I clicked tabs of the regions where they worked: Belarus, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan. Under Kazakhstan there were images of prisons and oil pipelines, a quote from a UN report on ongoing detentions, a detailed report on the arrests of individuals associated with a charity called Testimony. That was the most recent story.

Testimony were less cagey. Established 1993, their website listed offices in both the old capital and Astana, which was unusual – most of civil society had stayed in the more attractive, bohemian Almaty. That had been part of the thinking behind Astana, perhaps: no one wants do-gooders complicating utopia. Testimony investigated disappearances, unlawful imprisonment and the use of torture. I checked their address.

The office was inside a crumbling building on the unfashionable right bank. It looked like someone had recently put a battering ram through the door. The wooden sheet that had been hammered over as temporary protection prised open easily enough.

Inside it was dark. The few windows were small and dirty. I left the lights off. The linoleum of the hallway floor was blackened where a fire had been started. Water damage had done the rest.

To the left was Testimony’s small office. It had been trashed. Posters, leaflets, ledgers, old filing cabinets opened, one beige PC askew on a desk heaving with paper. There was a sulphurous stink of wet paper and ashes. All the drawers had been opened and rifled, so I took a seat and sifted handfuls of paperwork: it came from lawyers, doctors and journalists, documenting activists who’d been arrested, recording of assaults, threats sent to families. The correspondence gave me staff names and contact numbers.

The director was a woman called Elena Yussopova. I knew the name. She collected evidence of human-rights abuses. A brilliant lawyer and writer, her charity maintained additional offices in Moscow, Grozny and Tashkent, staffed by individuals who’d made their peace, one way or another, with the price on their heads. If you spend your time fighting the violent, powerful and corrupt there are two approaches: be discreet or be very visible. She’d gone for the latter. In truth, neither was going to keep you safe.

A few years ago, Yussopova’s husband, also a lawyer, had been found bloodied and unconscious with a fractured skull in the lobby of their apartment building. He died in hospital two days later. Police declared it the result of a hit and run, and nothing to do with the oligarch he’d been investigating. No one went to prison for it, of course. Since then she’d been outspoken. Was she acquainted with Joanna?

I found Yussopova’s mobile number among the printed emails. She answered with a brisk, ‘Da?’

‘I’m a friend of Vanessa McDonald’s. Is this a good line to talk?’

Yussopova sounded hesitant.

‘Who is this?’

‘My name’s John Sands. I occasionally work with Reporters for Human Rights.’

‘No, it is not a good line.’