The car lurches and rattles over the uneven tarmac. Zoë’s backside feels as if it is fusing with the cracked leather of the back seat. With every pothole, the car’s failing suspension punches her stomach up into her diaphragm.

‘All of this, for a bloody bouzouki,’ she says, wincing, glaring at Pavlo.

‘What was that, Zozo?’ Pavlo is fumbling in his waistcoat pocket for cigarettes. His grey trilby has slipped down over his eyes, so that when she glances at him, all she sees is his large, handsome nose and the swooping wings of his moustache. Zoë clicks her tongue in annoyance. It is impossible to be angry with her brother.

‘I said, we should have left you for the Germans. But Semsis couldn’t make his record without the great Pavlo Valavani.’

Apostoli lets out a bark of laughter. ‘Semsis doesn’t care about Pavlo! It’s you he fancies, Zoë. And thank Christ for that!’

‘Very funny.’ Zoë looks out of the window at a landscape her city-bred eyes don’t really understand. Yes, she is annoyed with Pavlo, but perhaps there are worse things than being out here, away from Piraeus, which is a saucepan about to boil over with the tension of the past few weeks. And with her, good friends. Her band. I didn’t have to come, she tells herself. I could have stayed in Kokkinia, stewing with everybody else. But these are the ones I want to be with now. We’ve been through it all together. This is no different.