‘I promised Olya I would walk her up the aisle’

THE two little girls playing tea party in the sparse room of the orphanage caught John O’Riordan’s eye.

Krystina and Olya were four years old, inseparable as twins though bonded together by shared experience, not bloodline.

John watched the two small shaved heads bob as the girls busied themselves with their plates and bottles. Then he saw that they weren’t playing.