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a drink, tobacco and a packet of mints and as he paid found himself asking in his heavily accented English the way to Fairview Terrace. He’d never spoken the name out loud before, and felt as if the few people scattered around the bus station had stopped to stare.
    There wasn’t a soul in sight but Vinko felt just as conspicuous as he stood at the end of Fairview Terrace, having walked slowly and taken a roundabout route to kill time. He was no stranger to killing time. He studied the twin rows of identical stone houses, smaller but much neater and better cared for than the house he shared back in Bradford. Headscarf-sized gardens, yards, a few of them untidy but mainly well-kept and well-swept, windows and front doors vying for attention with a variety of colours – people making their mark because they wanted to be here. He stared for a while, plucking up the courage to walk on and find number 52, trying but failing to imagine the hero Ivan Pranjić growing up here. Vinko had never seen the farms and fields his father should have grown up in, the farms and fields he’d fought and died to safeguard – for his son and all the other sons. He wondered if he ever would see them now.
    He looked up the street, counting in his mind to locate 52. He wondered why his grandparents had chosen to come here in the first place. Why had he? He still couldn’t answer that one. He almost turned away. But he was here now; he steeled himself, pausing only briefly at the small wooden gate, went up to the door and knocked. It was opened by a young blonde woman, only a few years older than he was. Vinko’s heart started thumping. Could this be a cousin no one had told him about? Family?
    â€˜I… I look for Boris and Anja Pranjić?’ He disgusted himself with how small and pathetic his voice sounded.
    â€˜Sorry, love, Mr and Mrs Pranjick moved a few months ago.’
    â€“yitch . It’s Pran-yitch, not –jick . But he didn’t say it out loud. He never did. His irritability faded as he registered that this girl meant nothing to him.
    â€˜Can you say me where are they?’
    The girl pulled her towelling robe tighter and looked cautiously at him. He realised how early it still was. She broke into a smile. ‘Yeah, course. Wait there. No, you look froz. You may as well come in a mo’ while I fetch you’t address. Kettle’s just boiled, I’ll get you a coffee if you like.’
    â€˜Thanks.’
    He was reluctant to enter the house, but welcomed the warmth. He sat down, out of place on the neat cream easy chair.
    â€˜You come far?’ She put the steaming mug on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him. ‘Where d’you live, like?’
    â€˜Holdwick.’ He said the first name that came into his head. ‘It’s not far, for seeing my friends the Pranjić family.’
    She nodded, sitting on a sofa opposite him. ‘Don’t worry, they’re not a million miles away. Moved out Oakthwaite way, they did. Don’t blame ’em, nice area that. I’d like Gaz and meself to get a place somewhere like that one day, though I doubt he’ll ever shape hisself enough for that. Came into money, the Pranjicks, a few months ago, like I said. A right fortune it wa’ by all accounts, though they kept close about it, wouldn’t say how they came by it. We all reckon they must’ve won t’ lottery, didn’t want the publicity or summat. Don’t blame ’em. Right vultures, the press. Anyway me mum lives a few doors down and Gaz ’n me like it here, so when it went on t’ market we thought better t’ devil you know an’ here we are.’
    Vinko nodded wordlessly, understanding the gist if not every word.
    â€˜Nice people, the Pranjicks,’ she continued. ‘Well Anja were, any road; I never saw too much of him. I remember old Anja when I were a kid – seemed quite old even then, she did,