‘She called on Monday afternoon, around three p.m. UK time.’

‘And she hasn’t gone back to London?’

‘No.’

‘We thought perhaps she’d just left. It was only when your organisation contacted us, saying you’d lost track of her, that I worried.’

So someone else had called; someone else was missing her.

‘Obviously it’s sensitive stuff she was working on,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘How did she explain the project to you?’

‘She said she was making a documentary about Western oil companies in Kazakhstan. She wanted to highlight our work. That is right, no?’

‘Yes. We’ve been amassing evidence of environmental abuses for a long time. Where was she staying?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When you spoke to her three days ago, did she say she had any plans? Any concerns?’

‘No. She was excited. She said the project was going well. I think … she had something.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. Andrei knows more about it – the communications director, Andrei Nichuskin. He is flying back from Armenia at the moment. Did she not tell you any of this?’ Yussopova asked.

‘She said she had something. I got the impression it was even too sensitive for her to give us details at this stage. She thought our encryption might have been compromised. She was going to tell me in London.’

My cover was limiting how much I could ask while remaining credible. At the same time, I had no networks to draw upon.

‘What happened at your office?’ I asked.

‘An attack. No one has been caught.’

‘When?’

‘Two days ago.’

‘Do you think it connects to Vanessa?’

‘Maybe. But there is no shortage of enemies. Have you told police about Vanessa?’ she asked.

‘No. I take it you haven’t mentioned anything.’

‘As I say, until now I wasn’t sure. And the police may not be on our side.’

‘That’s why I’m here. I wanted to assess the situation first. You haven’t had any contact with the British embassy?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any sympathetic contacts, in police or government? Someone who might be able to help?’

She laughed. ‘Sadly not.’

A man and woman came in, took a table one away from us. I checked the street and saw a black Renault SUV outside the café. It hadn’t been there before.

‘Do you know somewhere more private we can talk?’ I said. Yussopova looked around, understood.

‘Follow me,’ she said.

We walked to one of the old apartment blocks nearby, a five-storey Khrushchev-era block with thick knots of ice spreading from drainpipes across the pavement like tree roots, making the approach treacherous.

Once inside, we climbed narrow stairs to a triple-locked security door behind which was a surprisingly ornate apartment, with crowded bookshelves and a writing desk covered in leaflets and loose papers and copies of Literaturnaya Gazeta from Moscow.