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this house. Just beer, champagne and cigarettes. Which did you want for dinner? At least now we’ve been and got some milk.”
    Jade flopped down on her bed, dragging the duvet back up over herself. “I’m sorry. It’s all just so… sudden. So unfair.”
    She started crying again. Rich sat beside her on the bed.
    â€œIt is a nightmare,” Rich agreed. He looked over at the bedroom door. “ He ’s a nightmare. Maybe boarding school will be better.”
    â€œOh, look,” Jade said, sniffing between her tears. “Out the window.”
    The curtains were drawn and Rich frowned. “What?”
    â€œThought I saw a flying pig,” Jade said.
    â€œMaybe you did,” Rich told her. He grabbed his pyjamas from under his pillow and headed for the bathroom.
    In Krejikistan, the cut glass of a chandelier glittered as the light reflected off its facets. Electric bulbs had replaced the candles that once provided the light, but the ceiling above it still retained an original mural – a pale blue sky with delicate clouds drifting across.
    The room below was enormous, with a floor made up of black-and-white marble squares. The space was made to seem even bigger by large mirrors that hung on the walls. The furniture – a highly-polished wooden table that had been made for Louis XIV of France, high-backed chairs patterned in gold leaf that had been a gift to a tsar, and a series of seventeenth-century side tables – were almost lost in the huge space.
    Viktor Vishinsky sat in one of the antique chairs.In front of him was a single place setting for dinner – heavy silver cutlery, an ornate bowl filled with stuffed olives and a glass of white wine. He was looking intently at a large screen that his technicians had set up at the other end of the table. The image was grainy and unclear.
    â€œIs that the best you can do?” he asked. He took one of the olives from the bowl in front of him and rolled it between his finger and thumb.
    â€œWe have enhanced it as much as possible,” Pavlov, the chief technician, assured him.
    Vishinsky settled back in his chair and let them explain. To him, the images still looked crude and fuzzy. He pushed the olive into his mouth.
    â€œYou can see where the man at the back of the laboratory is opening the canister,” Pavlov said. He froze the image. It was projected from a laptop computer on to the large screen. The hi-tech set-up looked out of place in the tsarist splendour of the huge room.
    Two other technicians were standing nervously at the side of the room. Whether they were there in case Pavlov needed their own specialist expertise, or simply to give him moral support, Vishinsky did notknow or care. His whole attention was focused on the speckled images on the screen.
    Pavlov used a laser pointer and ran the red dot of light round the figure just visible by the shadowy shape of the canisters. “If we had images from an infra-red camera—” he began.
    But Vishinsky cut him off. “We do not. We must work with what we have. What can you tell me, apart from the obvious?”
    Pavlov let the video run on. “As you can see, just, he is reaching inside the canister. As his hand comes out – there.” He froze the video again and indicated the man’s hand with the pointer. “He is holding something. Something which we must assume he dipped into the fluid and filled. It is not very big. We can tell from his hand that it is about the size of an eggcup.” Pavlov paused for a moment, before adding, “It is not an eggcup, I should point out.”
    â€œI said omit the obvious. Is it something he found in the lab?” Vishinsky asked, taking another olive. “Or is it something he brought with him?”
    â€œWe can find no indication that any container of that size was in the lab. Unfortunately, there is nothing left of the lab, so it is impossible to be sure ifanything was taken.