Because he couldn’t think of what else to do, Petr helped himself to a second slice of sausage.

‘Am I prying if I asked what happened? I was fond of her and I would like to know.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me,’ he demanded of Eva when the situation became intolerable. ‘Because I wanted to be married,’ she replied.

‘Eva and I married within months of having met each other. She didn’t let on about the illness in her family. It was possible she could have been perfectly healthy all her life. The doctors told me that two difficult births probably triggered it.’

‘And?’

‘She was being treated at Sainte-Anne in Paris when you arrived. After I was called back to Prague, the treatment was different. The doctors wanted to give her ECT and Eva refused.’

Taking about it gave relief. Even more so when – unexpectedly – Laure reached over and took Petr’s hand. It was light, noncommittal, but it had been a long time since Petr had been touched in that way.

He looked down at Laure’s hand around his and remembered the time he had held hers in Kampa Park and began to talk. ‘She said she was living in a prison. One night she let herself out of the flat. I don’t know if anyone saw her. But she walked down to the river and threw herself from a bridge.’ Laure pressed his fingers. ‘She left behind a photograph of the three of us. It was the one taken in Paris by the Eiffel Tower. There was a message written on the back. She wrote she wanted to give us peace, and to forgive her that she had failed us.’

‘To say I’m sorry is inadequate. But I am sorry.’

‘Laure…?’ A tiny vein pulsed at his temple. She took her hand away, leaving its imprint, and he logged a rush of exhilaration through his body. ‘People don’t die until you forget them. Even if you are looking at a heap of their bones.’

She gave him a fierce, hard stare. ‘Then you know.’

This was the moment he had planned. ‘There’s a reason I’ve made contact. I have something for you.’ He got up and fetched the package and held it out.

She made no move to take it. ‘A present?’

‘In a way.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought it might build a bridge.’

‘I don’t want to take anything from you, Petr. Ever.’

Although it was not unexpected, the rebuke stung. ‘Think of it, then, as being from the theatre company.’

‘The company?’ She was startled. ‘This is from the company?’

He handed Laure a package. It was wrapped in stained brown paper and secured with string and he watched her tackle the knot. The wrapping peeled back to expose a flat, shallow box. She lifted the lid to expose an inner wrapping of yellowed newspaper. Dust sifted from it as she pulled it aside.