‘Stop saying you’re sorry. I knew exactly the risk I was taking getting into this car with you. And I’d do it again, a hundred times over.’ He forced another smile. ‘Besides, I trust you. Aren’t you James Bond?’

Kate tried to grin back at him, but doubted she managed more than an awkward grimace. They lapsed into silence after that, but they were only about three hours north of Moscow before the onset of heavy bleeding forced her to ask him to stop at a truck-stop diner.

She disappeared into the filthy toilet, and by the time she emerged, he was sitting at a metal table by the window with two mugs of coffee and a sandwich each. ‘It’s going be a long night,’ he said. ‘I thought we could use this.’

Kate slipped on to the tattered red plastic bench opposite him. The chrome and steel décor was supposed to conjure the image of an American roadside diner, but, like many imitations in modern Russia, it was way off. Kate sipped her coffee and stared out at the traffic thundering past. It was still raining heavily, the light gloomy and visibility limited.

‘You had to take the morning-after pill,’ he said, gesturing at the packet of sanitary towels on the seat beside her. ‘I remember you travelling home from the Dolomites with a bagful of them after that last night in the hotel.’

‘You have a good memory.’

‘For all the best moments. And there were a hell of a lot of them.’ He swirled the coffee in his mug. Kate was suddenly desperate for a cigarette, but they’d given up together at least a decade ago, and she was too proud to admit she’d fallen off the wagon.

‘Tell me honestly,’ he said, still staring into his drink. ‘Is there even the slightest chance you might one day forgive me, that we might . . . I don’t know, be friends, or . . .’ He trailed off, though she knew well enough what he was asking.

‘If you want to know if we can ever be a couple again, as we were, then the answer is no. You betrayed me and you know who I am, how I am. You understand why it matters so much to me, however black and white you might find it. But you’ll always mean something to me. Just in a different way now.’ It wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, she knew, and he gazed disconsolately at the table, brushing his fingertips to and fro. ‘I can’t give you what you want. I can’t take back time, or change the passage of events. But I can see how bleak your life here is and I’d like to do something to ease it.’

‘Oh, yeah? And how are you going to manage that?’