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Angela was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t see or hear the drawing-room door swing open. She was just suddenly aware of a pungent and acrid smell, and of Marco jumping to his feet.

She turned round in her chair to look behind her and saw a figure clad in an all-enveloping black cloak, the hood covering his face, moving silently across the wooden floor towards her. She started to rise, but immediately Marco shouted out to her, ‘Sit down and face the wall.’

The smell grew stronger as the figure approached, and Angela was seized by an overwhelming feeling of horror and dread, made worse by the uncanny silence with which the man moved. Even though she couldn’t see him, because she was obeying Marco’s commands to the letter and staring fixedly at the wall behind the desk, she knew that the man had stopped directly behind her.

Marco strode across towards her as well, and stood beside her.

‘We may have it, Master,’ he said, pointing down at Angela’s translations of the Latin text.

‘Where?’ The voice was little more than a whisper, a sibilant hiss.

‘Poveglia,’ Marco said.

There was a short silence as the new arrival apparently digested this information, and then Angela heard his quiet voice again. ‘Get the boat ready,’ he said, ‘and bring her as well.’