She glanced up at Petr with a question mark. ‘Go on,’ he said.

With a cry, Laure eased a female marionette puppet out of the box. ‘Is it?’

‘Have a look,’ he said, with a cast-iron certainty that he had walked a path to the edge of a precipice from which there was no return.

The marionette’s strings were neatly knotted down the back and the control bar tied up with ribbon. ‘That’s Milos’s work,’ she said tenderly. ‘He was meticulous about putting the marionettes away properly. Always. Always. His life’s work.’ She touched a wooden hand. ‘You know they’re carved out of lime wood and some of them are very valuable?’ Her voice trembled. ‘It’s Marenka. I know her. I would know her anywhere.’

CHAPTER 22

‘IT IS MARENKA,’ HE SAID.

Laure gave a cry and, lifting the marionette onto her lap, she cradled her as if she was a child. ‘I’ve dreamt of her all these years. Of them. Of that time.’

He watched as she struggled for calm.

‘After I met you here, I knew you should have her. The company was disbanded and their stuff confiscated. I got hold of her and she’s been in my storeroom ever since.’

Laure stroked the wooden head. ‘Did you wait patiently to get your life back, Marenka? Or did you howl in your agony but nobody heard?’

‘Stop it,’ said Petr. ‘Please.’

‘They have a soul, you know. Marionettes, I mean. They have life, too. They grieve.’

This was a side to Laure he had not seen.

‘No,’ he contradicted. ‘We grieve. Not them.’

She shook her head. ‘Marenka, the Prince, Pierrot and the others are alive. Perhaps you don’t see it.’ She smiled at him, politely, as if she was sounding out a new acquaintance. ‘A good puppeteer knows they live in a parallel existence to us. If they are to connect, then he or she must love them.’

This Marenka had a scarlet mouth, heavily lashed eyes, one blue, one green, and a crack running up her right ear. Laure traced the crack with her thumb. ‘She was damaged when Lucia dropped her. We were having an argument and I always think it was deliberate.’ She searched in the box. ‘I wonder if… yes.’ She exhumed a square of folded material which, unfolded, became a bride’s veil. ‘It’s still here. Lucia made it from an old family heirloom. She showed me.’ She stroked the lace with a fingertip and placed it over Marenka’s head. ‘I was horrified.’

Laure’s romanticism touched him. ‘They’re certainly part of our culture,’ he said.