we reached a sharp turn, the road looping around a ramshackle cottage surrounded by a higgledy-piggledy yard. Chickens were scratching amongst laundry hung from the branches of twiggy old trees that cast long shadows in the evening light.
‘That’s the mafia cottage,’ Joe said in a quiet voice.
‘Mafia?’
‘Yep.’
‘What, mafia mafia? Like The Sopranos?’
‘Yep.’
We drove slowly past. An old woman in a headscarf sat on a step in the shade shelling peas into a colander. She peered forward as we passed, squinting to see better. Nearby, an old man sat on a stool in the shade of an olive tree. One hand was on the bowl of a walking stick dug into the ground beside him, the other was holding a length of plastic twine. The twine was attached to a head collar worn by a small, brown and white goat that was feeding from a bucket at the old man’s feet. His shoulders were hunched, his ears stuck out like bats’ wings, his head was shiny, sun-browned and age-spotted, with a wisp or two of hair. ‘Is that him?’ I whispered.
‘Yep.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Mafioso before. What did he do?’
‘Killed a couple who were living in one of the beach houses.’
‘Killed them? Oh God! Why?’
‘To prove himself to the mafia bosses. The couple were gay and the mafia thought they lowered the tone.’
‘That’s awful! Did he go to prison?’
‘He was never convicted. He was only a teenager, people believed he was too young to have actually done it. But he did. And he threatened a woman who was cheating on her husband and later she was found dead in the marshes.’
‘He killed her too?’
‘The story was that the woman got lost in the dark and fell in the marsh, but everyone knew she’d been murdered. Even her husband spoke of it openly.’
‘Was he convicted that time?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the police, back then, were sympathetic to the husband.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yep.’
I glanced back over my shoulder. The old woman was still watching.
‘Didn’t your grandparents mind having someone like him just up the road?’
‘It was how it was. They used to have him in to do odd jobs sometimes, building work, that kind of thing.’
‘What? They had a murderer in to fix their walls? Why would they do that?’
‘Because he was a good worker, I expect. Convenient.’
‘Oh my God!’
Joe gave a short laugh, but I was shocked. This was a part of his family history of which I’d been completely unaware.
We bumped around a hairpin bend and headed steeply downhill. The concrete track had disintegrated in places and was full of potholes. The car lurched as the wheels struggled with the uneven terrain. I braced myself against the dashboard, tried to stop my body bumping against Joe’s. I could see the headline: Estranged couple drown after cliff plunge. Inheritance trip ends in horror. Was aged Mafioso to blame for British couple’s death?
‘We could leave the car here and walk down,’ I suggested.
‘We’re nearly there.’
And then suddenly the view of a perfect concave bay opened out before us. In the far distance, the sea and sky merged in a shimmer. Closer in, the sunlight caught the tips of small, innocuous waves whose only purpose, it seemed, was to add some sparkle to the perfectly blue water that reflected the perfectly blue sky. Fishing boats were silhouetted on the waves, disappearing into the glimmer and then reappearing. I could see a swathe of beach and, beyond that, lines of villas built above the beach road and amongst the trees that covered the hill.
We carried on downwards, still bumping but at a shallower angle, the track eventually flattening out into an area lined with stumpy bollards.
Joe turned off the engine and pulled on the handbrake. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘We’re here.’
9
We climbed out of the car and stood beside the ticking engine, looking up at an old stone wall eight feet high and topped with metal spikes. In its centre, two enormous wrought-iron gates were chained shut. My eye followed the line of the wall, high and solid, built to keep people out – or to keep them in. Plants tumbled over as if trying to escape the garden inside: bougainvillea competed with wild rose; thousands of flowers running wild. Drainage gargoyles had been built into the wall at intervals; plants crept between the lips of their gurning mouths and ivy clung to the stone. The scent was intoxicating; the buzzing of insects amongst the blooms deafening.
The shadows were lengthening. The sun was blazing towards the horizon, and the promise of evening hung around us. I breathed in air perfumed by jasmine, pine, resin and ozone.
‘I didn’t realise…’ I began, but I tailed off, because I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know about the villa and what it was like. The year we lost Daniel, the year we were supposed to come here, I’d asked lots of questions about the villa and Anna had shown me photographs, even some old cine-film. In the wake of everything that happened after, I’d let those memories fade but being here now for the first time, I had a sense of having been here before. It was as if I knew the villa; as if it had been waiting for me to come.
Joe walked over to the gates and rested one hand on the metal, running his fingers over an ironwork vine.
‘Every summer,’ he said, ‘when we came to Sicily, our grandfather used to meet us at the airport and drive us back here in his Alfa Romeo. I used to wear his sunglasses and leather jacket and sit in the front next to him; I felt like Steve McQueen.’
I’d heard that story many times. Joe loved telling it and Daniel loved hearing tales about his great-grandfather’s car. He’d had a toy Alfa Romeo that he used to drive around the furniture in the London flat. Joe promised Daniel that one day they’d drive around Sicily together and visit all the football stadiums. He was probably thinking about that right now.
I wrapped my arms around myself and walked away from my ex-husband to the edge of the parking area. I looked down; glassy seawater lapped against the edges of a vertical wall of volcanic rock. I could see into the water, late sunlight glinting on the fish that darted amongst the weed. Beside me was a post, with a weather-worn wooden sign nailed to the top. Painted in slanted blue letters over a white background were the words: Villa della Madonna del Mare. The artist had decorated the letters with little blue waves, starfish and seashells.
I heard a clanking as the chain that held the gates together clattered to the ground. Joe took hold of one of the gates and heaved. It groaned monstrously and moved slowly. When
