She spoke more sharply than she intended, and immediately saw his confusion, his hurt, too — his was such a transparent face. Quickly, she explained how in Soviet Russia labelling someone insane was a method of silencing and removing dissenters. ‘There was a time,’ she shrugged, ‘I expect it still continues, when mental asylums in the Soviet Union were full of dissidents, all of them as sane as you and I.’

‘All right then, not the insane excuse —’

But she hadn’t finished. ‘Tyrants from Caligula to Hitler, and Stalin too, are often described as insane. When you label someone mad, you release them from responsibility. But these men know exactly what they are doing. Brutality, it seems to me, is a distressingly common human attribute.’

It was a conversation stopper, and whatever Andrew had planned to say was left stranded. The radio station was still covering the massacre; more onlookers were being interviewed, and specialist commentators consulted. After a while, Andrew turned the volume down.

‘What makes a sane person,’ he paused, ‘or rather what makes a sane man — it’s always a man — think he has a right to kill a whole bunch of strangers who’ve never done him any harm?’

Andrew seemed so upset that Galina wondered if he’d known someone killed at the post office. She was about to ask when he spoke again.

‘Do these appalling acts, these lone-men massacres, happen in your country?’

The irony did not escape her: she might wait weeks for someone to ask her about Russia, and when finally a question is pitched her way, it lands in territory she’d prefer not to enter. She was framing an answer that would shift the conversation to more neutral ground, some sort of disinfected version of Soviet killings, when he turned towards her and she saw a man struggling to understand what was to him utterly incomprehensible. She wanted to comfort him, to lay a gentle hand upon his arm; instead, she clasped her hands together and attempted an explanation.

‘Our massacres are different,’ she began. ‘Our massacres tend to be committed by our political leaders, not rogue gunmen. And the deaths are likely to be in the thousands, even millions.’

She was aware of a skirmishing of emotions: shame because these atrocities happened in her country, anger and resentment that she and all ordinary Soviet citizens had been so thoroughly duped, and bewilderment at the warped morality that would permit fellow Russians to act in so barbaric a manner. She was filtering information, wondering what details would best bring the topic to a close, when Andrew solved the issue for her.

‘That’s my old school,’ he said, pointing to a huge place on a hill.

It looked like an English castle, replete with turrets and battlements. As if he had guessed her thoughts, he added, ‘It’s known as “The castle on the hill”.’

The place looked extremely grand. ‘Your parents must be very rich.’