‘Don’t? Don’t what? They were lovers, Max. For years. And you know they were. While we were fucking in my bed, they were fucking in hers. Oh, don’t look so shocked. You’ve always known, whether you wanted to admit it or not. Your mother changed my father’s life, Max. She changed our lives. She showed him what it meant to love. And she taught me what it meant to serve.’

‘Serve whom? Men like Avilov?’

‘Not who, but what. She loved this place, these people. She thought they were special. She thought I was special. Ty moi volchonok, she called me. Remember? My little wolf. She was obsessed with the idea of Russia. The beauty of it. The promise of it. Her work, her vision, was brilliant. One of the best, brightest scientists of her generation. That’s what they said when she died, wasn’t it? That was what I clung to after she drowned, Max, after you ran away. I escaped to Israel to serve an idea. I clung to faith, and to science – just as she had done. My father assimilated. I never could. Your mother thought that one day Russia would be her saviour, all our saviours.’

‘And so you came here to do what? Understand my mother?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Max. I came here to understand how she could have been so wrong. So completely and utterly wrong. My work, Max. It’s bigger than Russia. Bigger than anything you can imagine.’

‘But you knew that the money came from the Akvarium, didn’t you? You knew that the GRU was funding you, funding Arkhangel.’

Now she looked down, hair falling in front of her face. ‘Of course.’

‘You worked for them, for Avilov.’

‘No. I worked for the beauty of it, the promise of perfection. I imagined a world without shadows, a world without secrets, a perfect future where everyone is equal because nothing can be hidden.’ She lifted her head. Tears flowed down her cheeks, matting wild strands of black and silver hair. ‘No one else would fund me. No one. They thought I was crazy – some whacko who’d tried to kill herself.’ She began to cry harder, her body swaying in the flame-light. ‘All anyone ever saw were the scars. No one could ever see past them. But Avilov did. He found me. He saw me. He saw what I could do, what I could create. I know what you think, but I’m not crazy, Max. I saw the Destroyer, the Helper of Ha’shem, and Leonid Avilov was the only person who believed me, believed in me. And then he betrayed me.’

I moved closer to her. Only a couple of feet separated us now. ‘I believed in you, Rachel. And I still do.’