damned sight more about hard cash. And one of us needs to be cynical about this lady. You’re evidently a lost cause. What did she do? Flutter her eyelids and let you look deep into her blue eyes?’

‘They’re not exactly blue,’ Gino said, considering. ‘More like a kind of violet.’

‘They looked ordinary blue to me.’

‘Maybe you weren’t looking at them in the right way.’

‘I was looking at them with suspicion, and that’s the right way,’ Rinaldo growled.

‘Well, maybe it was the dress,’ Gino agreed. ‘That was dark blue and very elegant, sort of clingy, especially over her waist and hips-’