Fortunately, the journey was a short one. The train ground through Prague’s suburbs which gave way to countryside dotted with birch and ash, through which threaded streams and rivers.

Not that Laure could see much. She concentrated on keeping her balance and tried not to mind the reek of the meat sandwiches that the woman in front of her was handing out to her family.

Apparently, chata was the name given to huts and cottages in the country to which every man, woman and child decamped whenever possible. ‘If you can get around the building-licence racket,’ said Tomas, ‘you can build. Depends on who you know. If you can’t, you rent. As decadent musicians, we have to rent.’ He went a little moody for a minute or two. ‘But no goons,’ he said. ‘No restrictions. No propaganda.’

Laure watched the sandwiches being consumed, anxious that she had packed the right clothes. Jeans. A cotton skirt. The dress that had aroused so much comment? She was no longer as fond of it as she had thought. It seemed, somehow, inappropriate.

From the station, it was the matter of a twenty-minute walk to a hamlet outside where Tomas ushered her up the path to a one-storey, clapboard building with a red roof. ‘We bribed the owners into letting Anatomie take it for the season.’ He was extra wry. ‘Which wasn’t easy. We’re marked men and nobody much wants to do business with us.’

Her rucksack strap was digging into her shoulders and she shifted it. Tomas reached over and took it from her. ‘Have you been arrested?’ she asked.

‘Twice. Each time you lose a life.’ He observed her appalled expression. ‘It’s how it is here.’

Rubbing her released shoulder, she asked, ‘Do you ever think of escaping to the West?’

The words had not left her lips before there was a subtle alteration in his demeanour. A shuttered expression replaced the smiling ease. ‘Why do you keep asking?’

She was bewildered. ‘I— sorry. Have I offended you?’

‘Don’t ask those questions, Laure. Just don’t.’

He turned his back and banged on the door.

Manicki opened the door and it was obvious he was drunk. ‘Sorry.’ His hot, alcohol-laden breath almost knocked her back. ‘I had to keep up with the others.’ He led them into a sitting area which had a stove and rooms opening off it.

It was chaos. A prone Leo snored on the sofa. Someone else was behind it, probably male judging by the heavy lace-up shoes. Dirty beer glasses were everywhere, the stub end of a sausage and breadcrumbs littered the table and the room stank of sweat, cigarettes and sour beer.

Tomas aimed a kick at the body behind the sofa. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t meant to be this bad.’

Still recovering from the way their conversation had gone wrong and, yes, revolted by the squalor, Laure said, ‘Should I go?’