A noise on the stairs followed by a cautious footstep on the path outside made me sit up. I swung my legs out of bed and pushed open the shutters. ‘Meg?’

Moonlight streamed into my bedroom and illuminated the thin figure on the path below. Meg had twisted up her hair into a sexy caramel knot and she was wearing her new high heels. The light played tricks, for she looked so young and pretty that I caught my breath. She raised an arm and the bracelets on her wrist emitted a faint, high shiver of sound.

I leant on the sill. ‘Don’t go,’ I begged, for I had a good idea where she was heading.

She laughed without humour. ‘Jealous?’

‘I so am jealous.’ I mocked Chloë’s vernacular.

She shook her head. ‘Not convincing, Fanny. You’ll have to do better.’

Her voice was husky with excitement. I clutched at my nightdress. ‘Wait. I’m coming down.’

The cotton flapped round my legs as I ran out on to the path. Meg was searching in her shoulder-bag and I grabbed at the strap. ‘It’s not worth it. Stay.’

‘But you’ve told me to go. You have made… everything quite clear.’

In a final effort, I tugged hard at the strap and Meg swayed a little on her high heels. ‘But it doesn’t mean you have to throw everything away. Don’t be silly. Please, please, stay here. We’ll talk… I’ll listen to you… whatever.’ Meg shrugged and I threw in quickly, ‘Think of Sacha. Think of Will.’

‘I am thinking of them,’ she said. ‘Very much.’

‘I was unkind.’

‘Go back to bed,’ she said, an adult addressing a troublesome child. ‘I’m going out for a little diversion. I know exactly what I’m doing.’

‘Do you want me to go down on my knees? I will, you know, if that’s what it takes.’

Meg fiddled with her bracelets. ‘I must make you understand, Fanny. It’s all right. I’m in control. But…’ she seemed to be searching for an explanation, ‘I’m not the only woman to have fallen from grace, and to have inflicted these wounds upon myself. But, at times, I’ve felt so alone. That’s what makes me so crabby and selfish, I guess.’ She nodded her head. ‘I appreciate the knees bit though, Fanny. I know what it would cost you, and I’m tempted to take you up on it.’

I forced Meg back into the kitchen and made her sit down. ‘Talk to me. Come on. You can talk to me.’

She seemed both surprised and gratified. ‘I’ve tried.’ Her mouth tightened and she fiddled with the bracelets. ‘OK. Confession time. I’ve tried very hard to absorb myself in other things. Clothes. Part-time work here and there. An occasional lover. Charity, or whatever those women do who have too much time on their hands. But apart from Sacha, and you and Will and Chloë, nothing burrowed very deep. My mind had been blown.’

‘I’m listening.’ I put on the kettle and the gas-ring glowed and bubbled.

Meg seemed fixated by the glow. ‘But you are right, Fanny, it is time to make changes, and to think differently. When we go home, I will look for somewhere else to live.’

‘Close to us,’ I said.

Her eyebrow flicked up. ‘No need to go mad.’

‘All right, at a decent distance.’

She smiled at me. A car drew up outside the house. Its engine revved, its door opened and shut. Meg gathered up her bag.

‘You’re not going?’

‘Sure, I am,’ she said. She got up, put her hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek, a light, cool touch. ‘We’re quite good friends really, aren’t we? In the end? I like to think so, Fanny.’

I kissed her back. ‘Of course.’ Then I held her tight, and the breath of her forgiveness stole over me.

‘That’s straight, then. That’s something. Go back to bed, my good and watchful Fanny.’

‘Shall I come with you? Why don’t I? Give me five minutes.’

‘No, Fanny. I am on my own now. Remember?’

Defeated, I went back upstairs. I heard voices, doors banging, and the car accelerating down the road.

I opened the shutters wide to let in the night.

I meant to wait up until she returned but I fell asleep and was woken by a light pulsing through the room.

There was an exchange in Italian outside on the path, followed by a knock on the door. I reached for a T-shirt and pulled it over my nightdress. With each step down the stairs, my heartbeat accelerated.

Italian policemen, I noted in a stupefied way, were always immaculate, even at that time of the morning. The male one had a perfect crease on his shirt sleeve and an equally perfect one ironed into his trousers. His belt buckle gleamed and his hair was brushed and beautifully cut. ‘So sorry, Signora,’ he said. His female colleague had long blonde hair and a tiny waist. She stepped forward and took my hands in her tanned olive ones.

‘Where did you find her?’ I asked eventually.

‘Outside the church.’ The policewoman was calm and professional. ‘We think she tripped and hit her head on the tethering stone by the fountain. But we are not sure if that is what killed her. The doctors will tell us.’

The woman paused, then asked, ‘Did the signora have a history of illness?’

I bit my lip. ‘In a way, yes, she did.’

Later, about ten minutes or so, when I had brought my knees under control and fought my way into some clothes, they escorted me down the path and handed me into the car.

A hush fell as I was led through the police station to the morgue at the back. The policewoman touched my arm. ‘Hold on to me if you want to,’ she said.

My nails dug into my skin.

At the policewoman’s nod, the sheet over the figure on the gurney was pulled back.

My first thought was, It’s all right. Meg’s sleeping. Only sleeping.

Her cheek had a faint flush, and her hair fell back naturally on to the rubber sheet beneath her head so that the wound was concealed. Her mouth was peaceful and there was not one line on the smooth, youthful forehead.

The policewoman knew, all too well, the many ways in which the bereaved reacted. One was to refuse to believe.

‘The signora is dead,’ she said gently. ‘No doubt.’

‘Don’t bother to grieve,’ those peaceful lips might say. ‘I’ve had enough. Battle over. Eh?’

The policeman consulted his notes. ‘She had been drinking in the Bacchus. Too much, according to the reports, and she was asked to leave at approximately half past two. She was seen walking down the road towards the church and knocking on the church door. The witness said he was worried because she was unsteady and he went after her, but by the time he caught up she had fallen.’

I leant over and touched the untroubled, line-free forehead. Then I picked up her hand and smoothed the fingers with their tiny, pearly nails, one by one. Already they seemed waxen, doll-like. ‘Oh, Meg,’ I whispered, and hot tears ran down my cheek. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

As I left they handed me a packet of her things in a plastic bag with a list. One ring, gold. The bracelets. One leather purse, empty. One cotton skirt. The black high heels. And, finally, one cross, gold. Surprised, I held it up between finger and thumb and, caught in the electric light, the chain glimmered. ‘I can’t stand religion,’ Meg had protested more than once. ‘So bossy. So pointless. So vulgar.’

I returned to Casa Rosa and made the first of many phone calls.

Some time later, I’m not sure when, I went into the kitchen. There was the chair in which Meg had sat. The bottles of oil and balsamic vinegar she had used. The coffee machine, which she had taken over.

I touched them. Implements and objects that, only a few hours ago, Meg had also touched.

I did not believe she was dead.

Still later, as the heat shimmered above the tarmac and the geraniums in the pots outside the houses drooped in the sun, I walked past Maria and Angelo, who nodded at me sorrowfully, skirted the tethering stone, with its iron ring for the horses’ bridles, and entered the church. The gloom in the interior was a cool bath, and I swam through it towards the frescos. Instinctively I knew Meg had been trying to get into the church to see them. I reckoned she had felt that you knew where you were with them. Stupid with drink, she had forgotten that the church was locked at night to protect the paintings.

I unclenched my fists, felt pins and needles lick up my arms, and tried to make myself understand. Meg was dead.

Dead…

Then I got into the car and took the road to the airport.

Sacha was in Meg’s room next door and I could hear him moving about restlessly. Will lay on my bed with his arm over his face.

I sat down and took his free hand and held it.

He dropped his arm. He had been crying and he was white with shock and fatigue and he had bitten his lip. It had left a rough, sore patch. ‘I suppose it was bound to happen, one day.’

I climbed into the bed and took him in my arms and held him until he was calmer. Then I made him take some aspirin and stroked his hair.

‘Do you want me to tell you what happened, or would you rather wait?’

He nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Tell me.’

Without camouflage, I described our visit to Siena, our conversation there, and the exchange back at the Casa Rosa. As I reached the end of the story, I felt myself grow hot and cold with shame and regret. ‘Until last night and our quarrel, she was under control.’

‘That was something.’ Will was eager to latch on to anything positive.

‘I’m afraid it was my asking her to find somewhere else to live that set her off. I did try to stop her, Will. I promise you, but I feel responsible.’

He took a while to absorb all the details. ‘Not even you could predict a fatal blow to the head on a tethering stone outside a church in an Italian town.’

‘Even so.’ I looked at the floor strewn with clothes in my haste to get dressed when the police arrived. ‘In the end we were friends. And she knew that you loved her, and Sacha.’ I bit my own lip. ‘I’m sure she knew.’