Kate skipped down the corridor and didn’t think about the possibility she might be pregnant again until she had been sitting on the toilet for quite some time. What was she trying to do – shake it out?

She cast her mind back. Her last period had been . . . Shit, how long ago? Maybe a month. No, two. Perhaps even three. She’d always been irregular at times of stress and it had taken a long time to get pregnant with both Fiona and then Gus.

She couldn’t be pregnant. She probably wasn’t even still ovulating.

But what if she was? She couldn’t even begin to imagine explaining the circumstances to the children. What would she say? That she’d had a one-night stand with an old flame on a trip to Russia?

There was no way she could have an abortion. Ever. Not after the joy both children had brought her. And probably not even before that, either, if she was honest. My God, what had she been thinking? She stared at her underwear on the floor and at her offending blue sneakers. She’d have to get a morning-after pill. From a chemist in Moscow.

Yes, why not? It made sense. She’d ask Sergei to take her to one. And, anyway, the extra time together might even prove useful: it would give her the chance to tease out of him more information as to what was really going on in Moscow Centre.

She pulled herself together both physically and metaphorically, washed her hands and walked back down the corridor with the pleasant certainty that, conception or not, this was unlikely to be the last time she had intercourse with Sergei that night.

‘You ready for dessert, sir?’ she asked, as she pulled back the door. But the sight that awaited her smashed every last sentiment from her except instinctive, animal panic.

Sergei lay naked on his back, his lean body covered with blood, his throat sliced from one side across to the other.

21

21

KATE SAT DOWN on the bunk opposite him. The walls were splattered with blood from Sergei’s severed artery, which had been sprayed across a wide arc in his violent death throes. There was blood on the window, even on the vodka bottle, as he had evidently scrambled to get hold of some kind of weapon with which to fight back.

Who had killed him? Where were they?

She stood again, yanked the door shut and locked it. She sat down, trying to think straight against the tide of far too much vodka. Her heart thumped like a jackhammer in her chest.

Where was the killer?

Gone. He must have been waiting for Kate to leave before attacking. If he’d wanted to kill her, then . . .

He would have. He’d have murdered them both. Surely. No, definitely. But who was behind it. The GRU? Sergei’s colleagues, infuriated he might spill their secrets? In which case, why not kill her, too?