‘You must toss a coin in and make a wish,’ he told her.

She’d taken out a coin, musing, ‘What shall I wish for?’

‘There’s only one wish-that you will return to Rome.’

‘All right.’ She tossed her coin into the water and cried aloud to the sky, ‘Bring me back.’

‘Come back for ever,’ he urged.

‘For ever and ever!’ she cried ecstatically.

‘Never leave me, carissima.’

‘Never in life,’ she vowed.

‘Love me always.’

‘Until my last moment.’

A month later she’d left Rome, had left the young man, had never seen either of them again.

‘And like all visitors you tossed a coin in and wished to return to Rome?’ Vincente said now. ‘It is now the time to make that wish come true. Come with me and see if it’s still the city of your memories.’

She shook her head. ‘Memories are never the same. You can’t go back.’

‘Are the memories so terrible that you’re afraid to confront them?’

‘Perhaps they are.’

‘Maybe the truth will be better than your fears?’

She shook her head. ‘That never happens,’ she said with soft violence. ‘Never!’

‘So you’ve discovered that, have you?’ he asked sombrely.

‘Doesn’t everyone, sooner or later?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

The heaviness in his voice made her look up quickly and for a moment she caught an unguarded expression in his eyes. It vanished at once, but it showed her something he was trying to keep hidden. Her interest grew.

‘Why are you here?’ she murmured.

‘I came to a funeral.’

‘But why? You’re here for a purpose.’

‘To pay my respects.’

‘I don’t believe you. I don’t think you “do” sweetness and light. You wouldn’t head that corporation if you did.’

‘Even in business some of us manage to behave like civilized human beings,’ Vincente observed with a slight edge to his voice.