He saw the blue dot of an email from Julius containing an itinerary he had written for Paul’s visit. Before Paul could read it properly, Darya returned. Holding two Chupa Chups from the dining car, she offered him one with a proposition: ‘From now on, let’s be friends, let’s be as innocent as children.’

He stared at her, then agreed. ‘Alright,’ he said.

She took her seat, looking relieved, and they unwrapped their lollipops. (Paul’s was caramel, hers was a strawberry swirl.) The deal was all it took for the tension to fall away. Darya’s smile made her look brighter than she had in weeks.

On easy terms again, they relaxed into the journey. He took out the English-language Moscow Times. The headline ‘Ukraine launches military operations’ topped a photo of troops holding firearms in a field. Ukrainian forces had retaken an airfield from pro-Russian militants. He asked Darya what she made of the crisis.

‘Oh, I don’t understand it,’ she said with disarming frankness. ‘You know, Russians, Ukrainians – we’re all the same people.’

The train stopped at a town with a timber yard, continued on. Darya’s iPad screen showed a page with information about Miami, Florida. It looked like a tourist website: palm trees, beaches, pink stucco facades, a windswept blonde with a baby in her arms.

‘You want to go to Miami?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps.’

‘If it’s beaches you’re after, you really can’t go past England,’ he joked.

This made her smile. ‘Oh can’t I?’

He told her about Nan’s house, which was bizarrely his house now, with the shore a stroll away. Pitting it against those white Miami beaches.

‘Is it a sandy beach?’ she asked, playing along.

‘Shingle.’

‘Shingle?’

‘You know, pebbles and shells.’

‘Ah.’

‘You’d like it to be sandy.’

‘If that could be arranged.’

It was his turn to smile. He was enjoying the game, which was a way of pretending that things could be different, that a person – that Darya – might pick Kent over Miami, shingle over sand, him over Nikolai. As they went on, the journey grew more picturesque – a shallow lake, nicer dachas, slanting light on Darya’s cheek – and he felt the unmixed pleasure of anticipation.

The next day, a Thursday, he met his friends. He wasn’t staying with them, having accepted Nikolai’s offer of a hotel room.

‘What’s the hotel like?’ Julius asked.

‘I shouldn’t snipe.’

‘Go on.’

‘Purple chandeliers in the lobby.’

‘Amazing,’ said Susan, who was in excellent spirits.

Together, she and Julius were adversarial and joyous. They asked after Angelica, smiling winkingly. Paul said she was well, which was probably true. Wasn’t the real Angelica raking it in, profiting off the labour of her lookalike guides? He didn’t say things were tapering off with Angelica/Maria, that he hadn’t responded to her latest text.