When the call came on his cellphone, Buslenko had been told at first to head for the Hotel Mir in Goloseevsky Prospekt and to wait in the car park. He’d been there ten minutes when a second call told him to head back to the city centre, park in the Kyivsky Passage and start walking down Khreschatyk Street.

It was a Saturday evening: Khreschatyk Street was closed to traffic every weekend, allowing shoppers and tourists by day and clubbers by night the freedom to wander along it and appreciate its grandeur. Buslenko himself, as he made his way down the vast boulevard, couldn’t help but think how beautiful it looked still laced with glittering Christmas lights. There had been a fresh but light fall of snow and the wide thoroughfare and the trees that lined it looked sugar-dusted in the crisp winter night. As he had been clearly instructed, Buslenko walked in the opposite direction from Independence Square. He had been there in November and December 2003. He had thrilled then at the sight of the orange banners, the air electric with the promise of change. He had felt part of something huge. Unstoppable. However, Buslenko had not been there to lend support: he had been in charge of a detachment of security troops ordered to the square, supposedly to prevent bloodshed between the ‘Blue’ supporters of Yanukovych and the ‘Orange’ revolutionaries supporting Yuschenko. The truth was more likely that they had been sent as a show of regime strength, but the police and intelligence chiefs had recognised a true turning of the tide and many within the security services, like Buslenko, were sympathetic to the Revolution. Buslenko’s detachment had been stood down.

Buslenko made sure he walked past the Celestia nightclub without a glance. Maybe Sasha really had got it wrong. Or maybe the people he was supposed to be meeting were just being over-cautious.

He had almost reached the Central Universal Mall when his phone rang again. This time he was instructed to wait at the bar of the Celestia nightclub. Buslenko felt relieved. He had started to worry that he might be redirected to some more remote part of Kiev. The Celestia was good. Right in the heart of the city. More public. More difficult if you wanted to kill someone and dispose of a body.

The Celestia was one of the glittering symbols of the new Ukraine’s aspirations: a glitzy place in Kiev city centre at the Independence Square end of Khreschatyk Street. Buslenko, despite his background, remained a solid supporter of Ukraine’s new path: he had always been a patriot and now he saw the potential for the future that his country deserved. His heart had been with the Orange Revolution but places like the Celestia made him feel uncomfortable: they sought to reflect Western affluence and glamour, but something about them struck Buslenko as sham and borrowed, like seeing a ruddy-cheeked peasant girl in an over-glittery cocktail dress and inexpertly applied make-up.

There were two black-suited doormen outside the club. One was bull-necked and mutely massive; the second was smaller, leaner and friendlier, smiling at Buslenko as he held the door open. As he had been trained to do in every situation, Buslenko automatically assessed the risk the doormen presented. In a time too brief to be measured, he identified the smaller man as the main danger: he moved quickly and easily and hid whatever he was thinking behind a smiling mask. Buslenko recognised that the smaller man, unlike the cumbersome bodybuilder, would be capable of fast and lethal violence. A killer. Probably with a Spetsnaz background.