It was dinner time, but the Mafia Don had not arrived. His lovely wife stood, biting her lower lip, glancing at the clock before she turned to her daughter Tara, who was cheerfully munching on a peanut jelly sandwich at the breakfast bar.

‘Tara, darling, round up the little ones, please. And Bianca, would you like to help her?”

The words were spoken sweetly but Bianca guessed that it was Proserpina’s way of suggesting that she move out of the kitchen and stop behaving like a lost ghost.

With a baby latched to her hip, the Mafia don’s wife came forward and gently stroked Bianca’s hair as she said,

‘Your...