‘I don’t know yet. The Service is quite happy to have you in Moscow. The last thing they would have wanted was to put you on trial. In time, when the way ahead is clearer, I think we can use that to our advantage.’

‘How?’

‘I can make it an argument about the children’s welfare. They’ll never let you come back to the UK, but it is just about possible I could persuade them to turn a blind eye to you living somewhere else in Europe – in France, perhaps, or Spain, somewhere you can build a proper new life for yourself and the children can visit regularly.’

There were tears in Stuart’s eyes now. He wiped them away brusquely. ‘I don’t deserve you, that’s for sure,’ he said.

She reached out and put a hand over his. He slowly turned over the palm until their fingers were interlocked. ‘I can’t help, though, if you keep wanting to take it beyond friendship,’ she said, but she was aware as she did so that the finality of her words were at odds with the emotion coursing through her. She removed her hand.

He wiped the tears from his cheeks. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you. I’m never going to forgive myself for what I did to you. Sometimes I think it would be easier to stay here and punish myself. I just don’t know what I was thinking. I must have been out of my mind.’

They finished their coffee and sandwiches and hit the road again. Kate half expected Stuart to ask her to drive, but he seemed to expect to soldier on. The rain stopped and, once in a while, a few rays of evening sunshine glinted off the pooled water on the tarmac.

And when they were finally swallowed by the night, Kate felt fatigue creep up on her until her head was lolling uncomfortably between the side of the seat and the cool glass of the window. At one point, Stuart reached over and put his sweater beneath her cheek. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘Just beyond Tver,’ he replied, and then she drifted off again, a bleak, dreamless sleep, so that every time she was shaken awake, she felt more tired than she had been before.

Kate was dimly aware of a petrol stop somewhere, but it was two in the morning when Stuart shook her properly awake again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t keep my eyes open and it’s getting a bit dangerous. I’m just going to grab a coffee and something more to eat. You want to stay here, or come in?’

His arm rested easily on her shoulders. ‘I’ll come in,’ she said.