‘It’s just two thousand dollars, but it’ll have to do for now. There are other assets, which I need to find a safe way to liquidate. When I do, you’ll be looked after. Check the email address regularly. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Where will you go, Radovan?’

‘I don’t know. Not to the Caribbean. Maybe the Far East. And you?’

‘Somewhere in Europe. They say Portugal is cheap, but I don’t speak the language, and I will never learn now.’ Ilić picked up the envelope of cash. ‘Zorya told me I would die soon, so it is not important anyway.’

‘Pay no attention to her,’ said Radovan. ‘She may look like a child, but she is a woman to the bone. They manipulate us, all of them.’

Ilić smiled sadly. ‘She did not tell me anything that I did not already know.’

He took the passports from his pocket, selected his own, and handed the others to Radovan.

‘I saw your new name briefly,’ said Ilić, ‘but I have forgotten it already.’

They shook hands, and Radovan walked to the door.

‘What will I do with Spiridon?’ asked Ilić.

‘Spiridon is gone,’ said Radovan. ‘That’s just meat.’

Ilić shifted uneasily. He had few redeeming qualities, but he still retained his faith.

‘I will wrap him in a sheet, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It would make me feel better about leaving him here.’

Radovan nodded. ‘We never liked each other, did we, Zivco?’

‘No, we did not.’

‘For what it’s worth, I like you better now.’

Ilić did not reply in kind. He was beyond lying now.

‘Goodbye, Radovan,’ he said, and went to deal with the body.

Ilić took a clean white bedsheet from the bedroom closet, laid it on the floor, and rolled Spiridon’s corpse across it once, twice, until the sheet wrapped him like a shroud. By then the material was no longer white but red. Ilić could see the contours of Spiridon’s face against it. His mouth was open, and Ilić would not have been surprised had an inhalation sucked the sheet against the maw as Spiridon, or some revenant version of him, returned to this world. Ilić came from Majdanpek, and had spent his childhood living in fear of wraiths. To him, they were as real as his own mother and father.

He hated Radovan for what he had done to Spiridon, just as he hated himself for not avenging the murder, although he knew that Radovan would have shot him before he laid a hand on his gun. Who could have known that Radovan had it in him to take the life of his own brother? Perhaps Zivco Ilić had been frightened of the wrong Vuksan for all these years.