‘The neighbourhood knows how I have suffered, Kyria Venetia,’ Zoë says, making the ritual response. The neighbourhood is the judge: this is the inviolable law of Kokkinia, and now it has judged Zoë and found her wronged. She is puzzling on this strange reversal of fate when there is a commotion from the cafe down the streets. Zoë stands up to see what is happening. She sees two Battalionists dragging a man out into the street. They are screaming at him, then they take their pistols out. Zoë braces herself for the shots, her hand making a fist around the artillery badge in her pocket, but instead they begin to beat the man with the butts. In a moment, the man’s face is red with blood and he has dropped to his knees, trying to shield his head with his hands, but they keep beating him. The whole street hears the man’s fingers snap. When he has collapsed into the gutter they start kicking him, roaring with laughter. They give him one last kick, and one of them bends down and roars into his ear, ‘You fucking red queer! Can’t take your medicine?’ The two Battalionists put their pistols away. But then the one who yelled pivots around, pulls his gun out again, leans down abruptly and shoots the man in the back of the head. There is a bright jet of blood, the body jerks and one shoe flies off and lands in the doorway of the cafe.

‘Fucking swine.’ The man is buckling his holster. He turns to look up the street and Zoë sees who it is. Ioannis Pandelis. Captain Ioannis Pandelis of Security Battalion Four. Sólon Pandelis’s brother. Their eyes meet.

‘What are you staring at, you two whores?’ he shouts, throwing back his shoulders. ‘This—’ He bangs his chest. ‘This is a Greek patriot! Why do you fear me? Are you a couple of reds?’ Pandelis struts towards them. He still has the pistol in his hands, and he waves it at them. ‘Up! Up!’

Zoë’s skin turns to ice. ‘Don’t move, Kyria Venetia,’ she whispers, and stands up.

‘Come here!’ Pandelis roars. Biting her lip, Zoë walks over to him, keeping her head up, though the effort is painful. Pandelis reaches out for her. His fingers dig into the muscles around her collarbone.

‘Let go of me!’

‘Zoë Valavani. Still singing your Turkish songs with your queer of a brother?’

‘I still sing,’ Zoë manages to say. ‘The songs my mother taught to me.’