‘One more thing,’ said László. ‘You mentioned Kurt Engelbrecht. If I find that you have involved him in any of this I will go directly to the authorities and denounce you. Is that understood?’

‘Yes,’ said Emil. ‘Perfectly.’ He went with László as far as the head of the stairs, where the young man in the sports jacket was waiting for them.

‘You know,’ said László, ‘whatever anyone may have told you about me, the truth is I was never much of a “freedom fighter”.’

Emil smiled. ‘I did not think you were Che Guevara, monsieur.’

‘You see,’ said László, looking down into the well of the courtyard where the late afternoon sunlight was heaped up in a corner, ‘I couldn’t pull the trigger. Did you know that?’

‘We do what we can,’ said Emil. ‘Each in his way.’

‘Yes,’ said László. ‘But I did nothing.’ He turned to his guide. ‘Let’s go.’

Emil watched them from the top step. As they came to the turn in the stairs he said: ‘Sometimes we have a second chance, monsieur.’ He was not sure, however, if the playwright had heard him.

5

At 6 a.m. British Summer Time, flight BA902 from SFO floated through cloudbanks suffused with morning light, Sister Kim praying serenely, until England appeared in a rush of housing estates and tiny fields. An A-road, a motorway, an athletics ground, an industrial estate. It was a landscape without much grandeur to it, but from the air, at least, it had some quality of the homely, the delicately human, pleasing after so much time amid the towers and deserts of the American immense.

Alec was waiting for them as they came through the automatic doors at arrivals; a pale, weary-looking figure among the huddle of early greeters. He waved and smiled. Larry, carrying the big suitcases, smiled back, thinking how there was always at such moments a disconcerting adjustment to be made, as if the person who had come to meet you could never quite be the person you had expected. Even a face, a posture as familiar as his own brother’s, seemed subtly misremembered.

When he cleared the barrier he put down the cases. Alec held out his hand but Larry pulled him into a hug, immediately learning more of the true history of the last weeks than any amount of talking could have produced. Not just the fizz of tension in his brother’s body, but that smell of unhappiness, like a room in a house where children have been punished.

Ella turned up her face. Alec kissed her forehead.

‘Good flight?’

‘Crappy flight. Thanks for coming to get us.’

‘No problem.’

You’re looking good,’ said Larry.

‘Really?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Alec, raising an eyebrow as though everything were irony.

As they crossed the road to the carpark, he said: ‘She’s coming back today. Una’s bringing her from the hospital around four.’