10.

What we found in the bread bin: a folder with the name Přemysl Stojaspal (in Ava’s handwriting). Inside, a sheaf of handwritten texts, each in a different hand, with a typed table of contents on top—names matched to page numbers.

Ava Kapoor

Allegra Yu

Laura De Souza

Zeinab Rashid

Beneath these names, Ava had written

Otto Shin

Xavier Shin

I flipped through the sheaf of handwritten texts looking for the entries pertaining to us, but Xavier said: “We’re meant to add to it ourselves. She wants it in writing . . . what we know about him.”

“What are you saying? You know about this guy?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “But maybe, once we’ve looked at the rest . . .”

“People often don’t realise what they know,” I said, quoting one of my favourite books, “and only when it is explicitly stated does it become obvious to them. Something like that?”

He answered me with a kiss that counselled the wisdom of speaking to him in Ludvík Vaculík quotations, and we took the file back to Clock Carriage, where we read the accounts in order.