She switched on her phone for the first time since she’d left London. The only messages were from Suzy – a successive string of texts asking where she was and what she was doing, presumably sent at the behest of her friends in MI5. The silence from colleagues in Kate’s own organization was ominous. Sir Alan and Ian must, she surmised, have guessed her intentions. There would be hell to pay when she got back.

She’d not had a single message from anyone else and she couldn’t help drawing a contrast again with the days when Stuart had held the home front, her days and nights punctuated by the steady ping of messages, the sentiments of which ranged from amused to exasperated. No one prepared you for how lonely parenting became with divorce.

She killed as much time as she could in the café, then continued her promenade down St Petersburg’s main shopping street. She was aware that fatigue was making her sloppy, so although she had seen and sensed nothing to rouse her suspicion since she’d crossed the border, she attempted some basic dry cleaning. The Russians were good at surveillance on home turf, and she had to acknowledge they might well have outfoxed her.

She passed the Stroganov Palace and moved at leisure through the Lutheran church. She crossed the road and wandered through the grandiose Corinthian columns of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, then walked on over the Griboyedov Canal and turned into the striking arcade of Gostiny Dvor, St Petersburg’s main bazaar since the mid-eighteenth century. The shops and stalls here were more sophisticated than she remembered. She bought some retro Soviet-era T-shirts for Gus, Fiona and Jed, and then crossed Nevsky Prospekt again to the beautiful Style Moderne building that housed the delicatessen Yeliseev’s.

She took her time there, then emerged again to cross the Fontanka river. She walked through the Moscow railway station before returning to Gostiny Dvor and installing herself in one of its corner cafés. She was just resisting the temptation to look at her phone when it finally pinged.

It was a WhatsApp message from Sergei. Hey, hear you are in St Petersburg. Great news. A bit pressed today and have to catch the night train to Moscow tonight. You want to come with me?

Kate stared at it until her vision started to blur. Why not? she replied, before she’d had time to consider the impli cations.

Great, he pinged back. See you on the station’s central concourse at 11 p.m.

20

20

ST PETERSBURG’S MOSCOW station had changed markedly since Kate’s last visit; the triangular Soviet-era ceiling that had once seemed so gloomy was leavened now by modern lighting. But the map of the rail network of the old Soviet Empire still had pride of place, and Kate was gazing up at it when she heard the familiar voice behind her: ‘Look who it is . . .’