The train followed the river out of the city into the dull, parched countryside. I sat with Istvan in an empty carriage and tried to read the headlines of the newspaper he held in front of him.
You want news? he asked. Minister for State Security has resigned.
Why?
Because there is none. No state, no security. Riots all over. And because he was found with a rubber-suited woman above a tyre shop.
Vulcanizace, I pronounced, quite proudly.
Circus tricks, he said. Maybe onetime colleague Frank took the picture.
Maybe.
We should tout for business, he said, closing the paper. We should expand – how you say?
Our horizons, I ventured.
Yes, horizons. Soon there will be bodies all over. Security in high demand.
You do it, I said. I’ll be leaving soon.
Wise, maybe.
You leave Istvan to expand horizons. Take your family back where?
London.
Wise. Very wise. So tell me why we travel to the arse end of nowhere to observe the funeral of the girl we were hired to find? We found her. Case closed.
Because her mother thanked me once.
For what?
For believing.
Are you religious, Jonathan?
Not particularly.
Superstitious. You believe in psychiki.
Only under duress.
Duress, he repeated. It was a new word to him.
And we never found out why.
Why what?
Why she left. All those years ago.