They’d arranged a travel visa for her. She flew British Airways, via Helsinki. Picked up at Heathrow by a woman called Natasha, who was accompanied by two men, neither of whom was introduced to Aliya. She’d spent five days total in London. Most of the recruitment and training was handled by Natasha and a man around the same age as her, who called himself Mark. Aliya described him as slick and energetic: he spoke about social media, building profiles, persuasive writing. No conspicuous security was visible during her stay, though she was accompanied on outings, which they took as a group, and they asked her not to bring her phone to the training sessions.

‘What else did these sessions involve?’

‘They wanted to know about me: what languages I spoke, what I cared about, what my passions were, how I felt politically. Did I think representations of Russia were fair? What are hot topics in Kazakhstan? I did some written exercises: short pieces about news stories they showed us.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I got the job.’

She had signed a non-disclosure agreement but no official contract. That was the last time she met anyone involved in person.

I asked her to talk me through the protocols they’d arranged. The first thing she did each day was to switch on an internet proxy service, which hid her IP address, then she accessed an encrypted cloud-storage service. It contained instructions from Worldwide Media: files uploaded with material, wiped after seven days. She followed the instructions; money appeared in her account.

‘Some of it’s just translating news articles from English to Russian. Or they ask me to leave comments on news sites.’

‘They tell you what to say?’

‘I’m allowed to say what I want. They sometimes send me graphics and videos to use; sometimes ideas and articles they want me to think about, suggestions about which websites to post on.’

‘All under your name?’

‘No. I have other names.’

‘Tell me about them.’

She told me about Maria Zagitova, who was very anti-Chinese, and Sabina, a housewife in Shymkent who concentrated more on traditional Kazakh values. She wrote in Kazakh. The third identity Aliya controlled was a fortune teller named Cantadora. She passed on advice from the spirit world, often regarding sex or relationships, sometimes dieting, occasionally geopolitics. She believed the future lay with Russia.

I passed Aliya my laptop and asked her to show me the dropbox. She hesitated, then logged in to a Boxcryptor online storage account.

‘This is just the last few days.’

It was enough – more than forty files. I copied the lot. Then I read a few.

Then I stopped.

Russia’s idea of a secure border is one with Russians on both sides.

My words to Joanna.

I scanned through the bullet points. There were other ideas I remembered from our conversation.