As he got off at Brighton Beach the sun came out and Leo unbuttoned his coat, feeling warm despite it being late in the autumn. He looked at his surroundings with a sense of wonder, not having adjusted to the fact that this strange new world was home. The notion remained bizarre to him. Perhaps because of his daughters in Russia, he could not imagine ever truly feeling at home. After arriving in the United States, he, Nara and Zabi had spent several weeks moving between temporary accommodation in New Jersey – a disjointed, disruptive experience, but one which Leo found less peculiar than being given a permanent address. He’d insisted upon New York, disguising his true intentions by stressing that this area offered several advantages. There were a large number of Soviet immigrants so his lack of English was not a problem, nor was his foreignness as conspicuous as it would have been in smaller cities. He went largely unnoticed, living under a new name, telling the more curious that he’d fled from persecution.

Zabi and Nara lived in an apartment next to him, also under new names and also with fictional back-stories, pretending to be Pakistani rather than Afghan so that they were harder to trace should anyone come looking for them. They’d wanted Leo to live with them but it would undermine their assumed identities. Arranged in this fashion, they were two different immigrant households who’d befriended each other. Officially, Nara had become Zabi’s mother. She had the paperwork to prove it and Leo sometimes caught her studying it as if unable to believe the words. The girl she’d called out to be killed was now legally her child, a contradiction that she would think upon every day. Far from being destructive, though, it made her a devoted mother. Since she was young to have a daughter aged seven, any questions from outsiders regarding the matter were met with stern silence and the suggestion that the explanation was too bleak to detail – a partial truth, at least.

So it was that’s Leo’s fourth home was on Brighton’s 6th Street, in a third-floor apartment. They hadn’t been able to secure a sea view, in fact they didn’t have much of a view at all, but the apartment was comfortble, with air conditioning, a refrigerator and a television set. Unlike in the apartments in Kabul, he hadn’t removed the doors to other rooms. The unbearable restlessness was gone. He no longer needed opium: he was a detective again.

Unlocking the front door and entering the living room, Leo sensed someone else was in the room. Were it a Soviet operative, Leo would surely be killed before he had time to turn on the lights. With this in mind, he reached for the switch.

Same Day

Marcus Greene, impeccably tailored, took out a cigarette and sat down as though this was his home. He said:

—You seem nervous.