Volodya was riding high. His spies in Berlin were producing remarkable intelligence. They had given him the battle plan for the Germans’ main summer offensive, Zitadelle, and the Red Army had inflicted a tremendous defeat.

Zoya was happy, too. The Soviet Union had resumed nuclear research, and Zoya was part of the team trying to design a nuclear bomb. They were a long way behind the West, because of the delay caused by Stalin’s scepticism, but in compensation they were getting invaluable help from Communist spies in England and America, including Volodya’s old school friend Willi Frunze.

Zoya came back to bed. Volodya said: ‘When we first met, you didn’t seem to like me much.’

‘I didn’t like men,’ she replied. ‘I still don’t. Most of them are drunks and bullies and fools. It took me a while to figure out that you were different.’

‘Thanks, I think,’ he said. ‘But are men really so bad?’

‘Look around you,’ she said. ‘Look at our country.’

He reached over her and turned on the bedside radio. Even though he had disconnected the listening device behind the headboard, you couldn’t be too careful. When the radio had warmed up, a military band played a march. Satisfied that he could not be overheard, Volodya said: ‘You’re thinking of Stalin and Beria. But they won’t always be around.’

‘Do you know how my father fell from favour?’ she said.

‘No. My parents never mentioned it.’

‘There’s a reason for that.’

‘Go on.’

‘According to my mother, there was an election at my father’s factory for a deputy to attend the Moscow Soviet. A Menshevik candidate stood against the Bolshevik, and my father went to a meeting to hear him speak. He did not support the Menshevik, nor vote for him; but everyone who went to that meeting was sacked, and a few weeks later my father was arrested and taken to the Lubyanka.’

She meant the NKVD headquarters and prison in Lubyanka Square.

She went on: ‘My mother went to your father and begged him to help. He immediately went with her to the Lubyanka. They saved my father, but they saw twelve other workers shot.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Volodya said. ‘But it was Stalin—’

‘No. This was 1920. Stalin was just a Red Army commander fighting in the Soviet–Polish War. Lenin was leader.’

‘This happened under Lenin?’

‘Yes. So, you see, it’s not just Stalin and Beria.’

Volodya’s view of Communist history was badly shaken. ‘What is it, then?’

The door opened.

Volodya reached for his gun in the bedside-table drawer.

But the person who came in was a girl wearing a fur coat and, as far as he could see, nothing else.

‘Sorry, Volodya,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’

Zoya said: ‘Who the fuck is she?’

Volodya said: ‘Natasha, how did you open my door?’

‘You gave me a pass key. It opens every door in the hotel.’

‘Well, you might have knocked!’

‘Sorry. I just came to tell you the bad news.’