Later, outside the kitchen door, she found the Tupperware box. The food was gone, and the box had been washed, but it was not empty. Inside was a single small coin with a hole at one edge, as though it had been removed from an earring or a necklace. The coin was so old that it had been rubbed almost smooth, but she could just discern the outline of a face upon it. Willa placed the coin in a jar by the door and hoped it would bring good fortune to their home. But she washed her hands after touching it, and laid her fingers against the cross on the wall while praying that none of the six would ever return to Kassel.

Chapter XXIII

The next day, while Angel and Louis waited for Alex, their regular driver, to take them to JFK, a call came through from Louis’s money guy. His name, rather aptly, was Golden, and he was responsible for ensuring that Louis’s bank accounts, whether domestic or offshore, attracted as little federal attention as possible. Golden’s store of small talk didn’t require more than a single intake of breath to fuel it, but he was very good at his job.

‘Do you have a moment?’ Golden asked.

‘For you, always,’ said Louis. ‘And I was about to call you about moving some funds. I have travel plans.’

‘How lovely for you, but we’ve had a series of unanticipated deposits. Is there something you forgot to tell me?’

The best way to avoid alerting the authorities to the movement of money was not to move it at all, or certainly not electronically, but the requirements of modern finance made this difficult. The next best way was to move sums of less than $10,000, but not so often as to establish a pattern, while any international transfer over $100,000 was guaranteed to arouse curiosity. American banks in particular were supposed to file SAR – Suspicious Activity Reports – for any cash transfers over $10,000, although the sheer volume of transfers, combined with the natural greed and perfidy of the banking industry, mitigated against total compliance. Golden’s clients stayed under the radar by advising him of impending transactions and receiving in turn recommendations on how best to disperse them, expertise for which Golden received a not excessive, but still generous, commission.

‘How much?’ said Louis.

‘One million euros, transferred into seventeen different accounts in transactions of between five and nine thousand euros a time, but not from the same source – or seemingly not from the same source, but in reality, almost certainly so.’

‘Not possible.’

‘With money,’ said Golden, ‘anything is possible.’

‘And have you established the source?’