At the marionette theatre a notice scheduled an 8 p.m. performance. There was over half an hour to go but Laure singled out a bench in the auditorium and settled on it. Backstage, there were lively discussions going on, and the lights were being tested.

Dressed head to foot in puppeteer’s black, Lucia emerged. Black suited her and she looked magnificent. Like the warrior she was supposed to be. Sighting Laure, she frowned and came over. ‘Too early.’ Her English was comprehensible but heavily accented.

‘I don’t mind waiting.’

Lucia ran her eye over the dress and lifted an eyebrow. ‘It’s no use waiting for Tomas. He isn’t here.’

‘Right,’ said Laure, keeping her friendly smile fixed.

Lucia stuck her hands onto her hips. ‘You know something?’ Her accent deepened. ‘You are a nuisance and perhaps a problem.’

Even allowing for disparities in Lucia’s grasp of English, this was rude and Laure braced to fight back. ‘Don’t you like foreigners?’

‘They can make life difficult. They take revenge.’

Both were having trouble with the language which was slipping and sliding. ‘They? Who takes revenge?’

She shrugged. ‘Listen, you are not… us. We do not know how you think or what you believe. The foreigners he brings here are trouble. It happened before. Tomas should have nothing to do with you.’

‘Why don’t you find out what I think?’

‘No point.’

The hissed words were a challenge. Lucia turned on her heel and vanished, leaving Laure marooned on her bench.

‘Don’t worry,’ said a voice in English from backstage. ‘Tomas is coming later. He and Leo are trying to sober up Manicki.’ A stocky figure with receding sandy hair emerged into view. Like Lucia’s, his English was heavily accented but his was of a different order and more fluent. ‘I’m Milos. I look after the puppets and do set designs and lighting. I am so important they cannot do without me. And, to keep me in bread and vodka, I paint portraits of fat Party officials.’ He sent Laure a gap-toothed smile of singular sweetness. ‘You must not pay attention to Queen Lucia. She wants war and is hard on anyone who’s not in her army.’ He peered at Laure. ‘Don’t be upset. Why don’t I introduce you to some of my children?’

‘Children?’

‘Forgive me. I mean, the marionettes.’

He led Laure backstage to a small room where rows of marionettes of all shapes and sizes hung from the wall and shelves, stacked with boxes, reached from floor to ceiling. The windows had been thrown wide open to counter the heat and the sound of people passing filtered in.

‘Meet the Kaspars,’ said Milos, laying out a pair of marionettes on the table. ‘I think you will know them as Punch and Judy. They are the oldest ones in Europe. Not these, of course. But who they are.’

Splayed out, the Kaspars resembled small corpses.