It was a year since Lydia had seen him. He mightn’t recognise her now.

She prodded the cloth bag Mum had brought with her. It was bursting with food. Mum had told her about the porridge that they had to eat, almost always a nasty, mealy mess. Mum rattled on about vitamins, that you’d get ill if you didn’t get enough and how everyone in that place needed them and that’s why people who came to visit tried to bring good food.

The bus was driving quite fast now. The road was wider and there was more traffic than before, and the houses beyond the muddy window were larger as well and seemed to grow bigger the closer to Vilnius they got. The first houses she had seen along the bumpy road had looked old and poor. Now it was mostly blocks of flats, all grey walls and tin roofs, but sort of modern-looking. Then came some more expensive houses and then all the petrol stations, all in the same place. She smiled and pointed, she had never seen so many garages together before.

The rain had almost stopped, which was a good thing. She didn’t want her hair to get wet, not today.

The bus stop was near the Lukuskele prison, only a few hundred metres away. It was a great big place, taking up almost a whole city block, with a high wall going all the way round it. It had originally been a Russian church, but it had been converted and new buildings had been added. Now more than a thousand prisoners lived there.

Other mothers and children were already queuing outside a massive iron door set into the middle of the concrete wall. One family was let in at a time to face the uniformed and armed guards who were waiting in the room behind the door. Everyone had to answer questions. Show their identity papers. Show what they had with them. One of the guards smiled at her, but she didn’t dare to smile back.