I almost said, ‘I’m not surprised,’ but bit it back and made a mental note that safety instruction was going to be at the top of our agenda when the team came out.

Another fundamental decision was about food. For lunch, we were taken to a canteen and ate with the rank and file. The menu was exactly as Sasha had described it in the pub in England: shchi, cabbage soup with lumps of gristle floating in it, black and white bread. The soup was OK if you avoided the gristle, but I could see Whinger’s eyeballs rotating.

As soon as we were on our own outside, I said, ‘We’re going to get fucking hungry here.’

My spirits sank even lower when we saw what we were being offered for accommodation: the ground floor of a three-storey block which was standing empty and looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. There was no shortage of space – a dozen rooms of reasonable size led off either side of a central corridor – but the building itself was in a disgusting state, with plaster coming away from the concrete-block walls, dirty cream paint flaking off, and yellowing newspapers strewn about the bare cement floors. The security was shite, as well: no locks on the doors, and several window panes broken.

Sasha saw the way my mind was working and said, ‘We get it cleaned up. No bother.’

‘Yes, please – and some means of securing the doors. We’re going to want beds, too.’

‘How many?’

‘Eight – no, better make it ten.’ I adjusted my estimate as I counted in the scalies.

As we left to return to the city, we took a short drive round the town of Balashika – and that depressed us even more. The road verges were sheets of dried mud, flanked by blocks of flats made from hideous yellow brick, with badly fitting windows and cracks gaping in the walls. We looked in vain for shops – and as for a pub, the idea that one might exist in such a place seemed like a bad joke.

We were driving against the tide of traffic once more, and in less than an hour we were alongside the river, passing the spot where the knife had gone over the wall and pulling up outside the gates of the British Embassy.

Sasha, who had changed back into his civvies, glanced at his watch and announced with satisfaction, ‘Three hours fifty-eight.’