Raffi, who sometimes bridled when Brunetti disagreed with his view of history or Paola corrected his grammar, seemed entirely persuaded that his grandmother knew whereof she wrote and was busy entering her suggestions into his laptop; Brunetti listened attentively as she explained them.

Brunetti was pulled back from this memory by Paola’s muttered, ‘Look for your name.’ Indeed, small hand-printed cards stood propped in front of each place. He quickly found his own and was comforted to see Paola’s to his left, between himself and her father. He glanced around the table, where everyone seemed to have found his or her proper place. Someone more familiar with the etiquette of seating at dinner might have been shocked at the proximity of wives to their husbands: it is to be hoped that their sensibilities would have been calmed by the fact that the Conte and Contessa faced one another from the ends of the rectangular table. The Conte’s lawyer, Renato Rocchetto, pulled out the Contessa’s chair and held it for her. When she was seated, the other women took their places, followed by the men.

Brunetti found himself directly opposite Cataldo’s wife, about a metre from her face. She was listening to something her husband said, her head almost touching his, but Brunetti knew that would merely delay the inevitable. Paola turned to him, whispered ‘Coraggio’, and patted his leg.

As Paola took her hand away, Cataldo smiled at his wife and turned towards Paola and her father; Franca Marinello looked across at Brunetti. ‘It’s terribly cold, isn’t it?’ she began, and Brunetti braced himself for yet another one of those dinner conversations.

Before he could find a suitably bland answer, the Contessa spoke from her end of the table: ‘I hope no one will mind if we have a meatless dinner this evening.’ She smiled and looked around at the guests and added, in a tone that suggested both amusement and embarrassment, ‘What with the dietary peculiarities of my own family and because I let it go until too late to call each of you to ask about yours, I decided it would be easiest simply to avoid meat and fish.’