It isn’t far to the house but Zoë can hardly walk and the sunlight is deepening to amber by the time she gets there. Surely the street wasn’t this damaged when she left? There is shattered glass everywhere and a stalled tank squats in a tangle of railings and a telephone pole. The door of the house is slightly open. She falls inside. The deserted ground floor echoes as she calls out, ‘Toli! Andromache!’ Stumbling up the stairs, head spinning, she trips on the top step and sprawls across the bare floorboards. On the floor, breathing in the familiar stench of imprisonment – stale tobacco and the overflowing toilet – she starts to shiver. ‘Apostoli!’ On her hands and knees, she crawls to the door of the room where they have been living. It is empty. There is the bed, sweat-stained sheets hanging from the mattress. There is the tin full of cigarette ends. But she is alone. ‘Apostoli!’ she shrieks, staggering from room to room. But there is no sign of them. She goes back downstairs, clinging to the bannister, and out into the street. A woman in a black coat, with a black headscarf around her head, is prodding the tank with her walking stick. Zoë knows her vaguely: before the war she and her husband sold cheese and cream, but now, widowed, the woman spends most of her time in church.

‘It’s blocking our shop,’ she says angrily, when she sees Zoë.

‘Have you seen my friends?’ Zoë asks. She is shaking badly now; her teeth are chattering. ‘Mr and Mrs Vikos, from number 14?’

‘What a day! Christ and the Holy Virgin …’ The woman crosses herself. ‘First it was the fighters, ELAS boys and girls, coming down the street, banging on doors. They took people away, dear. Then the British came. There was a lot of shooting – dear God!’ She presses her hands to her ears, then holds them up towards heaven. ‘But now it is over.’

‘My friends. Apostoli and Andromache Vikos. Did you see them?’

‘Aren’t you well, kyria? You’re covered in blood. Will you come and sit down?’

‘No!’ Zoë sees hurt appear in the woman’s eyes and she feels her own eyes growing wet. ‘I’m sorry. Please, please tell me what happened to my friends.’

The woman shakes her head. ‘But I don’t know. I saw some people being taken away. Then this tank …’ She hits it viciously with her stick.

Zoë leaves the old woman and goes back to the empty house. She is so cold that it feels as if flames are licking her. She finds her dirty peach quilt and wraps herself in it. I’ll just sit here for a minute to warm up, she tells herself, but in a moment she is asleep.