Kotsev shrugged. ‘If they could afford it. Yes, it was easy to beat British immigration controls. But this was expensive for a Bulgarian worker. Fraudulent papers might cost up to three thousand pounds. It’s funny, you know – that was about the same amount of money that many British people were spending at that time on buying up cheap homes in my country, to spend a summer month by the Black Sea. Would you consider that irony, Diane?’

‘Yes, that’s irony, Georgi.’

Their feet echoed on the bridge. Fry had been thinking that she’d welcome the lights and the sight of people in the street. But instead she felt suddenly reluctant to leave the darkness and the quietness of the river. She stopped halfway across the bridge and leaned on the parapet. Kotsev came to stand next to her, sharing that mysterious attraction to water.

‘You understand, the process for applying for a visa as a self-employed person became a very nice loophole,’ he said. ‘But there always had to be an invitation of some kind. There were plenty of people who wanted to bend the rules, but they needed a partner in Britain. An individual in your country could set up a company, offer a Bulgarian worker a job, and then look the other way when he slipped off – in exchange for cash, of course. You see, the corruption and greed is not all in Bulgaria.’

‘There must have been risks, though.’

‘Any risks were worth taking. You try to get a hundred individuals into the country and succeed only with forty? You’ve still made a hundred thousand pounds. That’s a great many stotinki for a Bulgarian.’

‘This all blew up into a scandal a couple of years ago, didn’t it? I remember the immigration minister having to resign, and visa applications from Bulgaria were suspended. But it was too late by then, I suppose?’

‘Indeed. Too late.’

‘The words “horse”, “stable door” and “bolted” come to mind.’

‘Now you’re making as much sense as my one-legged roofer.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Kotsev smiled at her, his eyes crinkling again. ‘You appreciate, there is a lot of information I do not have myself. But I’m sharing with you what I know – because I think we understand each other.’

Any answer would have felt awkward, so a moment of silence developed. For a few seconds, it was just the two of them, surrounded by darkness and silence, gazing into the water. Fry looked down at their hands, hers and Georgi’s. They were so close on the rail that they were almost touching. She felt as if she was an inch away from something unexpected, a contact she could so easily reach out for, and hold on to.