‘He came to visit me yesterday. It is difficult now he has to spend so much time in Moscow.’

‘Do you know where I can find him? It would be great to share a cup of tea at least, for old times’ sake.’

Olga’s expression was inscrutable. Kate had the disconcerting sense this kindly old woman was in some way laughing at her. ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked. ‘I will let him know you are here.’

‘At a hotel on Admiralty Embankment,’ Kate said. ‘But please do tell him. He has my number. It would be great to see him if he has time before going back to Moscow.’ The words didn’t sound like her own. She stood, too hastily, tipping her tea on to the floor. ‘Olga, I’m so sorry.’

The old woman waved away her concern, and as Kate set off to get a cloth from the kitchen, Olga gripped her wrist with surprising strength. ‘It is all right,’ she said quietly, looking directly into Kate’s eyes. ‘It is all right.’

Kate stood, but Olga did not let go of her. ‘Why are you really here, my dear?’

‘Some business. I . . .’

‘After all this time?’

‘After all this time, yes.’

‘You look . . . alone.’

‘I am.’

‘We have one life.’

‘And I have made a mess of mine.’

‘It is not too late. It is never too late.’ Olga released her. ‘I will tell him. What he makes of it I cannot say.’

Kate retrieved her coat. Olga accompanied her to the front door. ‘Be careful, my dear, won’t you?’

‘Of course.’ Kate had no wish to enquire in what way the caution had been intended.

The wind was still biting outside and Kate huddled in a tenement doorway to smoke a cigarette. She glanced at her watch. It was not even ten o’clock.

She started walking again, back to the bridge and the Admiralty Embankment. She headed for Nevsky Prospekt, on the grounds that at least there would be life there at this time in the morning. Shoppers seemed thin on the ground – the Russian economy was all hard grind unless you happened to have an oligarch’s bank account – so she installed herself in the Literary Café, once the Wolf and Beranger, the restaurant from which Pushkin departed for his fatal duel in the 1830s. She ordered coffee and some smoked-salmon blinis, which came with sour cream, gherkins and onions. She pushed them around her plate without much enthusiasm, thinking she was turning into her daughter.