Nothing could touch him, or so it seemed.

Such was the spell cast by Burolo that it was only by an effort of attention that one became aware of the others present. The slightly saturnine man with thinning grey hair and a wedge-shaped face sitting to Oscar's left was a Sicilian architect named Vianello who had collaborated with Burolo Construction on the plans for a new electricity generating station at Rieti. Unfortunately their tender had been rejected on technical grounds – a previously unheard-of eventuality – and the contract had gone to another firm. Dottor Vianello was wearing an immaculate pale cream cotton suit and a slightly strained smile, possibly due to the fact that he was having to listen to Oscar's wife's account of an abortive shopping trip to Olbia. Rita Burolo had once been an exceptionally attractive woman, and the sense of power which this had given her had remained, even now that her charms were visibly wilting.

Her inane comments had commanded total attention for so long that Rita had at last come to believe that she had more to offer the world than her legs and breasts, which was a consolation now that the latter were no longer quite first-division material. Opposite her sat the Sicilian architect's wife, a diminutive pixie of a woman with frightened eyes and a faint moustache. Maria Pia Vianello gazed at the spectacle of her hostess in full career with a kind of awestruck amazement, like a schoolgirl with a crush on her teacher. Clearly, she would never dream of tryin8 to dominate a gathering in this way.

Despite these superficial dissimilarities, however, the Vianellos and the Burolos basically had much in common.