If Stuart had guessed at the truth, or something like it, it might have explained the long period of silence. It was as if he was nursing a hurt and trying to find a way to broach the subject. ‘It must have been quite some reason to take the risk of coming here,’ he said eventually.

‘I can’t really talk about it,’ she said. She glanced into the side mirror once more. The Volkswagen Golf she’d thought was tailing them had turned away at the last traffic lights and her suspicion had landed instead on a dark Volvo that appeared to be hanging back at a steady distance. ‘Tell me about your life in Moscow,’ she said.

‘That’s going to be a very short conversation.’ They’d reached the outskirts of the capital now and were driving north towards a portentous, brooding sky. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Are you still hunting for a job?’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugged. ‘I met my “handler” – if that’s what you’d call him – last week and I complained to him about my lot. He seemed quite sympathetic and promised to see what he could do. They’ve said they’re going to ask me to lecture new recruits on how Western bureaucracies work. I think it would be different if I was you. Then, I guess, they’d be looking to put me to use, but an awful lot of what a civil servant does is well known to them. My guy did seem quite interested in my read on the PM and Imogen and the current state of British politics, so maybe something will come of that.’

‘Do you have friends here?’

‘You mean a girlfriend?’

‘No. I was just—’

‘Well, the answer is no and no. I’ve mostly been feeling sorry for myself, I’ll admit. It’s been very depressing. I spend a lot of time in the local gym and that’s about the only thing that’s keeping me sane.’

‘You look fit,’ she said. It was true. She’d found it hard not to admire his bulging arm muscles when he’d been sitting in his T-shirt in the flat. ‘So what do you do all day?’

‘I get up. I have breakfast. I read the British newspapers online and congratulate myself on escaping the crazy crock of shit that is our politics before feeling unbearably homesick. I go to the gym for a couple of hours. I’m tight for money, so I come home for lunch . . . I watch TV in the evening, but I try to spend the afternoons reading a book. Otherwise . . .’

‘Haven’t they helped you at all? I mean socially or . . .’