She raised her eyebrows as if complimented, and looked past him through the open door. She kept her gaze there, lifting and dropping her glass onto the beermat in between sips, and talked about her marriage.

It was no secret in Moscow, why should it be in Oxford? She and her husband were estranged. Gennady was a beneficiary of the asset grab that characterised Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Her own words seemed to bore her as she explained how he was close to Putin’s inner circle, but in the process of becoming connected and wealthy he and Katya had grown apart. They rubbed along, but it was clear, from her sad expression – and from her solemn admission in an embarrassed voice that they hadn’t made ‘any love’ in six months – that the cartilage between the bones had worn away. The sole bond keeping them together was Vasily.

Her husband, an ardent Chelsea supporter (‘he has many shares’), had not been happy with how Katya had handled Vasily’s demotion from the first XI. She still had a mark on the side of her neck where Gennady had expressed his frustration.

She turned her face to the lozenge of daylight pouring into the room, and now Dyer saw it.

He had thought it was a small birthmark. He felt his tongue with no saliva press against his teeth.

She bent her head and sat there, waiting.

He stares at her and feels diminished. He is aware that he is blushing. Words rise to his mouth. ‘Do you want to come back for coffee?’

On her face is the stern look which means she is mulling it over. Her breasts lifted under her jersey.

‘Sure.’

Chapter Twenty-six

IN THE KITCHEN, HE SWITCHED on the grinder.

Magda had left. A note beside the sink in her large childlike hand asked him to buy more Ariel washing capsules. ‘Not the liquid!’

Katya had walked out this morning not wearing a coat. She stood still in the middle of the kitchen with her arms crossed, her eyes darting from the bookshelves, the photographs and pictures on the walls, the landlord’s impersonal, creaking furniture, out into the patio. The magnolia tree in its half-barrel tub. On the washing line were Leandro’s football socks and shirts that Magda had pegged out to dry.

The kettle boiled. She uncrossed her arms and glanced at Marvar’s overcoat, which Magda had taken it upon herself to liberate from Leandro’s games bag and drape over a chair, and shuddered. ‘It’s cold,’ she murmured in her low raspy voice.

She left him pouring out the mugs, and went upstairs.

‘Katya?’ he called after her. ‘If you’re looking for the bathroom, it’s down here.’

Then: ‘Your coffee’s ready.’

No answer.

Heart drumming against his ribcage, he climbs the brown staircarpet.