Zoë brushes aside Pavlo’s fingers, which are still trying to find their way into his pocket. It has been a while since his last fix. She sighs, fishes out his cigarette packet, takes out two and lights them with his matches. She sticks one in her brother’s mouth and inhales her own, thoughtfully. Pavlo’s habit is getting worse. If only they could find a way to keep that girl Feathers away from him. She remembers when she first saw Feathers, staring at Pavlo in a trance, that night in the Teké Hanoum after Mama’s funeral. The little dancer and part-time whore from the slums of Drapetsona. But Pavlo had felt sorry for her, and Zoë had too – why not? She was an orphan too, a refugee – until Feathers had given Pavlo some heroin to smoke one night. Had she known that it would take him over so completely? Of course, Zoë thinks now. Feathers had just wanted company. She’s stupid and vain, but she was clever enough to see that Pavlo needed a way to escape. ‘Aman,’ she mutters bitterly. Her brother is all need. A creature of needs and dreams.

‘As long as Semsis keeps paying us, I’ll keep rounding up his lost lambs,’ Apostoli is saying. ‘But what in Christ’s name were you doing in Khalkis, Pavlo? It wasn’t just for that bloody bouzouki?’

‘A girl, what else! A girl, right, you little sod?’ Vangeli reaches behind him, plucks the cigarette from Pavlo’s lips and turns back, chuckling. He puts his garish co-respondent shoes up on the shelf in front of him.

‘Mind the fucking veneer!’ shouts Apostoli. ‘It’s walnut, you peasant!’

‘Well …’ Pavlo pushes the hat back on his head. He winces. ‘No, not a girl. There’s an old boy in Khalkis who makes these fantastic bouzoukis. Old-style. Beautiful …’ He shrugs.

‘So Hitler’s just undone his fly to piss on Greece and you decide to wander up to Khalkis?’ Apostoli clicks his tongue with exasperation.

‘That’s why Semsis got us to rescue him,’ Zoë says. ‘Because he’s got soul. Eh, you old sods?’ She pushes her knee into the back of Vangeli’s seat. ‘Remember what that is?’

They all laugh. ‘Thanks, Zoë,’ Pavlo mumbles. He holds his bouzouki just a little tighter. ‘Wait ’til you hear this thing. She really sings. Really old-fashioned, Turkish, like Yovan Tsaous plays. The old boy that made it comes from Smyrna, you know. I asked him …’

‘Och, Pavlo. No one remembers.’ Zoë shakes her head, thinking that Katina Valavani had been right after all, that it’s all gone, the past, as if it never existed; but she knows Pavlo means well, so she gives him a smile. ‘So let’s see this famous bouzouki that you had to snatch from under Hitler’s nose.’

‘Well …’ Pavlo shifts the blanket-wrapped bowl of the instrument in his lap.

‘Let’s see it, then!’