The long, dark building was a no-frills café without the pretences of the previous diner. It had metal chairs and tables and a battered linoleum floor. A pretty, dark-haired girl leant against the counter and indicated they should take a seat. A much older man – perhaps her father – was asleep against the wall behind the bar.

‘What can I get you?’ she asked in English. Kate asked for coffee and something to eat in Russian. The girl gestured lazily at a counter along the far wall and Kate understood well enough: at this time in the morning, they weren’t going to get anyone to cook for them. Perhaps not at any time in the morning.

Kate went to take a look. The breakfast spread ran to a selection of cold meats, cheeses and gherkins that looked as if they had been sitting there for ever. ‘Rather you than me,’ she reported back. But Stuart was made of sterner stuff. He returned with a plateful. She watched as he worked his way through it.

‘What have you been thinking about?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ She certainly didn’t feel like admitting she’d been unable to get out of her mind the feel of his fingers locked in her own.

‘You’ve got something you want to get off your chest.’ He piled meat and cheese on to a slice of bread and took an enormous bite. He had never been an elegant eater. ‘That’s the advantage of having been married to someone for half a lifetime.’

Kate weighed what she had been proposing to say. She wouldn’t have imagined it even an hour ago.

‘We’re almost there, so . . .’ he smiled at her ‘. . . speak now or forever hold your peace.’

Intuitive as he was, he was not about to guess this. ‘What if I said there was a chance – a very, very slim one, but the glimmer of something at least – that I might be able to find my way back to how I felt before?’

The colour drained from his face. The shock was palp able. ‘I’d do anything,’ he said, ‘absolutely anything you asked of me.’

‘It would require you to be honest about something. Completely honest. And I’d have to be certain you were telling the truth.’

‘Of course.’

‘Even then, I’m not offering any guarantees. The road would be long and hard and we might not get there, but . . . it might open the door.’ He waited, spellbound by this unexpected turn of events. He scratched nervously at the stubble on his chin. His yearning for a second start was not in doubt. ‘I need to know what you told your handlers in Moscow.’

‘About what?’

‘Everything.’