Louche but not horrible with it, focused but seemingly not, Tomas’s charm was wrapping her ever more tightly. ‘Why do you take an interest in me?’

‘When I first saw you, you seemed lost. I mean out of place.’

‘Is that surprising?’

‘The look on your face suggested that it went deeper than being a tourist without the guidebook.’

‘Prague on a Shoestring is very helpful.’

He made her stand up and moved very close. ‘Would you rather I said it’s because you’re beautiful?’

She would have done. Much rather. ‘You forgot to add… and irresistible.’

Tomas laughed. ‘I knew I wasn’t wrong.’

She drew in a breath and decided. ‘I could help out now if you wanted.’

He looked at her. ‘I do want.’

There was a marked inflection on the ‘want’.

Time to go inside: and Laure made herself as comfortable as possible on the bench for the performance of Don Giovanni.

The curtains were tugged back. A single marionette in a black cap and Pierrot costume lay crumpled on the dim, almost dark, stage. Only his outstretched hands had any light on them. Unusually, his puppet master stood directly behind him.

It was black-clad Lucia, her strong features blurred into the shadows.

From backstage sifted the high, sweet notes of a violin playing a lament. Very slowly, Pierrot reached up a hand, then a second. He unbent his knee, then the other and stood upright. Laure recognized the Prince marionette without the kerchief and red-checked shirt. Under this light, the mouth was accentuated and had become tragic and the features had shed their merriment.

He experimented with walking. Up and down. Up and down – a universe of bewilderment, anxiety and grief enshrined in the trembling figure. Then he turned, faced the audience, and placed his hand over his heart and left it there.

He was alive, she thought.

His hand fell to his side, and he appeared to stare straight at Laure. Come with me.

Laure sighed – and the Pierrot flowed through her.

He was leading the watchers over a boundary… between the real and the make-believe, between the inert and what lived, to the point where logic was abandoned and the illusion held sway.

The marionette looked up at its master. The master – Lucia – looked down at the marionette. Marionette and master gazed deep into each other’s eyes.

Who controls whom?

The music yearned and made her ache.

What can I live for?

Very deliberately, the puppet lifted his wooden hand, took hold of the string attached to his leg and, as he fixed his gaze on the puppet master, pulled the string up and down. His leg obeyed him.

He shook his head. Disbelief? Rejection?

Laure was gripping her hands so tightly that her nails dug into her flesh.