They were standing in a narrow gap between a large, thatched hall and a smaller building, which, from the smell, Knox reckoned was some kind of barn. They’d followed Valera all the way from the Reisen, splitting up as she’d wandered around Skansen to make sure she didn’t somehow give them the slip and reuniting out of view of Valera and the man who had appeared from nowhere.

‘I have no idea,’ Knox whispered back. ‘But they’re speaking Russian.’

‘We have to get her out of there. We can’t lose her.’ Bennett tried to edge past Knox, pushing him into the thatch and making it rustle until he gently put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Look at her. She’s not going anywhere.’

Medev took in the view from the bench. The quaint, perfectly preserved longhouses, the well-maintained paths, the dappled sunlight. He watched two swallows dance in the sky above them, feasting on invisible insects.

‘I understand why you left,’ he said. ‘I think I would have too under the circumstances. But I have to ask you to come home.’

Valera let out a short, hard laugh. ‘I don’t have a home. Anything I ever had was taken from me.’

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘We’ve failed you terribly, and there’s nothing we can do to make up for the debt we owe you. I can give you an apartment, a dacha, a laboratory. But I cannot give you your life back. Your parents, or Ledjo.’

Valera knew how short-lived promises were in her homeland. Medev might offer her something today, but would she get it tomorrow? Every ruined village she’d walked through as she fled Povenets B had once been teeming with life, hope, and happiness, and they’d all been destroyed.

‘Problems are caused by mistakes,’ Medev continued. ‘Wars if we let them. The way you’ve been treated was an unforgivable mistake. I don’t want it to turn into something even worse.’

Valera thought of Ledjo. Was Medev calling him a little problem, a mistake? Something that could never be fixed? She was about to tell him she would never go back, but before she could he turned to face the big, thatched hall across from the bench and said, ‘Would you care to join us?’ loudly, and in English.

Knox, whose hand was still resting on Bennett’s shoulder, gestured at her to stay put, but she shrugged him off and stepped out into the open. After swearing under his breath to himself, Knox followed.

‘It only seems fair that everyone gets to make their offer to Miss Valera,’ Medev said, smiling at Bennett and Knox. ‘Now, neither of you look like members of the Swedish security service, so may I ask who you represent? My name is General Medev and I, as you have probably guessed, am Russian.’