But after tucking your letter into a drawer in the writing desk where I pay my bills, I thought nothing more of it until yesterday, while walking on the old bridle path through a lovely wood. Out of nowhere, it struck me that the Vidor Kiraly you mentioned could indeed be someone my family knew, and the mix-up due to my brother’s name being Vida, a variant of Vidor. Your Vidor would be the right age to have been a friend of my brother. He was always known as Vida, though his full name was Vidor Péter Molnar. Péter was my mother’s name before she married. It was a common practice to use the mother’s family name as a child’s middle name.

Even so, the person you’re looking for couldn’t possibly be my brother. He died of virulent meningitis at the age of twelve. A terrible tragedy for my family. My mother took to her bed and stayed there for months. So long ago it was, but the memory of that terrible time has stayed with me, just as clear as if it happened last week. Strange to think that if Vida had lived, he’d be in his late fifties now.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any more help to you. I emigrated to Canada almost forty years ago and am as settled here as anywhere on this green earth. With each passing year, my former life seems to fade into the mists. He was a lovely boy, our Vida. It gives me comfort to think that his brief time on earth might be preserved, like a butterfly under glass, in someone else’s memory.

The rain is coming down in buckets. I must sign off now and hurry to shut the windows.

Yours sincerely,

Anna Kiraly Molnar

Gessen tucked the letter into Vidor’s ever-growing file. A pity. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. What he should do was ask Vidor point blank where his sisters were living. But he doubted Vidor would be so forthcoming. Not when it was obvious Gessen wanted to contact his family members to dig up salacious details on Vidor’s life.

If he didn’t make any progress in the next few sessions, he would have to pull out his trump card. Inform Vidor that the man he attacked in Copenhagen had subsequently died, and that his own life and liberty were on the line. It was a risky tactic, so he would have to tread carefully. Vidor might fabricate a horrific event from his past that resulted in chronic post-traumatic stress. Or he could easily fake additional episodes of psychosis, muddying the waters even more. Whatever trauma Vidor came up with would be difficult to corroborate, and where would that leave him? Colluding with Vidor, intentionally or not, to have him absolved of the crime of killing an innocent man.