‘Oh, my dear. It was the night you left – and thanks be to God you did leave. Ioannis Pandelis and his thugs did it. I looked out when they kicked down the door, and then I saw flames. My God, what a sight! Haven’t we all seen dreadful things, my dear one, dreadful things, all our lives? That God should still be testing us …’ She waves a hand in the air, the fingers clawed with rheumatism. ‘It has happened often enough, the Lord knows, but next door, and to Katina Valavani’s daughter? God rest her soul, that poor woman … And you, dear one. But at least you are alive. When we saw the house burning, we believed you were inside, that Pandelis had murdered you and the Sotirakis girl. Dear God! We woke the neighbourhood with our screams. If Mr Castanides had not arrived – he’s been in Haidari, the poor man, the martyr, but they let him out last week – and told us that EAM had saved you, we would be mourning still. Sólon the gendarme, wasn’t it, Zoë mou? Who took you away?’

Zoë nods her head. It feels alien, a mannequin’s head on a gimbal. ‘It was Sólon,’ she rasps. ‘Was there anything ? … I mean, did you save anything?’

‘Nothing. People came with buckets and water and put out the flames, thanks be to God, otherwise Kyria Castanides and I would have been homeless as well. We poked through the ashes but there was nothing, my dear, except what you see.’

Zoë forces herself to turn and look. The heap is being given what form it has by the blackened lattice of Mama’s iron bedstead. Behind it, a shape that might be the kitchen sink. ‘I had nothing left,’ she says at last, and takes the old woman’s hand in her own. ‘So I suppose I have lost nothing. Isn’t that a blessing?’

‘Here.’ Mrs Kodjagas holds out a spotless white handkerchief for her, because the tears are starting to pour down her face. ‘Cry. God knows that we have learnt how to do that.’ The old woman sighs and leans against Zoë, and her slight weight is more comforting than Zoë will ever be able to explain. ‘Cry, Zoë Valavani. But not too much. Something will turn up.’

‘Will it?’

‘I don’t know. But we can say that. Fate has taken everything else, but she’s left us our tongues, eh, to say foolish things?’ She chuckles hoarsely and threads her arm through Zoë’s. ‘You can build another house. That one was just boards and mud. Perhaps there will be bricks now. Brick houses for everyone! When the Turks killed my husband, I was sure I’d been left with nothing. And now the government is going to build me a brick house to die in.’ She chuckles again. ‘Something always turns up.’

‘Thank you, Kyria Venetia.’