Leo’s interpretation of the photograph had been correct: Yolande had been a girl caught up in the protests rather than being at the forefront of them. Her heart was here, in the business, not the politics of the time. There was anger too. She saw this restaurant as her inheritance: she’d cleaned it, learned how to manage it, only to have others threaten it. Most of the anger was towards the injustice of the inspectors but some of it was for her father too.

—In the end, my father’s health got worse, so I took over the restaurant, changed everything except the name, turned it back into a business. No more politics. No more talk of changing the world. No more free meals.

While Nara translated, William joined the conversation, saying:

—My father used to say the best kind of activism was to run a good business, to pay your taxes, to make yourself the establishment.

Yolande shrugged.

—Jesse paid a lot of tax, more in a year than I’ve paid in my lifetime. Didn’t buy him any favours. They still hated him.

She opened a drawer, taking out cigarettes and a glass ashtray shaped like a leaf. From her reluctance, it seemed to be a habit she was trying to quit. Leo asked:

—Who killed him?

Yolande lit the cigarette.

—Is that what matters to you? The individual responsible? Or the thinking behind it?

Leo checked with Nara to see if he’d understood her question. He didn’t need to consider his answer for very long.

—I’m only interested in the individual. I’m not fighting against any system.

Yolande inhaled.

—We don’t know for sure who killed Jesse. My father reckoned it was the FBI. I never contradicted him but it didn’t ring true. The FBI had already beaten Jesse down. They’d taken everything he had, his career and his money: they’d smeared his name. It didn’t make sense to kill him. Maybe they were just so full of hatred they didn’t need a reason but as a businesswoman I find that hard to swallow.

A waitress brought in coffee, pouring it for each of them, allowing Nara to catch up with the translation. Leo took out his notes, transcribed from Elena’s diary. He said to Nara:

—On the day of Jesse Austin’s murder, my daughter arrived in Harlem, to speak to him, to persuade him to address the demonstration outside the United Nations. She encountered an FBI agent coming out of Austin’s apartment. She refers to him in the document as Agent 6. Ask if they have any idea who this might be?

Yolande thanked the waitress as she left.