Elizabeth Edmondson - The Villa in Italy - Escape to the Italian sun with this captivating, page-turning mystery

Jessica undid the buttons at her wrists and pushed back her sleeves. ‘It may only be April, and it may be about to snow, or whatever you warned the weather did in Italy, but I find it hot.’

‘It is warm, and just smell the air. Pine and sea and I don’t know what else, but it’s heavenly. And listen, I hear a cuckoo.’

‘The herald of spring.’

‘Spring is already here, so it isn’t a herald, more a celebrant, wouldn’t you say?’

As they rounded a bend, the town came into view again, silhouetted against the cloudless sky.

‘Fairyland,’ said Delia. ‘Just like in a painting. I always thought those Italian painters made up their landscapes, but here it is, all around us.’

They walked on through a grove of olives, and out on to the road, which had a pitted surface that was scarcely better than the track. An aged woman in black, bent double, and leading a laden donkey, passed them the other way, her wrinkled face breaking into a toothless smile as Delia greeted her with a friendly ‘ Buon giorno ’.

‘She’s probably about forty,’ said Jessica, standing in the road and looking after the woman and the donkey.

‘Or she might be eighty,’ said Delia.

They were at the final approach to the town and the road ahead led steeply up to a stone archway. Inside the walls, the narrow street was paved with large, smooth stones and, after the bright sunlight, it was dark and somewhat sinister, with tall buildings on either side looming over them.

They jumped out of the way as a horn pooped behind them, and a laughing girl on a scooter with a small boy clinging behind her whizzed past.

Above them, washing fluttered on lines strung out across the street, sheets and petticoats and extraordinary knickers. A dog, all ribs, gnawed at fleas in a doorway, and a thin brindled cat slid through a narrow gap between brown shutters.

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