He remembered walking into Penn Station in New York and buying a ticket to Albuquerque, without asking anyone’s permission or showing any papers; and the exhilarating sense of total freedom that had given him. He had long ago burned the Sears-Roebuck Catalogue, but it lived in his memory, with its hundreds of pages of good things available for everyone to have. Russian people believed that stories of Western freedom and prosperity were just propaganda, but Volodya knew better. A part of him longed for Communism to be defeated.

The future of Germany, and therefore of Europe, was to be decided at the Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Moscow in March 1947.

Volodya, now a colonel, was in charge of the intelligence team assigned to the conference. Meetings were held in an ornate room at Aviation Industry House, conveniently close to the Hotel Moskva. As always, the delegates and their interpreters sat around a table, with their aides on several rows of chairs behind them. The Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, Old Stone Arse, demanded that Germany pay ten billion dollars to the USSR in war reparations. The Americans and British protested that this would be a death blow to Germany’s sickly economy. That was probably what Stalin wanted.

Volodya renewed his acquaintance with Woody Dewar, who was now a news photographer assigned to cover the conference. He was married, too, and showed Volodya a photo of a striking dark-haired woman holding a baby. Sitting in the back of a ZIS-110B limousine, returning from a formal photo session at the Kremlin, Woody said to Volodya: ‘You realize that Germany doesn’t have the money to pay your reparations, don’t you?’

Volodya’s English had improved, and they could manage without an interpreter. He said: ‘Then how are they feeding their people and rebuilding their cities?’

‘With handouts from us, of course,’ said Woody. ‘We’re spending a fortune in aid. Any reparations the Germans paid you would be, in reality, our money.’

‘Is that so wrong? The United States prospered in the war. My country was devastated. Maybe you should pay.’

‘American voters don’t think so.’

‘American voters may be wrong.’

Woody shrugged. ‘True – but it’s their money.’

There it was again, Volodya thought: the deference to public opinion. He had remarked on it before in Woody’s conversation. Americans talked about voters the way Russians talked about Stalin: they had to be obeyed, right or wrong.

Woody wound down the window. ‘You don’t mind if I take a cityscape, do you? The light is wonderful.’ His camera clicked.

He knew he was supposed to take only approved shots. However, there was nothing sensitive on the street, just some women shovelling snow. All the same, Volodya said: ‘Please don’t.’ He leaned past Woody and wound up the window. ‘Official photos only.’

He was about to ask for the film out of Woody’s camera when Woody said: ‘Do you remember me mentioning my friend Greg Peshkov, with the same surname as you?’

Volodya certainly did. Willi Frunze had said something similar. It was probably the same man. ‘No, I don’t remember,’ Volodya lied. He wanted nothing to do with a possible relative in the West. Such connections brought suspicion and trouble to Russians.