When she half-opened her eyes, she was not in bed but pressed uncomfortably against the door of the car. As she came to she felt that they were still. Stretching, she caught a glimpse of the mobile hanging from Layla’s seat in the back.

‘We’re here,’ Ivan said.

Gabriela rubbed her eyes, only remembering she had applied mascara when she pulled her fingers away and saw a line of black.

‘Where?’ She sat straighter in her seat, recognising the low grey building even before she saw the word ‘Departures’ come into focus.

‘Jesus, what are we doing here?’

‘We’re going on a little trip.’

‘What? What are you …’

Ivan cocked his head. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he laughed.

‘But I don’t—’

‘Hey, shush …’ Layla had started to cry, the fractured build-up warning of proper tears.

Ivan opened the door and unbuckled their daughter. ‘Not you, too,’ he said, lifting her out and holding her against his chest. Moving around to the front of the car, he handed her to Gabriela.

‘I think she’s hungry.’

She was too stunned as Ivan passed their daughter into her arms to say a word. Instead, she sat back in the passenger seat, lifting her top and placing her nipple in her daughter’s mouth, which she latched onto with such force it was as though she feared it would soon be gone for ever.

‘I thought you were moving over purely to the bottle,’ Ivan said, but Gabriela was still too shocked to reply.

Once the frenzied sucking had settled into a rhythmic pull, she spoke again.

‘Ivan, I don’t understand.’

He looked up at her and smiled. ‘We’re going to Moscow.’

Chapter 55

Isobel

The journey to Elephant and Castle is just six stops on the train from Kentish Town, past Farringdon and Blackfriars. The London landscape, something I rarely have a chance to relish, stretches out before me like a jigsaw in which some of the parts have been switched around so that I no longer recognise the picture.

Stepping out from the station onto the street, the smell of petrol hovers in the air. Everything is cranked up to the highest notch, the sound of cars swooping around the roundabout, the odour of burnt sugary meat.

Following the map on my phone through the clothes rails and stalls in the market that circle the shopping centre at ground level, past a group of elderly Jamaican men in smart clothes and brimmed hats immersed in a game of dominoes, at Walworth Road I pass the spectre of the old Heygate Estate, now gone.