‘But Zivco is my friend.’ Bilbija was surprised to hear his voice catch with emotion.

‘You have no friends, not even me.’

‘Then why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I’ve read your poetry,’ said Radovan. ‘You are a terrible poet, but better to be a terrible poet than no poet at all.’

So Bilbija had kept his mouth shut, and within hours events had swung in his favor. Radovan had prevailed upon Spiridon to split his forces to avoid attracting attention. Aleksej Marković was on his way to Paris anyway, and Bilbija was told to lie low but remain in contact. Radovan had given him the number of the lawyer Frend in Vienna, and an email address that would be checked four times daily. On Radovan’s instructions, Bilbija had headed east, to Prague, which was no great imposition. Bilbija had always loved the city, and thought that if he had to hide out somewhere, at least it might as well be in a place for which he had some affection.

Luca Bilbija’s particular vice was gambling, but he did not enjoy wagering in solitude and took no pleasure from staring at a screen. He relished the ambience of casinos, the excited anticipation of men and women waiting on the spin of a wheel or the turn of a card. He liked gaming tables, and the smell of a new deck. He did not consider gambling to be a character flaw because he was both lucky and careful, and so won more often than he lost. But as any gambler will tell you, luck always runs out eventually, and that is when a man becomes most reckless.

Prague had no shortage of casinos.

And people were watching and listening for Luca Bilbija.

Chapter XLIV

Frend heard the ping of an incoming email as he was showering at home. His trip from Belgrade to Romania, and on to Vienna, had been tense and unpleasant, but he had almost succeeded in washing Serbia from his skin. He remained troubled, though, by how close he had come to becoming a prisoner of Simo Stajić. He’d have told them where the Vuksans were, of course, abandoning dissimulation and confessing all at the first sight of the blowtorch, but he knew that talking wouldn’t have saved him. His long death would have been recorded on a cell phone, but only for private distribution. The killing of an Austrian lawyer on Serbian territory would have caused untold problems for Belgrade; his disappearance, less so. Eventually, to throw the Austrians off the scent, Frend’s papers would have been discovered in a Bosnian or Croatian whorehouse, perhaps with a little of his blood dotted around for appearances’ sake.