Motherland: A Gripping Crime Thriller Set in the Dark Heart of Putin's Russia

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Her husband’s men had been drinking vodka since midday. Through the serving hatch she could see Sasha making a toast with his hand curled around one of her crystal glasses. She had no desire to listen to him and tore apart a head of lettuce at the sink, washing the leaves in the icy water until it numbed her fingers. She heard grunting and dropped the leaves in a salad spinner before returning to the hatch. Now the two men were arm wrestling on her coffee table, their rolled up shirt-sleeves showing off their pale, swollen biceps; the smoke from their untended cigarettes forming cirrus clouds in the stale air. She unscrewed a jar of pickled tomatoes and sliced three on a board then stirred them into a bowl of finely chopped cucumber and onion.

‘It’s smoky in here.’ She wafted her free arm breezily to emphasise the point as she placed the bowl next to a beetroot salad in the adjoining dining room.

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