Twenty minutes had passed and he hadn’t moved, standing in the same spot, hands behind his back. The guards at the United Nation were staring at him, suspicious. Taxi cabs slowed to see if there was somewhere he needed to be. But there was nowhere else he needed to be. There were no more journeys to be made. Now his task was purely an investigative one. Peering up at the skyscrapers he considered them to be holders of the city’s secrets, silent giants, answers locked away in steel, concrete and glass. He did not lay a flower. He had no interest in any memorial except to catch his wife’s killer.

He’d been instructed not to come here for security reasons. It would be easy for the Soviets to find him if they ever suspected his defection. This would be the first place they’d stake out. As was his way, he ignored the instructions. He walked towards the subway station, conscious that he was being followed. He knew this to be true without stopping and turning around, without seeing the agent on his tail, or glimpsing him out of the corner of his eye. His instincts had been honed over many years. He didn’t blame the American secret police for trying to keep tabs on him. Normally he’d allow them to follow him so that they’d feel reassured. But not today – he had work to do, and he did not want the company of the FBI.

Bradhurst

Harlem

West 145th Street

Walking past the apartment building where Jesse Austin once lived, Leo resisted going in. He haunted the location as though he believed that some trace of the past remained, some imprint of the day when young Elena had arrived, with dreams of equality and fairness. His persistence had not yet been rewarded: queries had been rebuffed on every occasion with responses that ranged from hostile to blank incomprehension. There was no one in the building he hadn’t approached, acquiring a reputation with the inhabitants as a crank. When he’d knocked on what was once Jesse Austin’s door he’d addressed the current occupants, a young couple, in rudimentary awkward English, asking if they knew anything about Jesse Austin. They shook their head, seemingly under the impression that he was looking for someone who lived there now. Unable to articulate his real purpose, he’d taken out the newspaper clippings of the assassination. From their confusion, they had no knowledge of the event, no idea who Jesse Austin was, and certainly no idea why this strange foreign man was asking about him sixteen years after the murder. Though they’d been more polite than most, they’d shut the door and locked it.