Finally we were side by side. ‘Can I ask – do you think this is patronising?’ I said. I spoke Russian. She looked at me, then at the work we’d arrived at: a pastiche of Soviet realism: heroic workers holding games consoles.

‘Slightly.’

‘I don’t imagine this means much to anyone now,’ I said, as we walked past. ‘It’s a concept, well executed. Not much more.’

‘Yes.’

I introduced myself as Toby. She told me she was Aliya. We walked on, in step, casually. I saw her friends turn, look. She glanced at them and gave a wry smile. I struggled to discern the personality she projected online. But then that was the point of an online personality: you could be different. I wanted to know how the operation was being coordinated. Did she work in a centre of some kind? Did she receive instructions remotely? Was Joanna on to this? She reminded me a little of Joanna.

We walked past glossy portraits of militiamen – Kiev, Zagreb, Georgia – into a final room devoted to a triptych of large black and white photographs. The central one showed the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow collapsing in clouds of dust as the Soviets dynamited it. To its right, less dramatically but more hauntingly, was a mosque in Uzbekistan being used as a warehouse for cotton. To the left was a Ukrainian synagogue converted to a centre for communist youth. A banner hung across it with the old communist slogan: Peace to the World. This was the title of the artwork.

Aliya studied each image in turn. An older woman with an Armani badge arrived at our side, beaming.

‘It is good they are showing this, no? A lot of people still think it was better in those times. Young people too. They don’t know about this.’

‘Do you think that’s what it’s saying?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, less certainly. Someone caught her attention and she wandered off. Aliya looked sceptical. I leaned closer.

‘I was in this country a few years ago,’ I said. ‘Further east. I met a man who was ninety-four years old. He used to be a travelling merchant, carrying gold into China, then returning with his camels loaded up with silk. Anyway, he became a butcher in Almaty, settled there, and a friend of mine introduced me to him. I asked what he thought of Kazakhstan now and he said, “Everything was better in the time of Czar Nikolai II.”’

Aliya smiled.

‘He said that?’

‘Czar Nikolai. Yes, in the 1900s. Downhill from there.’

‘Maybe he was right.’

‘Are you an artist?’

‘A writer. And a student.’

‘What do you write?’

‘Various things.’

‘I’ve always wanted to write,’ I said, ignoring her opacity. ‘It must take dedication.’

‘Not so much what I do.’

‘Do you write fiction?’

‘A little. Less so now.’