Keeping to the itinerary, they went to the Dostoevsky Museum. There were letters home from the writer’s travels in Europe, full of a disgruntled traveller’s complaints. As they wandered around, Julius and Susan spoke of using their savings to buy ‘a little house in Bulgaria’ where they would grow their own tomatoes and write a television screenplay. ‘Everyone’s doing it,’ Julius said. He planned to write a thinly veiled drama ripping off his experiences working for Russia’s rich. ‘The Nanny Diaries but for Russia.’ He was collecting little details for authenticity, and he tried to pump Paul for gossip about Nikolai and his family.

‘You can’t use people like that,’ Paul said, stiffening.

‘Why not? They’re using you.’

‘No, they’re employing me.’ The Kalinins, he explained, were not the badly behaved rich. ‘He’s actually very intelligent. So is she.’

‘That’s the thing about Russia. Even the ones with boob jobs have a view on Pushkin.’

‘She doesn’t have a boob job.’

‘Ah! So you’ve been looking. Paul Cutter’s back in business.’

Paul shook his head, annoyed. He had never liked the nickname.

Susan, who had been listening, asked, ‘Why are you calling him Paul Cutter?’ Turning to Paul, she said, ‘I thought your surname was Cullen.’

‘We call him Paul Cutter because he likes to cut other guys’ lunches.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Julius —’

‘He hits on people’s girlfriends.’

‘God, I’d best look out.’ Susan pinched Paul’s bum.

That night, the three of them ate at a Ukrainian restaurant, where there was no indication of the brewing hostilities and beribboned women sang folk songs to the diners. Through one number, Julius translated, deadpan: ‘“I will put a spell on you, you will not meet another woman, you will be with me, you will have to be with me.”’ As they were waiting for their meals, he turned to Susan and proclaimed, ‘Ducky, I feel so guilty. Here you are, a high-flying broadcast journalist, and how am I helping you? Dostoyevsky had Anya to take care of everything. I’m going to be a better boyfriend-slash-secretary-slash-drudge.’ Taking her phone, he started sorting her apps into labelled folders, while Susan said, ‘You’re so sweet. Isn’t he sweet, Paul?’ But Paul was sick of their cutesiness.

The next day, he ditched the itinerary, going off-piste to see a ballet with Darya at the Mariinsky Theatre. It was her idea; Paul was not a ballet fan. Nikolai was to join them but he expected to come late. Things were coming to a head at his company, Zolotneft. Darya had left him talking things over with her father, who, as a state geologist turned senior bureaucrat, had experience in the sector. It was quite a coincidence, Paul mused, that Darya’s dad was so well placed to be useful to Nikolai. But he couldn’t pretend to be sorry to have Darya to himself, and he shot a text to Julius to make his excuses.