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and awhole lot more for the ash cloud to settle. Hormones or not, she worried that our child wasn’t going to have a proper relationship with me because of what I was, and what that brought into our new family. ‘I don’t want our baby to become like us, Nicholas. That’s why I’m changing. This child is the only thing I’m concerned about. I have to be. I’ve got to make sure it grows up in the best environment possible. Surely we both owe it that.’
    I tried to understand. I’d have hated lugging round the equivalent of a Bergen strapped to my stomach 24/7. For the last couple of weeks she’d looked more and more like the big purple Pilates ball she was always sitting on, and when the baby moved it was no longer the vague flurry or two of the second trimester, it was the Klitschko brothers having a full-on spar.
    I checked my mobile. Googleski wasn’t co-operating. I kept getting pages in Cyrillic.
    If she didn’t come back in a minute I’d go and find her. What did the blood mean? I’d learned enough obstetrics as a patrol medic to win the soft-power war with indigenous populations, but not much more. I could handle an uncomplicated delivery, but for anything else she was going to need expert help.
    Anna came out of McDonald’s clutching one of their brown-paper carrier bags, and I was sure it didn’t contain a couple of Happy Meals.
    It seemed to take her for ever to cover the few metres to the wagon but I knew that if I got out and offered to help she’d go ballistic again. She finally made it and climbed back in.
    ‘I think it’s stopped. Let’s carry on a bit and see what happens.’
    I touched her shoulder. ‘OK, but give me a bit of warning – the clinic’s an hour away …’
    We hadn’t got further than the end of the road when I saw Anna’s hand dip down to her lap. When she brought it back up her fingers were red.
    ‘No messing. We’re going right now.’ I handed her my mobile. ‘Tell them we’re coming.’
    She fumbled with the buttons and slumped in her seat. ‘I don’t feel too good, Nicholas. I feel … dizzy … This baby is beating me up from the inside …’
    I grabbed the phone back and pulled over to the kerb. My call was answered after three rings. It was the twenty-something from Ukraine I’d met when I’d gone in to sort out the first round of paperwork. ‘Sasha, it’s Nick Stone. Is Dr Fuentes there?’
    When it came to phone etiquette, she’d been really well trained in the art of pissing everyone off. ‘Hello, Mr Stone. How are you today?’
    ‘Sasha, stop. There’s no time. Is she there?’
    ‘Dr Fuentes has gone for the day. Can I take a—’
    I cut in again, told her what had happened.
    ‘She is losing bloods?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘One moment.’
    A few seconds later a new voice. Sasha must have transferred me to a doctor. She kicked off in Russian, caught herself, and switched to garbled English, but I got the gist. ‘You must to go to the nearest public hospital, Mr Stone. Where is your position?’
    I gave her the main and a cross street. I heard a rapid exchange in Russian, a short pause and the clatter of a keyboard.
    ‘OK … You will be needing City Hospital Number Seventy, on Federated Avenue.’
    ‘Anna doesn’t want a public hospital. We—’
    ‘Mr Stone, are you wanting two dead people?’
    She had a point. Anna’s head had lolled forward and I couldn’t even tell if she was conscious. I pressed the red button, sparked up the Maps app and scrabbled to input Federated Avenue. By the time I got moving again I had half of Moscow’s drivers flipping me the finger. The other half soon joined in as the Touran fish-tailed into the stream of traffic and my foot hit the floor.

4
    I didn’t see many films as a kid but even from half a kilometre away I reckoned City Hospital Number Seventy could have doubled for the workhouse in Oliver Twist .
    A grime-encrusted, red-and-white barrier blocked our path. The guy in the gatehouse tried to turn us