‘Beeswax.’

‘There’s an ecclesiastical wholesaler in the next street.’

She slipped her hands inside his overcoat and hugged him. Her kisses were firmer now, and moister. He broke away to stroke her temples and cheeks, gently follow the delicate moulding of her ear and gaze into the depths of her warm brown eyes. Disengaging himself slightly, he ran his fingers over the extraordinary garment she was wearing, a tightly clinging sheath of what felt like velvet or suede and looked like an explosion in a paint factory.

‘I haven’t seen this before.’

‘It’s new,’ she said lightly. ‘A Falco.’

‘A what?’

‘Falco, the hot young designer. Haven’t you heard of him?’

Zen shrugged.

‘What I know about fashion you could fit on a postcard.’

‘And still have room for “Wish you were here” and the address,’ laughed Tania.

Zen joined in her laughter. Nevertheless, there’s one thing I do know, he thought — any jacket sporting the label of a ‘hot young designer’ is going to cost. Where did she get the money for such things? Or was it her money? Perhaps the garment was a present. Pushing aside the implications of this thought, he produced a small plastic bag from his pocket, removed the neatly wrapped package inside and handed it to her.

‘Oh, Aurelio!’

‘It’s only perfume.’

While she unwrapped the little flask, he added with a trace of maliciousness, ‘ I wouldn’t dare buy you clothes.’

She did not react.

‘I’d better not wear it tonight,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘It’ll come off on your clothes and she ’ll know you’ve been unfaithful.’

They smiled at each other. ‘She’ was Zen’s mother.

‘I could always take them off,’ he said.

‘Mmm, that’s an idea.’

They had been together for almost a year now, and Zen still hadn’t quite taken the measure of the situation. Certainly it was something very different from what he had imagined, back in his early days at the Ministry of the Interior, when Tania Biacis had been the safely inaccessible object of his fantasies, reminding him of the great Madonna in the apse of the cathedral on the island of Torcello, but transformed from a figure of sorrow to one of gleeful rebellion, a nun on the run.