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hot water, got dressed, and hurried down to the restaurant.
    It was better patronised than the evening before, and those idly playing with the suspicious-looking slices of cold meat included one British and two American foreign correspondents. One of the latter, Bill Manson, was an old acquaintance from pre-war Berlin. He’d represented various East Coast papers in half a dozen European capitals since the 1920s, and his eternal crew-cut was suitably grey. He had to be well over sixty.
    ‘I thought you were with Ike,’ Manson said as Russell sat down.
    ‘I was. I needed a change.’
    ‘Well, if you needed a rest, you’ve come to the right place. Nothing’s happened here for months, and nothing will until the victory parade. Lenin’s birthday or May Day, depending on how quickly Zhukov and Co. can wrap things up. If you like watching tanks roll by for hours on end you’ll be in seventh heaven.’
    ‘Sounds riveting. I’m John Russell,’ he told the other two. ‘ San Francisco Chronicle .’
    ‘Martin Innes, Daily Sketch ,’ the thinner of the two Englishmen said. He had slicked-back brown hair and rather obvious ears book-ending a pleasant, well-meaning face.
    ‘Quentin Bradley, News Chronicle ,’ the other chipped in. He had wavy blonde hair, a chubby face, and the sort of public school accent which made Russell’s teeth stand on edge.
    ‘Is this the usual breakfast?’ he asked.
    ‘Never changes,’ Manson confirmed. ‘One day I took the meat away with me, just to make sure they weren’t bringing the same pieces back each morning.’
    Russell reached for the bread and jam. The former was dark and stale, the latter surprisingly good. Cherries from the Caucasus, most likely.
    ‘How did you get here?’ Innes asked.
    Russell went through his itinerary, raising a few eyebrows in the process.
    ‘You must have been really keen,’ Manson commented when he’d finished. ‘Any particular reason?’
    Russell told them he was hoping for a ringside seat when the Red Army entered Berlin.
    Not a chance, was the unanimous response.
    ‘Why not?’ Russell asked. ‘Don’t they want witnesses to their triumph? Are they treating German civilians that badly?’ He hadn’t wanted to believe the reports coming out of East Prussia – of German women raped and nailed to barn doors.
    ‘They probably are,’ Manson said, ‘but that’s not the whole story. I think the main reason they won’t allow any foreign reporters near the Red Army is what it might tell them about the Soviet Union. They don’t want the world knowing how utterly reckless they are with their own soldiers’ lives, or how backward most of their army is. The front-line units are good, no doubt about it, but the rest – no uniforms, not enough weapons, just a huge rabble following on behind, stealing wristwatches by the dozen and wondering what flush toilets are for. It’s hardly an advert for thirty years of communism.’
    Russell shrugged. ‘I have to try.’
    ‘Good luck,’ Manson said with a sympathetic smile.
    He was probably right, Russell thought, as he made his way across Sverdlov Square and down Okhotnyy Ryad in the direction of the American Embassy, trying to ignore the man in the suit walking some twenty metres behind him. It was his first glimpse of the city by day, and Moscow seemed a much sorrier place than it had in 1939. There was a lot of visible bomb damage, given that years had elapsed since the last real German attacks. The shop windows were empty, and people were queuing in considerable numbers for whatever was hidden inside.
    He supposed things were slowly getting back to normal. Trams trundled along the wide boulevards, and hordes of plainly dressed pedestrians hurried along the pavements. In what had once been shady parks, a few surviving trees were budding into spring. It was certainly hard to believe that only three years had passed since the Wehrmacht came hammering at the city’s door.
    As Russell approached the