
At the spot where a man tried to kill a prime minister there is a bullet hole and a small bloodstain.
Faint traces of a giant moment that has shocked Slovakia deeply. But the gunman’s target had seen this coming.
A month earlier, Robert Fico, Slovakia’s populist leader, was filmed predicting political tensions were so acute "a leading government politician" would end up getting murdered.
Then, the prime minister himself was shot. Hit four times in the stomach and arm at close range as he greeted supporters in a small former mining town.
The attempted assassination sprang from a toxic political climate, and threatens to deepen the polarisation in Slovakia still further.
Mr Fico’s warning of an imminent attack was no throwaway comment.
He repeated the thought to the head of Slovakia’s public broadcaster around the same time.