The prime minister and her uncle had agreed to meet here, on neutral territory, in the middle of a green space roughly equidistant from each of their houses. Two semicircular benches framed the barbecue pit, but nobody was sitting.

Antal Kondor stood a few feet from Reka; George Porter watched over Karoly Bardossy, although the bodyguard was now unarmed. It was a crisp, sunny winter morning, with white streaks of clouds in a clear blue sky. The air smelled fresh, of woodlands and earth. The sound of distant traffic murmured in the background.

Reka looked up for a moment, feeling the bright sun on her skin, then at Karoly. ‘There’s two ways this can go, Uncle.’

He snapped back, his voice taut with anger. ‘What are we doing here, Reka? What the hell is this about? You don’t talk to me for years, ignore all my communications, snub me at the funeral, then suddenly you summon me and I have to stand in a park with your goon watching me.’

Reka said, ‘As I said, two ways.’

‘Which are?’

‘Public or private.’

‘I don’t understand what you are talking about. Why am I even here?’

Reka sighed. ‘Uncle, Uncle. Can’t you ever stop? It’s over. It’s finished. The story will be published tomorrow.’

‘What story?’

‘How we made our money. Where it came from. What we did to get it.’

Karoly sneered, his eyes narrowing. ‘It came from running a successful business empire. From navigating a path through wars, dictatorships and terror. From looking after our interests. Like everyone else did.’

He glared at her. ‘How do you think you paid for that fine Italian cashmere coat, those shoes? That fancy furniture in your house? The paintings? On your prime minister’s salary? You’ve been spoiled all your life, Reka. You’re just like everyone else. You grabbed whatever you could and enjoyed it as long as you could.’

She nodded in agreement. ‘I did. It’s true. But not any more. The article is written. I’ve read it. It’s very good, very detailed. It tells how our family was friends with the Bergers, how in 1944 your father, my grandfather, promised to look after them and return their holdings to anyone who survived. And how we broke our word to them.’

He shrugged. ‘Who cares? That was decades ago. Ancient history. There are hundreds, thousands of stories like that, Jews who made the wrong choice, trusted the wrong people. It was a war. Everyone looked out for themselves.’

‘Not everyone, Uncle. Some people saved their Jewish friends and neighbours, looked after their homes. But we did not. We even had a legal agreement with the Bergers. And then we stole everything.’

Karoly’s voice softened. ‘Reka, it was wrong what happened, I know. It’s a sad story, but an old one. Look, even the Israeli prime minister is coming on Monday. They want to do business with Hungary, with our firm. They’ve moved on. Why can’t you? There’s nobody to return anything to, even if we wanted to. The Bergers are all dead now.’

‘No, Uncle, they are not all dead. Eva, Miklos and Rahel’s daughter, survived. She’s still alive. You know that. Tamas, your father, commissioned an investigation after the war. They found her, living on Dob Street. She’d changed her name to Hegyi. She lived with Orsi, Rahel’s sister. I found the report in the Librarian’s archive.’

Karoly laughed. ‘So what? And what should Tamas have done? Handed control of a massive economic empire to a ten-year-old girl? Absurd.’

‘Maybe not. But we could have helped. Even when the communists took power, we were still rich and influential. Orsi lived out her life in poverty. I found some letters from her to Tamas, explaining her story, that she was looking after Miklos and Rahel’s child, asking for help. She never received a single reply. You saw those letters.’

Karoly shrugged. ‘I did. The woman said they changed their name. They were chaotic times. Who knew if the story was real? Everyone was hustling for something. If we did help them, it would never end. We would be admitting guilt. They could have hired lawyers, come after us. Why are you digging this up now? What do you care?’

She stepped forward, her voice rising. ‘Because I lived in their house. I ate in their kitchen. I slept in Eva’s bedroom. I played in their garden. I walked on their grave.’ She stared at Karoly, the anger rising inside her. ‘And nobody told me the truth. But now I know it. The whole story. There’s a lot more as well in the article, about Nationwide now, the tax tricks, the river of money flowing into your private bank account. I told you, Uncle, it’s over.’

Reka closed her eyes for a moment, brought herself under control. She reached into her handbag, took out a photocopy of a typewritten sheet of paper and handed it to Karoly.

He read it once, then again, slowly. ‘What is this? An old piece of paper in German? Anyone could write this and claim it was genuine.’

‘That paper is a record of a telephone call to the headquarters of the Gestapo, at 8.32 a.m. on 20 March 1944. It was a very short conversation. The caller gave the address where Miklos and Rahel Berger were hiding. In the cellar of a house on Gellert Hill.’

Karoly shrugged. ‘And? What is this to do with me? I was two years old then.’

‘Only one other person knew where the Bergers were hiding. Tamas Bardossy. Your father. My grandfather.’

He looked down at the paper, his hand trembling slightly. ‘Hearsay. Conjecture. You can’t prove anything.’

Reka handed Karoly another piece of paper. He glanced down at it, crumpled it up and threw it into a nearby bush.

She glanced at Antal, who bent down, picked up the paper, straightened it out and handed it to her. Reka said, ‘I don’t need to read it out to you. You’ve seen what it says. The Gestapo traced the call. The number was tapped. It was a male voice, speaking from the private line in Tamas’s office.’

Karoly blustered. ‘It could have been anyone. Lots of people had access to his office.’

‘No they didn’t. He was a very secretive man, as you know. He didn’t even let his secretary in there. He was the only one who could use that number.’

‘So what if it was him? The Bergers would have died anyway. The Nazis were after them. They were on the VIP wanted list.’

‘Maybe they would have. Maybe not. Half the Jews of Budapest survived. The Bergers had money, contacts, friends; they might have made it. Especially if we had helped them.’

‘But we didn’t. Nor did most people. They were lining up to denounce their neighbours all over the country, then empty out their homes once they were gone.’

Reka stepped closer. ‘Not everyone. Some people helped. They hid people, like we could have hidden the Bergers. But we didn’t. So now our family’s debt will finally be paid. You are going to resign all your positions at Nationwide, Uncle. You are going to donate your money, your house, your land, your property to a new charitable foundation.’

Bardossy guffawed. ‘This is a joke, yes?’

‘No. It is not.’

‘Ridiculous. Step down, give everything away? Because of something that happened seventy years ago. Why should I? I have no intention of doing that. Where did you get this from, anyway?’

Reka stared at her uncle. His bluster was fading, his blue eyes darting from side to side. ‘Admit it, Uncle. It’s a relief. All these years you have been carrying the family guilt. Now you can cast it aside. You’ve had a copy of both of these papers for many years. You got them from the same place that I did. From the Librarian.’

She stepped closer. ‘That’s how he kept you and Nationwide under control. That’s how you built the firm, not because you are such a smart businessman, but because you were his lackey. He gamed you, like he gamed everyone, and you followed his orders. He lusted for power, you hungered for money. You both got what you wanted. Then he died and you knew that I was poking around, trying to find out what really happened. That’s why you bought 555.hu, to use it to release the video of me on Castle Hill, to bring me down. That’s why you were planning to kidnap the Israeli historian. That’s why you funded your ridiculous new parties, the Workers’ whatever and the far-right hoodlums. But it didn’t work. You are not much use without the Librarian, are you?’

Karoly stared at Reka with fury. ‘Why are you doing this? Why don’t you just leave things be? Everything was fine until you started asking all these questions.’

‘Because it festers. It’s like a slow poison. And we have to drain it.’

‘I told you. I was two years old in 1944.’

She stepped closer, so close she could smell the coffee on his breath. ‘Yes, but you were born long before 17 February 1991. You were forty-nine years old.’

Karoly became quite still. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘You know what day that is?’

‘Yes. A very sad day. The day Hunor died. Your father, my beloved brother. A tragic accident.’

‘Beloved. How can you even say that word? It wasn’t an accident. And now I know why.’

Karoly frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’