IRINA PETROVA’S FINGERS TREMBLE as she pulls out old photographs of her and her best friend of 27 years, Yulia Skripal. In a faint voice, she says, ‘This is when she had blonde hair, and here she is with red hair.’ Then, a flicker of a smile at the next picture, ‘Here she is as a goth.’ Yulia seemingly reinvented herself regularly. ‘This was New Year’s Eve 2003 with her dad, Sergei,’ recalls Irina, of a shot of them beaming, rosy-cheeked, into the camera.
But looking at these photos is painful for Irina since Yulia and her father, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, became victims of an assassination attempt on 4 March. They were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury after being poisoned by a novichok chemical nerve…
