As founder and owner of a construction company whose rapid success was almost uncanny, there was no question that Oscar Burolo satisfied that requirement. But instead of meekly buying his way into the Costa like everyone else, he did something unheard-of, something so bizarre and outlandish that some people claimed afterwards that they had always thought it was ill-omened from the start. For his Sardinian retreat, Oscar chose an abandoned farmhouse half-way down the island's almost ininhabited eastern coast, and not even on the sea, for god's sake, but several kilometres inland!

Italians have no great respect for eccentricity, and this kind of idiosyncrasy might very easily have aroused nothing but ridicule and contempt. It was a measure of the panache with which Oscar carried off his whims that exactly the opposite was the case. The full resources of Burolo Construction were brought to bear on the humble farmhouse, which was swiftly altered out of all recognition. One by one, the arguments against Oscar's choice were made to look small-minded and unconvincing.

The security aspect, so important in an area notorious for kidnappings, was taken care of by hiring the top firm in the country to make the villa intruder-proof, no expense spared. Used to having to cut corners to make security cost-effective, the consultant was delighted for once to have an opportunity to design a system without compromises. 'If anyone ever manages to break into this place, I'll believe in ghosts,' he assured his client when the work was completed. Having purchased peace of mind with hard cash, Oscar then added a characteristic touch by buying a pair of rather moth-eaten lions from a bankrupt safari park outside Cagliari and turning them loose in the grounds, calculating that the resulting publicity would do as much as any amount of high technology to deter intruders.

But even Oscar couldn't change the fact that the villa was situated almost zoo kilometres from the nearest airport and the glamorous nightspots of the Costa Smeralda, zoo kilometres of tortuous and poorly maintained road where no electronic fences could protect him from kidnappers.