By hitching the hem of her skirt higher, flashing more of her thighs at those gawping at her from the cars, Immacolata could lengthen her stride. It shamed her that in London her best, most-valued friend had almost slipped from her mind. She was within sight of the gates. Eight months before, she had promised to stay in close touch with Marianna Rossetti; in London she could have justified the rupturing of the thread. Not now. Silvio’s hesitant words resonated in her mind, and his stumbled reading of the notice in the Cronaca. She didn’t know the cause of death, only that her friend had passed away in the Nola hospital. She assumed an accident had been responsible. There was, as she knew it, no history of illness.

Her heel broke. She had left the London apartment early, while Vincenzo still slept, but had taken the precaution of wearing clothes for a language class. She had put her black suit, stockings, shoes and handbag in a zipped holdall. She couldn’t have guaranteed that Vincenzo wouldn’t appear at his bedroom door, blinking and bleary, to query why she was wearing funeral best to go to the school. She knew about security, the care that must be taken. It was ingrained in her, like grime embedded in the wrinkles of a labourer’s hands. She had changed in the toilet of the delayed flight and had looked the part of a mourner when the aircraft had dropped down to the tarmac at Capodichino. Her trainers were in the holdall, which was in the boot of the Fiat, which was stuck in traffic more than two hundred metres behind her. Immacolata swore, and heard laughter billow from an Alfa level with her. She scooped up the damaged shoe, from which the broken heel hung at an angle, and pushed it into her bag.