They arranged to meet for the third and final time at the Hotel Bristol in Paris that November. As it happened, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was in town and staying at the very same spot. Medynska repeated to the inquest what she told BuzzFeed News — that when they had lunch together, Perepilichnyy seemed nervous, his shaky hands spilling wine down his front.

“He was in another planet so I was a little bit upset, and so he said, ‘let’s go shopping together,’” Medynska said. Yet as Medynska chose shoes, Perepilichnyy was checking his email.

Lawyers at the inquest questioned Medynska closely about everything Perepilichnyy ate that day. When they returned to the hotel, Medynska testified, he ate a couple of apples. “I was saying, ‘Alexander, it’s nice that you eat apples,’ because he very takes care of his health if he eats apples,” Medynska said.

At around 10pm, they went to a noisy Asian fusion restaurant called Buddha Bar for dinner. Medynska found it odd that he seemed nervous and refused to sit with his back to the restaurant’s other patrons, most of whom seemed to be “very old French people”. His eyes kept wandering to the stairs. A lawyer at the inquest noted that he had made bookings for the same night at a series of other restaurants that the two did not go to.

When Perepilichnyy tried some of the food, his mood turned sour. She couldn’t remember exactly which dish upset him, she said, because she had gone to the restroom twice to wash her hands and to phone her mother, but she thought it was “something fried, like tempura.” They shared a bottle of white wine, and at the end of the meal he said he wanted some fresh air.

Outside on the street, he felt better. They held hands as they made the short walk back to the hotel. But when they got to their room, he went straight to the toilet, where he stayed for an hour. He started running the water, but it did not obscure the sound of vomiting, which she heard three times. She said she did not actually see him throw up or confirm that was what he had been doing "because I cannot ask a man, have you vomited?"

He seemed better when he came out, and in the morning, nothing seemed amiss. “He smiled, he invite me for the breakfast, we went to the first floor and went for eggs and bread and hot chocolate,” she said.