A light knock brought the father of the house to the front door, and a quick flash of the blade hidden in the arm of the assassin’s coat sliced his throat and severed his vocal cords. Leather-wrapped hands grabbed the man by his shoulders, silently lowering him onto the rug that ran the length of the hallway as blood seeped from the thick red line across his neck and trickled down his trachea and into his lungs. The man was still alive as the assassin left him on the floor and moved deeper into the house, but he wouldn’t be for long.

The mansion was warm and elegantly appointed—the kind of place reserved for a member of the nomenklatura who preferred to walk to their office in the State Kremlin Palace rather than drive in from one of the city’s outer suburbs every morning.

The assassin followed the lingering aroma of stewed meat and warm bread through the dining room into the kitchen.

The wife of the dying man turned from the sink at the sound of un­familiar feet behind her. Unlike her husband, she managed to let out a deep, loud and terrified scream before the bloody blade plunged into her stomach and the china plate she’d been washing smashed on the floor. She stared at the assassin as the knife was pulled from her soft, fleshy belly and then, to spare her a long and agonising death, stabbed into the side of her neck, severing her carotid artery. Her body slumped down onto the floor, a spray of red smearing the grey marble of the counter.

The assassin held the long blade under the tap that was still running with scalding water, watching the blood of two people swirl into the suds and down the drain, before leaving it to dry with the rest of the cutlery and going upstairs.

In the first bedroom was a large bed and an empty crib. In the next one, the assassin found the crib’s occupant, a six-month-old girl, held in the arms of her eight-year-old brother. The baby was silent, contentedly wriggling in her sibling’s arms, unaware of the tragedy that was befalling her family. The boy was doing his best to hide how scared he was, but the assassin could see the tears on his cheeks and the damp stain that ran down the leg of his pyjamas.

There was nowhere the boy and his sister could run, no nook or cupboard they could hide in. The assassin stepped into the room, causing the floorboards to creak and the boy to whimper. He was paralysed with fear, and did nothing to stop the assassin gently lifting the baby out of his arms and delicately placing her on the blanket that covered her brother’s small, narrow bed. He also didn’t move when his own head was cradled for a moment before the sharp, swift twist that snapped his neck.