The tempo of the city was rushed. People walked or cycled to lectures, to dinners that began punctually with a Latin grace. To dawdle was for tourists or dropouts, or for people who were lost. Almost from the first morning, Dyer felt lost.

The adjustment was harder for him, oddly, than for Leandro, whom he had lured to England with a prospectus woollier even than one of Viven’s tea cosies. They’d get a dog, he’d take Leandro fly fishing, they’d live in a brick house. Plus, by going to the Phoenix, Leandro was continuing a family tradition.

Except that the school had changed, Dyer had changed. He was a different person, thicker in body, his eyes less blue, with grey streaks in his thinning brown hair, and his ideals battered; and yet in various ways he was not. It added to his sense of double vision when he walked through the new security gates, as if his boyhood Instamatic had jammed and he had continued clicking away, regardless, on the same negative. At his son’s age, Dyer had believed that he had innumerable chances, as many takes as he wanted – like Leandro’s digital camera, given by Nissa as a parting gift. In returning to Oxford, Dyer felt that he had lost his contours; he did not see the path ahead, the windscreen obscured by reflections, of dashboard clutter, the detritus of exile, of homecoming. He felt on a different road, as if his steering wheel was on the left-hand side, like the ‘continental drive’ green Beetle that he had bought second-hand from a garage in Cassington, mainly because it reminded him of Brazil.

On this Siberian afternoon, five birds migrated overhead, slicing west through a listless grey sky. Dyer punched in the code and pushed open the gate, glancing up at the clock. Mr Tanner had asked to see Leandro and Vasily together at 4 p.m.

Chapter Three

THE BULLYING HAD STARTED THAT term, after Leandro was catapulted into the school football XI two years prematurely. The new coach had telephoned Dyer on the eve of the announcement to explain how he wanted ‘to shake things up’. He considered Leandro mature enough to make the leap; as well, Leandro would have company – Samir Marvar, another talented player from Leandro’s year was joining the team. (‘He’s a “ledge”,’ said Leandro, having to explain that this meant a legend. ‘He can kick the ball fifty-four times on his toes.’)

‘I shouldn’t say this,’ the coach went on, ‘but they’ve both got it in them to play for the Oxford Schools team.’ He laughed when Dyer said that he himself had never advanced beyond the second XI in cricket. ‘A dad’s greatest kick is to watch his son surpass him.’

Afterwards, Dyer felt that he deserved a far greater kicking for not having acted against Vasily Petroshenko straight away.