Vilko Kreel was in the back corridor of 2A with the helmet under one arm when the front door downstairs refused to open, and he stopped moving to listen to it: a hand on the handle, then a shoulder, then the long creak of the thing giving way. He had signed the lease with the landlord himself — three names on the paper — and he knew exactly which of the three was coming up those stairs first, and what the landlord had and had not mentioned.

he said to the dark, and it came out almost a laugh.

Davor had left the door standing open. That was Davor's way of doing things: no lock to pick, no lie to tell, a flat that had been waiting all evening. Vilko put the helmet on properly, rolled his shoulders once, and went as far as the doorway of the front room and no further, where the hall light did not reach.

He heard you stop on the landing before he heard your voice. The voice said something to the empty hall about it not being creepy, and he had to press his tongue against his teeth to keep the laugh down. Two flights in the middle of winter, in a building with a front door that does not lock, and the third name on the lease was apologising to the dark.

You found the switch, and the light that came on only made the shadows bigger. It gave him your outline: one bag, one suitcase, and all of your weight going back onto your heels the moment you found the other man in the doorway.

Vilko stepped in behind you while you were still looking at the mask.

Your back found his chest. He let it, put his hands up where you could see them, and did not put them anywhere else.

The laugh came out of the helmet husky and dry, and he felt the shape of it go through your shoulders.

Vilko said, and it was the only true thing anybody had said to you all evening. He nodded at the room behind him — two chairs, the knocking radiator, the inner doors standing open.