Lydia bent down, scooped up the puppy and placed it on her lap. Instantly a moist pink tongue licked her chin and she laughed, stroking the eager little grey head. The puppy had large yellow-brown eyes and paws two sizes too large.

‘Where did you find her?’ she asked the boy. ‘Misty, I mean.’

‘In a sack.’ He didn’t look up from his porridge and spoke between mouthfuls. ‘A man was trying to drown her in the river.’

‘Poor Misty,’ she smiled, ruffling the wispy ears. ‘And lucky Misty.’

‘Lydia?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry I bit you.’

‘As long as you don’t do it again.’

‘I was frightened you wouldn’t let me go.’

‘I know. Forget it.’

The boy’s eyes fixed on hers for a second before returning to the spoon. He didn’t look anywhere near Liev. Lydia was just beginning to think this was going surprisingly well, when Liev hauled himself to his feet and lumbered over to where Edik was seated. He seized a hank of his pale hair. The boy dropped the spoon with a yelp.

‘Chuck this thieving little bastard back out on the street, Lydia. And his animal with him.’

‘No, Liev. Leave the kid alone. He’s going to help me.’

‘Lydia,’ it was Elena this time, ‘look at him. He’s filthy. He’s one of the urchins that live on the streets and will be riddled with lice and fleas. The dog as well. For heaven’s sake, do as Liev says.’

‘Out!’ Liev growled at the boy.

The dog bounced up to Liev’s foot and started to chew at his bare toes. The big man’s hand abandoned the boy and descended on the animal, swinging it up in the air as if to throw it across the room.

‘No!’ Lydia shouted, as she snatched the puppy from his grasp and smacked the Cossack’s great paw. ‘You are heartless.’

Liev’s one eye stared at her with an expression of both surprise and hurt. ‘They’re vermin,’ he muttered and slammed his way out of the room.

Elena, the boy and the dog all looked at Lydia.

‘Damn it!’ she hissed. She grabbed the boy and the dog by the scruff, and hauled them down to the water pump in the courtyard.

‘It’s an honour, Chang,’ Hu Biao pointed out.

He was at Chang’s side as they came down the steps of the Hotel Triumfal. The rest of the delegation followed behind with Kuan at the rear. She had not spoken to Chang since last night.

‘It is a great honour, Hu Biao,’ he corrected his young assistant, loudly enough for their Russian escorts to hear. He was speaking in Mandarin but an interpreter was never more than a pace away from his elbow. ‘To be invited to the Kremlin to have talks with Josef Stalin himself will enable us to report back to Mao Tse Tung the thoughts in the Great Leader’s mind. Mao will be humbly grateful. China needs such guidance in spreading the ideals of Communism among our people.’

Biao glanced at him, just a flicker of the eyes. Chang suppressed a smile. Even this young soldier knew there was nothing humble about Mao, not even in the tip of his little finger. But entry to the very heart of the Soviet system, a meeting in the Kremlin and a talk with the man who grasped the reins of power at its centre would be of great interest. There was even a ripple of danger about it that made the delegation nervy and uncommunicative this morning. As if they knew they might walk in but might never walk out, caught like flies in a web.

The day was bright, the streets drenched in sunlight. Blue skies had replaced the clouds of yesterday, but Chang’s heart hung heavy in his chest because it was not in the direction of the Kremlin that his feet longed to tread. The frosting of snow on the trees opposite the hotel glittered invitingly and people were strolling under them, young couples openly hand in hand. He looked away.

Wherever he and the Chinese delegation went, soldiers cleared an open space for them, pushing people aside as though to keep the delegates from contamination. Or was it from contaminating? The pavement in front of the steps had been scrupulously swept free of any Muscovites, while three official cars with the hammer and sickle pennant flapping on their bonnets purred patiently at the kerb. Their chief escort, a brisk woman in uniform, opened one of the doors and treated them to a stiff smile, but just as Chang was about to enter the cushioned interior he heard a shout.

The cause was a boy. No more than ten or twelve years old, thin as a weasel but running fast. He had wormed his way past a soldier and was dodging another’s grasp, racing across the empty space in front of the hotel as if his tail were on fire.

Chang’s heart opened up. With two strides he stepped into the boy’s path, knocking him off balance and causing him to crash. For no more time than it takes for one of the gods to frown, they stumbled against each other. Then a soldier’s gloved hand reached out and seized the urchin by his thin arm, shaking him so hard into submission that the rag wrapped round his head fell off to reveal pale hair that gleamed like pearls in the sunshine. The chief escort hurried over to Chang, stern annoyance on her face. But something more was there as well. It was fear. She was frightened he would report her for incompetence.

‘Comrade Chang,’ she said quickly, ‘I apologise. The boy will be punished.’

‘Let him go.’

‘Nyet. The street urchin must be taught a lesson.’

‘Let him go, comrade.’

Chang’s tone was quiet. The escort studied him for a second and readjusted the collar of her military coat.

‘Let him go, comrade,’ he said again. It was unmistakably an order. He turned to the soldier, who was twisting the boy’s arm behind his back like a brittle twig. ‘Release him. He did me no harm.’

The chief escort gave a sharp nod and the soldier’s grip loosened. Instantly the boy was running up the street and disappearing into the crowd faster than a rat down a drainpipe. Without comment Chang took his seat in the car and nodded appreciatively as the escort pointed out the new constructions undertaken along their route, the improved street lighting, the widening of the roads.

‘Very good,’ he murmured.

Only when she and his fellow delegates were engrossed in the great Kremlin fortress with its towering red walls and gleaming roofs did Chang slide a hand into his coat pocket. A folded piece of paper lay inside.

‘It’s fascinating to see the construction of it.’

‘I agree,’ Jens Friis responded to Olga, who was standing at his side. They were both gazing upward. ‘Every time I see it, it takes my breath away.’

‘It’s like a huge pregnant whale floating up there.’

Jens laughed, his breath a shimmer of white in the early morning air. ‘Ah, Olga, you don’t do it justice. It’s an airship. Look at it. Sleek and elegant. A gigantic silver bullet waiting for someone to pull the trigger.’

He was proud of the design. However much he hated it, he was proud of it. Like a child who goes bad, it’s hard to stop loving it. Airships had a far greater range than aeroplanes and this one, with two biplanes attached to it, would provide a weapon that could terrorise whole cities and battlegrounds.

With a shiver Olga looked away from the creation looming above their heads. Instead she stared at young Fillyp struggling with the ropes, at the cement floor meticulously clean, at her own hands, a skilled chemist’s hands.

‘Olga,’ Jens said gently, and for a brief second while everyone’s attention was elsewhere he touched her shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault. You have no choice. None of us have.’

She turned her bleak blue eyes on him. ‘Is that true, Jens? Is that really true?’

The airship’s hangar was as high and as intricately ribbed as the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. It towered above them like a new kind of sky, but no sun ever shone inside this world. It dwarfed the band of engineers and scientists who set about their work with well-schooled efficiency, reduced to the significance of worker ants by the vast structure.