Reka ran her hand through her hair. ‘Not as much as we are going to be in. It would be much nicer if they just deleted it. Any chance of that?’

Eniko shook her head. ‘No, Prime Minister. None at all. It’s an amazing story. And you can be sure it will be picked up by all the international media. Anyway, it’s out now. If they don’t run it, someone else will.’

Her voice grew tighter. ‘But before we talk about what to do about it, I have some questions.’ She paused. ‘As you might expect.’

Reka nodded, said nothing.

The three of them were sitting in the corner of Reka’s office, on the new leather armchairs. A small table, designed by a young Hungarian artisan carpenter, stood in front. A basket of pogacsas, the small savoury scones that were an essential accompaniment to every Hungarian business meeting, stood on the table, next to baskets of fruit, bottles of mineral water and a coffee jug.

Eniko glared first at Reka, then Akos. Her nostrils flared as she controlled her breathing and beat back her growing anger. Eniko knew she had their attention, could feel the power in the room flowing to her. It would not last, she knew, and she must not lose her temper, but she would make the most of this moment. She reached for a pogacsa and bit into the salty pastry, chewed and swallowed.

Reka said, ‘Go ahead.’

Eniko drew out the moment for a few seconds more, then started talking. ‘Firstly, Prime Minister, how long have you had this?’

Reka thought for a moment. She had been given the clip by the man known as the Librarian in the middle of the refugee crisis last September. She counted off the months. ‘About four months.’

‘Where is the footage from?’

‘From the cameras around the government offices in the Castle District. I was at a government reception. I stepped outside. Someone was waiting for me.’

‘Who was he? The assassin?’

‘A gendarme. Sent by Pal Dezeffy.’

Eniko shook her head. This story was getting worse and worse. First the killing itself, then the cover-up and now it turned out that Reka’s predecessor as prime minister, her former lover and member of the same political party, had tried to have her killed. If all this came out, the government would collapse. Reka’s own party would immediately disown her. There would be a vote of no-confidence in parliament. The opposition would win a landslide in the coming election. ‘My next question is why didn’t I – your press secretary – know about a video clip circulating of you fighting for your life in the Buda Castle before killing your assailant by sticking something into the side of his neck?’

Reka leaned forward, her voice conciliatory. ‘Kedves Eniko, dear Eniko, I understand, of course I do, that you are annoyed…’

‘Annoyed is one word. Try amazed, appalled, flabbergasted,’ said Eniko. She took another pogacsa, pulled it into pieces then poured herself a glass of water instead.

Reka leaned forward, her voice conciliatory. ‘We did not tell you, Eniko, about the footage because it would put you in a legally difficult position. You would know about a crime and be obliged to report it. If you did report it, that would be the end of my premiership and your job, obviously. And if you didn’t, and it came out that you knew about it, you could get into a lot of trouble. And that would also be the end of your job.’ She smiled. ‘So you see, I had your best interests at heart. And now, it’s in all of our interests to deal with this. It’s almost a relief in a way. I knew it would emerge sooner or later. So let’s work out a plan.’

Eniko almost smiled. When Reka was good, she was very, very good. But she would not concede so easily. In any case, there was only one option open to her, Eniko knew, and they needed to move fast. There was a risk that Zsuzsa would be collateral damage, but something told her that Zsuzsa wasn’t planning to stay at 555.hu.

Eniko also had to admit that she was quite impressed with what she had seen in the video. Reka kept herself in shape, with regular gym sessions, but she had put up a ferocious struggle – a physical fight against someone trying to kill her. That demanded a whole new level of tenacity and determination – and a willingness to take it to the end. If Reka fought that hard politically, maybe they could get through the next twenty-four hours with the government intact.

Eniko asked, ‘Last question, how did you know how to fight someone sitting on you, trying to strangle you? Most people would just freeze.’

Reka smiled. ‘My Krav Maga instructor. It’s part of the syllabus. Defence against attack from the side, against attack from above with attacker at arm’s length, attack from above with attacker close up and personal in your face. Defence against this, defence against that.’

‘And which one did you use?’

‘All of them. None of them. It turned into a giant blur. Real life is very different to practising in the gym. But I knew this man wanted to kill me. I just tried to control my terror and not flail around too much. He was much stronger. He would have got me in the end. But he didn’t.’

Reka shivered at the memory, once again feeling the abject terror as his hands tightened around her throat, the resistance of his skin as she tried again and again to stab him with the heel of her shoe, the way his skin suddenly collapsed as the heel sank into his neck, piercing an artery, the blood fountaining skywards.

‘Where is it?’ asked Eniko. ‘The heel, I mean?’

Reka glanced at Akos before she spoke, Eniko noticed. There was a longer backstory here, she sensed, but that could wait for now.

Reka shook her head, as if to rid herself of the memories, stood up, walked over to the window. She stared out over the Danube. The river was wreathed in mist and a fine drizzle ran down the windows. ‘Destroyed. What matters now is, how do we stop this?’

She turned back to Akos and Eniko. ‘OK. How about we buy a series of adverts at 555.hu, send them all our recruitment campaigns, all that boring public information stuff. Find out how much they need to stay afloat for another year. They must be struggling; all these hipster outfits are. Add another twenty per cent. It can’t be that much.’

Akos nodded. ‘Good idea, Prime Minister.’

Eniko shook her head. ‘They won’t agree. They don’t need the money any more. They have a new owner; they have just moved to their fancy new offices on Freedom Square. This will drive an incredible amount of traffic to the website.’

Reka was silent for a few moments, leaned back against the window as she thought. ‘OK. I’ve got it. A new law guaranteeing press freedom, the strongest safeguards in the world. Everything the journalists’ union has been asking for.’

Eniko said, ‘In exchange for killing a story? I don’t think that works, Prime Minister.’

Reka exhaled. ‘No, you’re right. It doesn’t.’

Akos said, ‘A technical emergency. We shut down the internet till we work out what to do.’

Eniko shook her head. ‘That won’t work either. They will just give the video to an opposition television station. Prime Minister, we can’t stop this. We need a strategy for dealing with it. Another question – Akos, you said you were there as well?’

‘Yes. I had an iron bar to hit the guy.’

Eniko laughed. This was turning surreal. ‘An iron bar. Why didn’t you use it?’

‘I was going to, but Reka beat me to it.’

‘What were you doing there, anyway?’ Eniko asked.

Akos said, ‘I was… erm…’

Eniko could see him struggling to answer. ‘It doesn’t really matter, Akos. One last question, Prime Minister. How did you get rid of the dead body?’

Reka looked at Akos, back at Eniko, said, ‘Antal.’

Antal Kondor was Reka’s bodyguard and general Mr Fixit. He had worked for her since her earlier role as Minister of Justice. Eniko nodded. ‘Naturally. Is there footage of that as well somewhere?’

Reka nodded. ‘Yes. There is a longer version.’

Akos said, ‘The director’s cut.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Eniko, her face unsmiling.

So there was more material out there. But if her plan worked it would not matter. She took a long gulp of her water.

‘Eniko,’ Reka said, her voice almost meek, ‘we need to get on with this.’

‘Sure, but before that, Prime Minister, my very last question. Are there are any more unexploded bombs that I should know about. Any skeletons in the cupboard? Perhaps literally? Because if there are, I really need to know.’

‘Nothing. Now, Eniko, we can argue about this for the rest of the afternoon or we can deal with it,’ Reka said, her tone sharp. ‘Decide, please. Are you in or out?’