‘Should I take that as a compliment?’

‘Take it how you wish but I expect it’s how you manage to live with yourself.’

He had not expected a direct challenge, or the underlying aggression, quite so soon. ‘I expect it is.’

Laure appeared to recollect her manners. ‘And Eva? And the children?’

‘Eva’s dead.’

He could never say it easily. Contained in the words were guilt and rage for the marriage which had promised so much. Suddenly, he felt he could not bear to be in this room, at this reception. Or, at this point in his life.

‘Dead…?’ Shock made her stutter.

‘Soon after you went back home.’

The cool manner cracked. ‘My God, the poor children. I’m so sorry. So sorry.’

He had schooled himself to be matter-of-fact. ‘The children suffered. Of course. But they’re grown now. Jan is training to be a lawyer in Prague and Maria is at university in Paris.’

‘Do you have a photo?’

Petr took his wallet out of his pocket and flipped it open to show a photo of his son and daughter.

‘Curious isn’t it? At one time, I was familiar with their every breath. Now, I wouldn’t recognize them. But they are good-looking.’ She touched their faces with a fingertip. ‘Are you living in Berlin?’

There it was: the innocent, polite question which was almost certainly being asked all over the room. The technique was to release just so much information and nothing more. ‘I’m here on business. Then back to Prague.’

Ploughing grimly on with her job, the waitress with the reddest lipstick and lowest neckline nudged Petr’s elbow with a tray of drinks. Laure declined but Petr helped himself to a fresh one.

‘It’s a coincidence that we’ve met.’ He was wrong. There had been an inevitability about meeting Laure. There had to be. ‘Perhaps we could have a drink?’

She was now in possession of herself. ‘What on earth would make you think that I wish to see you?’

‘The past.’

‘No.’

Flat. Non-negotiable. ‘I was… fond of you, Laure. It was, as you must admit, an impossible situation.’

‘Whatever you may think, there’s nothing to connect us any longer.’

‘But there is,’ he said.

He had caught her off guard and, for a second, there was a glimpse of the young Laure who had enchanted him. ‘There isn’t, Petr. But I will grieve for Eva. She did not have it easy and I’m glad to know the children are thriving.’

He searched the beautiful but, as he now saw, haunted face, and regretted the loss of its openness. ‘It is the past.’

‘It will never be the past,’ she replied with a ferocity that took him aback.

‘So, no forgiveness for either of us?’