Laure pulled herself back into her embassy persona. ‘Does forgiveness matter? It would make it easier for you perhaps. As for me, a psychotherapist or a priest would advise me that to forgive is the best thing for mental health. Let alone the spirit.’ She looked away. ‘For all sorts of reasons, I had a go at it. But I can’t.’

‘You could try again,’ he suggested gently.

There were shadows at the back of her eyes. ‘No.’

‘Does that mean you cannot forgive yourself?’

‘That’s a false assumption.’

He spread out his hands in a gesture intended to convey: I don’t agree.

She gestured to the now thinning numbers of guests. ‘David is signalling that my lot should go. Meanwhile, by the look of it your side are partying hard. They look hungry for deals and new business.’

‘They are hungry. The West does not hold a monopoly on ideas or energy.’

‘No.’ She smoothed the sleeve of her blouse and a flash of emotion escaped. ‘I always think… I can’t help thinking that, if I had met Tomas three years later, it would have been all right.’ She blinked. ‘It would have been all right.’

‘Do you know what happened to him?’

Her gaze slid past his shoulder. ‘You know I don’t.’

He took his card from his wallet and held it out. ‘We could try to find out.’

It was a deliberate, and cruel, challenge and she gasped audibly. ‘What did you say?’

He repeated it, watching the expression in her eyes – the colour of which she had once, dancing around the apartment with Maria, referred to jokingly to as ‘gooseberry’.

‘Why would you help?’

‘Because—’

She cut him off. ‘There’s nothing you could tell me, Petr, that I don’t know. I was employed by you, I loved Tomas, there was trouble, and I left to come home. That’s all. I now have my work here and I’m concentrating on that.’

It was a good story and he was almost fooled. Neither too provocative, nor too boring but neutral.

As he knew she would, she accepted the card. ‘Chief Executive, Potio Pharmaceuticals.’ An eyebrow flew up. ‘You’ve turned capitalist.’

She meant: Aren’t you still working for the Státní Bezpecnost?

‘If you phone that number, the message will get to me.’

The late evening was murderously cold. He buried his gloved hands in his overcoat pockets and headed eastwards towards his hotel.