When Vittorio called out from the terrace, Justine was the first to turn round. She was still holding Justin’s hand in one hand and Lito’s in the other, as if she had to hold on to them both to prevent either of them from getting near the garden or the courtyard. Justin did not let go straight away. His gaze lingered for a moment on the narrow passageway behind the house, where the shadows of the cliffs drew the eye up towards the chapel.
“Dessert,” said Vittorio. “I insist that we at least enjoy this sweet finale together with a strong Greek coffee.”

“Desserts are the crowning glory of any cook: either brilliant or pitiful. I’m curious to see what awaits us here,” said Lito, stepping over the threshold with Justine. “And anticipation brooks no delay.”
Justin followed them more slowly. Brian looked at him straight away.
“Everything all right, sunshine?”
“No,” said Justin quietly. “At least we have a full moon, whose light turns the sea to silver.”
Brian pulled back the chair next to him. Justin sat down without looking at his untouched plate. The lamb had already been cleared away, but the aroma still lingered in the room.
Justine didn’t sit down straight away. She looked at her mother, then at Mary, then at Sun. Her gaze lingered on Sun for a moment longer.

Wolfgang picked up his glass. “We had fantastic lamb with crushed goat’s cheese balls, accompanied by a mock trial against Sun, just because she was found with the body and everyone else has an alibi.”
Justine turned her head towards Mary. “Why would we need an alibi? It wasn’t a murder, after all.”
“That remains to be seen. Your friend has made a statement – practically a confession – that she’s a Korean martial arts specialist who could have decapitated the woman with a single blow,” said Mary.
“Sun was meditating, not guillotining. The body still had its head on its shoulders.”
“All the easier if you just have to push someone off a cliff,” said Mary. “Tonight, everyone has to explain themselves to everyone else. That’s one of the few honest consequences of death. Perhaps it’s even a gift, to cast Dane’s death in a more peaceful light. At least he has a family mourning him; this stranger has no one.”
Meghan whispered, “We don’t know that.”
Lito sat down next to Justine.

Emmett looked up. He seemed curious and embarrassed, but when Lito sat down, he smiled a little anyway.
“The potato strudel was excellent for soaking up the gravy. And the green beans – crisp as if freshly picked.”
The cook returned.
This time she wasn’t pushing a trolley, but took her time making her entrance. First she carried in a large round tray bearing small mocha cups, white with gold rims, each on a saucer with a tiny spoon. Only then did a trolley follow, of which only a silver lid was visible, highly domed, almost like a small dome covered in thick hoarfrost.

On the lower shelf stood a pot of hot mocha, a carafe of Metaxa, a slender bottle of orange liqueur, a silver bowl containing candied orange slices and quartered figs, a small bowl of pomegranate seeds and a long silver ladle.
Emmett sat up straight, as if someone in the room had called for order.
“Oh yes,” he said. “That’s not just a fig strudel. It’s a sweetened procession.”
Bianca placed the tray with the cups on the sideboard. Then she pushed the trolley next to the table, right to the spot where the octopus had previously been carved and the lamb cut open.
“Bombé surprisè,” she said.
The name alone was enough. Even Mary looked over before she could decide not to be impressed.
Bianca lifted off the silver dome.

Beneath it stood a hemispherical bombé on a round silver platter. It was covered with a light meringue cap, the tips of which were already slightly browned. Candied oranges, figs and pistachios shimmered within. At the lower edge, a thin, smooth layer of marzipan was visible, just enough to reveal that the white surface wasn’t all there was. Around the bombé lay more fruit on small sugar cubes, carefully arranged like a wreath of flowers.
Justin saw the shape, the lines, the height, the white sheen, the golden spots.
“That’s beautiful,” he said. “I must make a mental note of it so I can draw it later.”
Brian looked first at Justin, then at the dessert.
“Inside: mastic ice cream, honey yoghurt, figs, orange sponge and pistachios,” explained Bianca. “Outside: marzipan, meringue and candied fruit. The ‘Bombé surprisè’ is a surprise for all the senses.”
“Why?” asked Emmett straight away.
“Because they can already see it. But in a moment they’ll smell it, then feel it first with their delicate palates, and finally taste it. And if they listen carefully now, they’ll hear the soft crackling of the meringue domes as they’re touched by the flames.”

Vittorio nodded. “Our kitchen has created a work of art, as impressive and fleeting as life itself. That’s why it was important to me that we all came together again for this.”
For a moment, silence filled the room. Then Lito laughed – not loudly, but warmly enough to defuse the tension.
Meghan looked at him. “I can’t imagine it.”
The chef poured Metaxa into a small copper saucepan, added a dash of orange liqueur and placed it on a spirit burner. The scent changed: sweeter, warmer, with notes of orange and wood and that alcoholic sharpness that heralds the burn.
Emmett cupped both hands around his mouth. “Even the smell has seduced me.”
“I don’t think that’s something you need to confess to on its own,” said Vittorio.
“The evening isn’t over yet. As tragic as it sounds, I’m now glad we didn’t have to leave the island after the aperitif.”
Brian leaned towards Justin. “If you paint that, don’t call it ‘dessert’ anymore.”
“What should I call it then?”

“The Acropolis made of Metaxa, marzipan and sugar.”

Justin looked at the bombé, then at the faces around the table. Mary’s emerald reflected the candlelight. Meghan had tensed her shoulders as if she were having to pass an exam in a polar field. Fiona sat upright, looking at her daughter’s hands. Sun seemed calm, but her eyes followed Lito’s every movement. Wolfgang wasn’t looking at the bombé, but at Emmett. Emmett was looking everywhere. Lito watched Justine, who in turn was staring into her mocha cup as if, by stirring the black liquid vigorously enough, she could use it to obscure the darkness of Dane’s death.
“Perhaps,” said Justin, “I’ll call it ‘Icy Heart in a Burning Halo’.”
Brian didn’t reply. He merely placed his fingers on the back of Justin’s hand for a moment.
Meghan saw it. This time she said nothing, but consoled herself for the provocation with an unsweetened sip of the strong coffee.
The housekeeper took the saucepan off the hob and poured the hot alcohol over the fruit on the silver platter. Then she filled the ladle, held it over the flame and set it alight.
Blue fire appeared first, almost imperceptible. Then the flames grew larger, turning yellow at the edges. Bianca slowly circled the ladle over the bombé, without pouring it over straight away, to heighten the audience’s anticipation even further. Now you couldn’t even hear anyone breathing, only the crackling of the meringue as it caught fire. The burning alcohol ran down some of the fruit, pooled in small indentations on the silver platter, and flickered between the figs and orange slices. The meringue was lit from below, caramelising as Bianca drizzled individual drops of the flaming concoction over it. The white peaks suddenly no longer looked sweet, but like little mountains of gold.

Even Brian couldn’t tear his gaze away, because at that moment he forgot to pretend he wasn’t impressed.
The flames were reflected in the windows, in the knives, in the carafe of water, in the ruby on Vittorio’s ring. For a few seconds, a different light fell upon each face. Meghan looked younger, yet more passionate than a rock in a sandy desert. Fiona looked harsher and more weary, as if she were the last living coral after an above-ground nuclear test. Justine was as defenceless as a deer after the forest above it had burnt down. Sun’s face became a Japanese volcano of molten stone. Wolfgang’s face transformed into a flickering reflection of Emmett, as if the fire had hypnotised them both. Brian looked at Justin, but he was literally lost in the dance of the flames.
“Now I understand Catholic worship,” Brian said quietly, but Justin didn’t move and didn’t even seem to notice him any more.
Vittorio, on the other hand, heard it very clearly. “We didn’t invent the flame. We have blessed it, just like the light of the Easter candle, the candles at Midnight Mass, or even the simple oil lamp we light in the evening for Vespers.”
The housekeeper placed the empty saucepan back in the lower compartment, but kept the ladle in the upper one until the fire had gone out. Then she took a long knife, warmed it briefly over the gas flame and made a precise cut into the bombé. The outer layer gave way first, soft and light; beneath it came the thin layer of marzipan, then the sponge, then the ice cream. Inside, the surprise was revealed in layers: pale green mastic ice cream, golden honey yoghurt, dark pieces of fig, light sponge strips and bright green pistachios, all layered together in eight layers.

Emmett sighed. “It’s cold on the inside, even though it’s burning on the outside.”
Emmett looked at the sliced bombé, then at the table. “Now I can’t wait to feel and taste it.”
The chef served it in silence. Pieces of exactly the same size on dessert plates to match the mocha service. Each was accompanied by a flambéed slice of orange, a fig, a few pomegranate seeds and a spoonful of hot syrup from the silver platter. The contrast caused the ice cream to melt slightly at the edges – not enough to run, just enough to bind the layers together.
Justin tasted the ice cream first. Mastic, honey, orange, the smoke from the flambé. He closed his eyes briefly.
Jilib was back, as a taste of salt and heat pressing against something cold. A reef in the dark. Black coral in hot seawater. Wine that didn’t belong there, and yet found its way there in his mind.
Brian looked at him. “Have you had too much of that Metaxa?”
“No,” said Justin. “Not enough, so far.”

Justine hadn’t left a crumb. She pushed the orange peel to the edge of her plate with her dessert fork and looked at Mary.
“Who was she?”
Mary put down her spoon. “The orange?”
“I wonder which of us Valeria Sebastienne wanted to drive mad with her death? The Cardinal or Sun, Lito or Wolfgang, Mum or Grandma? Was she a former lover of Brian’s or Justin’s, a dissatisfied customer of Emmett’s, or someone who wasn’t convinced by my game? There must be a reason why she’s lying dead in the courtyard. Dane died because he wanted to save others and I didn’t save him, but this woman, Valeria Sebastienne – she died without me knowing why. Isn’t that tragic?” Confused, she speared a piece of fig from Meghan’s plate and nibbled at it.
Meghan spooned up some ice cream and flinched when Justine finally popped the whole fig into her mouth.
Fiona said, “Justine, eat as we’ve taught you to when you’re a guest; this isn’t a student flat in London, Cape Town or Ottawa.”

“I’m sorry, Grandmother, but we’re sitting here eating burning ice cream whilst everyone overlooks the obvious facts. Every death has a motive, even if not every death has a meaning.”
“Dane’s death made no sense. He wouldn’t have had to die if you’d…,” Meghan said too quickly.
Fiona slammed her hand down on the table so suddenly that even Vittorio jumped. “Meghan, don’t do that! Only the Lord knows why He called Dane to Him so soon, but Justine is still your daughter, and she’s alive. Don’t forget that!”
Meghan picked up her spoon, then set it down again. “I loved my son.”
Justine defiantly flung her dessert fork onto her plate and raised her napkin to her mouth, but Justin noticed that she wasn’t wiping away traces of sugar, but trying to hide her tears. All her wit and charm couldn’t heal the wound inflicted by the lack of a mother’s love. She’d never been the second child—not even that. And she would have done anything to be the son Meghan had longed for and found in Dane, even though he’d left her for years to study in Rome.
Meghan fell silent.

Mary raised her head. “A family can grow even without affection, but it blows away in the wind if it forgets its ancestors and its descendants are never born.” Mary’s gaze turned to Justine, more gently than at any other moment that evening. “Child, you are our family’s only hope. When the three of us have long since passed away, like that Valeria out there, you will reign unchallenged over Drogheda, the land of our ancestors. You will spin silk, weave sheep’s wool and comb the red dust from your hair, evening after evening, because you know that it is your dust, from which you came and to which you shall return. It is your legacy. Only your legacy!”
Fiona closed her eyes, as if the first stone had finally fallen.
 
Meghan stirred her empty mocha cup with her spoon, whilst Justin reached for Fiona’s hand and squeezed it in agreement, a gesture Brian eyed suspiciously.
Vittorio set his cup down after emptying it. He didn’t want to break the silence at the table too soon. “Mary, the ice cream seems to have melted her heart.”
“What do you mean? I’m under no illusions: I’m old, Fiona’s old. And even Meghan wouldn’t be able to find a man to father any more children—if she’d ever been looking for one, that is—after that street thug Luke left her penniless to run off with his Arnie.”
Sun looked at Mary. “Does the loss of the money hurt her more than her niece’s disgrace?”
Mary’s gaze turned to her. “You’re a good listener, Miss Sun, the martial arts expert, but you may be underestimating my niece: like me, she tries to take what she desires. But like me, she has failed. A small consolation in my old age. Now I know it wasn’t my fault.”

Meghan wanted to stand up, but Fiona pressed her back down.
“Don’t make a scene, Meggie, Mary doesn’t mean it that way.”
Brian whispered, “It’s getting a bit too intense and family-oriented in here for my liking.”
Emmett heard him and turned pale.
Fiona placed the spoon precisely next to the plate. “We don’t need to discuss family matters in front of strangers who are only here to pay their last respects to Dane.”
Wolfgang growled, but Sun raised his hand almost imperceptibly. He didn’t stay silent for long: “I hated my dead father and took out my murderous uncle before he could kill me. Family’s always too much for me.”
Brian looked at Justin. Justin gazed at the melted line between the honey cream and the ice cream before taking another spoonful.
Lito sat very still. “My mother loves me,” he said. “Right now, I’m glad that’s the case.”
“Actor,” said Mary. “Always the obvious, with a flourish.”
“No,” said Justine, taken aback. “He’s right. I’d be happy too if my mother could love me. I don’t need the money, nor do I need Drogheda. I have every stage in the world, whether in London, Istanbul, Moscow, Tokyo or Vienna. But you can’t earn love.”
She looked at Fiona. “And you?”

Fiona picked up the spoon as if she were going to eat. Then she placed just one pistachio on it, which she brought to her mouth with excessive caution.
The bombé stood on the silver platter, now cut open, its layers laid bare. On the outside, the remnants of fire; on the inside, the cold structure. No one saw it merely as a dessert any more.
Justine gave a dry laugh. “You’re so good at maths, so witty in a verbal sparring match, but also as silent as the grave when someone asks for a sign of closeness. From Mexico to Japan or Poland, there’s no family quite like you.”
Mary looked at her.
The clock in the house struck deep enough for everyone to remember how late it had become.
Vittorio clasped his hands on the table. “The police won’t be here until early morning. We’re all tired. No one will be left alone tonight. No one will sleep alone. No one will move through the house alone, for the sake of us all.”
Mary smiled coldly. “And who will protect us from the person we’re sharing a room with?”
“I’ve chosen carefully who will share a room with whom. That way, no one is alone and no one has the chance to plot things with old acquaintances that the police won’t approve of.”
He said it so calmly that no one objected. Vittorio looked round the room, one by one.
“Mary and Miss Bak.”

Mary’s expression didn’t change, but the emerald around her neck moved with her breath. Sun looked at her calmly.
“Lito and Meghan.”
Meghan froze. Lito placed his napkin down beside his plate very slowly.
“Your Eminence,” said Meghan, “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“Yes, it is, because pairing Lito with Wolfgang or Sun would only increase Mary’s unease. So your great-aunt will keep an eye on Sun; and you’ll take charge of Lito, for the sake of the family.”
Lito looked at her with a kindness that didn’t waver. “I can be very discreet.”
Brian snorted.
Lito looked at him. “For money or for the camera.”
Meghan didn’t reply.

“Brian and Emmett, our above-suspicion friends from British Canada.”
Emmett looked up. “Oh.”
Brian slowly turned his head towards him. “Oh?”
“I just mean, I can’t remember if I’ve ever shared a room with you before – I mean, just with you alone.”
Vittorio continued before Brian could reply.
“Fiona and Wolfgang,” said Vittorio.
Fiona glanced at Wolfgang. Wolfgang glanced back.
“If that’s what’s wanted,” said Fiona.
For the first time since the Bombé, something flickered around Fiona’s mouth that was almost humour.
“Justin and Justine are staying with me,” said Vittorio. “We’ll take the first watch in the corridor.”
Mary turned to him immediately. “Why those two, of all people?”
“Because Justin is a keen observer and has a photographic memory. And because Justine belongs to this family, which is why her attention needs to be focused. In three hours’ time we’ll swap over, and you’ll take the second watch with Miss Bak and me.”

Justine looked at him. “Thank you for your trust, and for having Justin as my partner.”
Justin said nothing. He thought of the courtyard, the shoe, the stones, the handbag, the sliced-open ‘Bombé surprisè’ and Justine’s soft skin, which he remembered from the moment they’d held hands earlier on the terrace.
Brian leaned towards him. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to; go and lie down with Emmett, and I’ll look after your Australian countess.”
“Justine isn’t of the nobility,” said Justin. “And you don’t need to be jealous – I only have eyes for you – but tonight I have to keep watch over her so that no evil visions torment her or the cardinal.”
Vittorio turned to the housekeeper. “Please make up the beds in the rooms, then you can go and get some rest too; we won’t need you any more today.”
Emmett set down his mocha cup. His hands were calmer now than they had been earlier.
“Miss Bak,” he said, “if so much as a hair on Mrs Carson’s head is harmed tonight, no Korean martial art will be able to save you.”
Sun looked at him.
“I may look like a weak shop-window dresser,” said Emmett. “But I have an unshakeable loyalty.”
Sun didn’t reply straight away.

“I haven’t done anything to anyone here,” she said at last. “And I won’t do anything to anyone, except in self-defence. So no one who doesn’t intend to attack me needs to threaten me.”
Emmett nodded gravely.
Mary was the first to stand up. “So we’ll share rooms, just like we used to at the girls’ boarding school.”
Vittorio looked at the dessert, the edges of which were already starting to soften. “The leftovers from the Bombé surprisè will stay here on the sideboard, just like the coffee. Anyone staying up tonight might need some sugar or a strong drink.”

“It’ll melt,” Fiona pointed out.

“Then it’ll remind us that nothing keeps its shape if you wait too long.”