Raisa had foreseen the danger, spoken to Leo, heard his confirmation that the danger was real and then wished the threat away. For many years she’d trusted in nothing, doubted every promise, and presumed that all interactions were based around self-interest and deceit. It had proved an exhausting, corrosive existence but it had worked – she’d survived while the regime had murdered many thousands. However, it was not a state of mind, nor a way of life, that she’d wanted for her daughters. She’d not taught them to lie when asked their name by a stranger. She’d not drilled into them the need for caution and suspicion as a matter of routine. She’d not wanted them to second-guess every display of affection and interrogate every friendship. In so doing she’d failed as a mother and she’d failed as a teacher. Just because Leo had left his past behind did not mean those dark forces no longer existed. He’d changed. But she’d been wrong to believe that the world had changed too.

Watched over by a female police officer, Raisa refused to sit down, standing in the corner of the cell, her back against the wall, her arms crossed. She’d been given no news of Elena. They’d been taken into custody in separate cars, pulled apart in the chaotic aftermath of the murder. In the few seconds that Raisa had been able to hold her daughter, Elena had been a little girl again, the girl she’d adopted twelve years ago – lost and confused and seeking protection from a world she didn’t understand. She’d buried her face in Raisa’s shoulder, hands wet with Jesse Austin’s blood, and wept like a child. Raisa had wanted to say everything was going to be OK but it wasn’t, not this time, and she couldn’t manage even a comforting lie, too stunned at events to tell Elena that she loved her. It would be the first thing she said the moment they next met, even if it was for a second. Raisa didn’t know the details of the plot Elena had become embroiled in. Whatever it was, she could only have been seduced by the promise of a better world. With her quiet optimism, she was like Leo, a dreamer who’d ended up with blood on his hands. Raisa’s heart broke to think that her idealistic young girl would never be the same, no matter what she was told, or how she was reassured. Leo would help her. He had gone through the same process – he would know what to say. They just needed to get home.