‘I’m sorry. Pavlo talked about you all the time. He loved his sister, he always said. And he was going to quit.’

‘No, he wasn’t, my friend. What’s your name?’

‘Dimitri.’

‘My brother was good at love, Dimitri. Good at loving people, bloody terrible at being loved. You don’t have to come here, after dragging my brother’s corpse out of the way of your precious life, to tell me he loved his sister.’ She puts her hands on Apostoli’s shoulders and stands up to face the man. ‘He was never going to quit, because he went through life like a man with his skin on the wrong way round, and everything hurt, and he didn’t understand anything except heroin and the roads.’ She sucks in air; her lungs hurt. ‘I’m glad he’s dead, because he doesn’t have to waste his love on this shit any more.’

‘He was a real mangas,’ says Niko. His shoulders are quivering.

‘Yiassou, Pavlaki,’ says Apostoli. He splashes brandy into his glass and drains it.

‘Yiassou,’ shouts Niko.

‘Yiassou, Pavlaki mou,’ the others echo. Zoë notices Dimitri edging towards the door. She slips away from the men.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I know you can’t help it. He’d have done the same to you if it was your turn. Or to me. Jesus, why …’ She looks down at the letter in her hand and stops herself. ‘I mean, thank you for bringing me this. That was a good thing you did.’

‘It was nothing. I’m sorry.’ Dimitri wraps his arms around himself, and for a moment he reminds her of Pavlo. ‘It was that good German shit, you know,’ he says, distantly. ‘With the war and everything, the famine, it was like he’d found a seam of gold. Kept us alive.’

‘Until it killed him.’

Dimitri hesitates, then shrugs. His eyes are desolate. ‘True. But why are any of us still breathing?’ he mutters, and slips out through the door.