The Concubine's Secret (41 page)

‘He’s here?’

‘Yes. He is part of a Chinese Communist delegation to Moscow.’

‘I see.’

He said no more, just those two flat words. But he looked round the room, taking in its stained wallpaper and shabby curtains, and she could see him thinking what a disgusting little room it was.

‘It’s all we can afford,’ she explained. ‘Popkov and Elena are living here with me. We were lucky to get it at all. Rooms are like gold dust in Moscow. It’s not easy, Alexei. Nothing here is easy. It’s the way life is.’

He lowered his chin to his chest. ‘And Jens? What news of him?’

‘Not good. We’ve been searching to find the prison he’s in but people are too frightened. They won’t talk.’

‘I see,’ he said again.

She wondered if he did. She pressed his hand to make him look directly at her, and when he did she wanted to tell him that she was just as frightened as everyone else and she didn’t blame any of them for keeping their mouths firmly shut. She wanted to say that having Chang An Lo here in Moscow made her come alive for the first time in months, but at the same time she was seething with rage at the Soviet watchers for making it so hard for them to be together. She wanted to tell Alexei that having her brother here in her room made her feel safe, even though he was in a worse state than she was. But what about their father? What kind of world was he in? Was he surviving? How in this twisted and secretive city would they ever be able to find him?
Tell me how. How?
Yet when she looked into Alexei’s eyes, which used to be green but now were the colour of mud, she said none of it.

Instead she smiled at him. ‘I’m so pleased you’re here, as safe and as handsome as ever under all that filth.’

‘ Thank you, Lydia. You know I wouldn’t abandon you to do this alone.’

She felt two hot tears trickle down her cheeks. Alexei brushed a thumb lightly along her cheekbones, wiping the tears away with an affection that she knew she didn’t deserve after all the times she’d sworn at him behind his back.

‘I’m happy,’ he said, ‘to see you happy.’

She was just working out whether he meant it or was just trying to please her, when a heavy fist banged on the door. Twice. They froze, his thumb still on her skin, her fingers still clasping the hand on her knee.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No.’

Quickly she bundled her brother back into bed, pulled the blanket up to his ears and tucked it tightly round him.

‘Don’t move,’ she hissed.

Then she opened the door.

Outside on the landing stood three men. Lydia took one look at them and slammed the door in their faces.

‘Who is it?’ Alexei was struggling up in the bed.

‘It’s bad news.’

‘Police?’

‘No.’

‘Who, Lydia? Tell me.’

She had her back pressed to the door, breathing hard. ‘They look like killers.’

Alexei tumbled out of bed and moved close to the door, listening. The fist slammed on the door again, three bangs this time.

‘Alexei Serov,’ a rough voice called out. ‘Open this fucking door or I’ll kick it down.’

Lydia stared in horror at Alexei. ‘They know you. Who are they?’

Alexei leaned round her, took hold of the doorknob and clicked the door open. ‘My dear sister,’ he said with a smile so crooked it made him look like a stranger, ‘I’d like you to meet my new friends.’

‘They took him away. In a car.’

‘They’re welcome to the bastard.’

‘Liev,’ Lydia snapped, ‘shut that foul mouth of yours.’

The big man laughed. Elena smacked him. ‘So who the hell were these people?’ she asked. She was more agitated than Lydia expected.

‘I don’t know,’ she moaned. ‘They were rough. Shabby but wore good boots.’

‘You noticed their boots?’

Lydia shrugged. Yes, she noticed boots. They told you more about what lay in a man’s wallet than any amount of furs on his back.

‘They had hard cold eyes and hard cold smiles.’

‘But were they his friends?’ Elena asked. ‘He told you they were his new friends.’

‘They were no more his friends than rats are friends to day-old chicks.’

‘Did they give any idea where they were taking him?’

‘No.’

‘Did he look frightened?’

‘Alexei would never let it show if he were.’ Lydia thought back to it, pictured for the hundredth time Alexei’s expression as he walked out of the door. His back was straight, his stride stiff-legged, and he reminded her of dogs that circle each other, bristling, before hurling themselves at each other’s throats. She shivered.

‘Elena, I can’t lose him again.’

Liev’s teeth flashed somewhere in the depths of his black beard. ‘Don’t fret, little Lydia. It’ll take more than a rat or two to kill off that bastard brother of yours.’

‘There’s something else.’

‘What?’

‘I remember that one of them wasn’t wearing gloves. He was standing in the doorway with hands stuck in his coat pockets, watching the corridor.’

‘So?’

‘So I was scared he’d have a gun in there. But just as the other two were walking out with Alexei between them, this man took his hands out of his pockets and they were empty. But I saw right across his middle fingers he had dark tattoos.’

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. It was as if the room had splintered.

‘What?’ Lydia demanded. ‘What is it? What have I said?’

‘Tattoos,’ Popkov growled.

‘Yes.’ Lydia seized his massive arm and shook it hard. ‘What does it mean?’

Elena and Popkov exchanged a look. Lydia ’s pulse was suddenly pounding, a noise like water rushing through her brain, flushing away her control.

‘Who are they? Who are these rats?’

Elena’s face changed. Her concern was replaced by disgust and her fleshy mouth twitched with distaste. ‘It’s the vory v zakone,’ she muttered. ‘He’s in with the vory.’

Those words –
vory v zakone
– Lydia had heard them before. From the girl on the train.

The Cossack sank down on Lydia ’s narrow bed, making its metal frame yowl like a tomcat. ‘The
vory
,’ he muttered, sighing out a great rush of stale air. ‘He’s a dead man.’

Lydia thought she’d heard wrong. She could feel the spaces in her chest trembling and it seemed to shake the whole house.

‘Tell me, Liev, exactly who these vory v zakone are.’

‘Criminals.’

‘A criminal brotherhood,’ Elena explained.

Lydia sat herself down beside Popkov on the bed. ‘Tell me more.’

‘They use tattoos all over their bodies to show allegiance. The
vory v zakone
, thieves-in-law, is what they call themselves. I’ve come across them before. It started in the prisons and labour camps, but now they’re all over the cities of Russia like a fucking plague.’

‘Why would they want Alexei? He’s not a thief.’

Popkov grunted and offered no answer. Lydia leaned against his arm as though it were a wall. ‘Why the tattoos?’

‘Apparently each tattoo means something,’ Elena said. ‘It’s like a secret language within the brotherhood. And just the sight of the tattoos warns people off.’

‘Are they dangerous?’

They hesitated. It was slight, but she didn’t miss it. Then Popkov clapped her on the back with his great bear’s paw, which made her teeth sink into her tongue. She sucked the blood off it.

‘Come on, little Lydia,’ Popkov frowned at her, ‘you don’t need him. We manage well enough without this brother of yours.’

His eyebrows, thick as black beetles, descended above the broad bridge of his nose, and he only just raised his arm in time to ward off her punch to his face. With a growl he wrapped both his arms around her slight frame so that she couldn’t move. She sat with the weight of her head on his chest and started at last to think clearly.

‘If he’s with these criminals, these vory,’ she said into his stinking coat, ‘the boy will know. Edik will have an idea where to find them.’ She wriggled free and jumped to her feet. ‘Elena, I’m going to need some sausage for the dog.’

Edik, where are you?

Lydia was running down the stairs when the front door opened. The concierge had scuttled across the hallway with the movements of an arthritic mouse to do her duty. She made a note of the visitor’s name, and darted out of sight back to her mousehole at the rear of the house with a speed that should have alerted Lydia. But she was preoccupied, working out where to start her search for the boy.

‘Good evening, Lydia. Dobriy vecher.’

In the drab hallway with its brown walls and half-hearted lamp, Lydia had not even given the visitor a glance. She did so now and her feet came to a halt.

‘Antonina. I didn’t expect to see you here.’

The elegant woman smiled. ‘I found your address in Dmitri’s diary. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not. You’re always welcome.’

‘I’ve come to talk to you, but it seems you’re on your way out.’

Lydia hesitated. She was in a hurry. But just the sight of this woman, with her long dark hair loose on her shoulders and her fur collar turned up high round her small ears like a fortress against the world, made her want to stay.

‘Walk with me,’ Lydia said and headed for the door.

In the street Antonina’s soft boots struggled to keep up and Lydia made herself slow down, though it hurt to do so. The sky was a sooty grey, sinking down on the city roofs, and nearly dark now. Even at this hour there were queues outside the butcher’s, women shuffling in sawdust in the hope that more meat might arrive. A scrap of belly pork. A fistful of bones for soup.

‘You’re looking well,’ Lydia commented and steered them across the road, picking a path round a pile of frozen horse dung.

Antonina smiled again, a small twist of her wide mouth, and flicked her hair from her collar. Lydia wished she wouldn’t do that. Her mother had used the exact same gesture.

‘You’re the one looking well, Lydia,’ Antonina said. ‘Quite different, in fact. You seem…’ She tipped her head to one side and inspected Lydia. ‘Happy.’

‘I like Moscow. It suits me.’

‘Obviously. But take care, Lydia. There are many whisperers.’

For a moment their gaze held on each other, then they looked away and concentrated on avoiding the patches of ice.

‘What have you come for?’ Lydia asked eventually, when it seemed Antonina was going to trot at her side for ever with no explanation.

‘Dmitri tells me things sometimes, you know. Particularly when he’s had a few brandies.’

‘What things?’

‘Things like where your father is.’

Lydia almost fell flat on her face as she walked straight into a heap of soiled snow.

‘Tell me,’ she said, her lips dry.

‘He’s in a prison here in Moscow, a secret prison.’

More? Please let there be more. ‘I know that much already, but where?’

‘He’s working on some development project for the military.’

Not medical experiments. Not a guinea pig.

‘He’s well, apparently.’

Not injured. Not sick.

Lydia walked faster. As if she could reach him if she moved quickly enough. But Antonina slowed and she was forced to turn and wait for the pale grey boots to catch up.

‘Don’t rush off,’ Antonina complained. ‘I haven’t finished.’

Lydia stood still on the pavement and faced her. Her cheeks felt stiff. ‘Where is the prison and why are you telling me this?’

Antonina’s carefully guarded face softened as she tilted her head apologetically and gripped her gloved hands together. ‘I’m sorry, Lydia, I don’t know where it is. Dmitri didn’t say.’

‘Did you ask?’

‘No.’

‘Will you ask him?’

‘If you want.’

‘Of course I want.’

‘He’s being very attentive at the moment, so maybe I can try. Look what he gave me.’ She slipped back the wide cuff of the silver-fox coat and revealed a slender wrist encased in a grey leather glove, so pale it was almost white. Around it was clasped a wide gold bracelet inlaid with amethysts and ivory.

‘What do you think?’

‘It’s obviously very old and very lovely.’

Antonina inspected it quizzically for a second and then slid it off her wrist, pushing it deep into her coat pocket.

‘I hate it,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘I fear it might be a blood gift. That it might have been given to Dmitri by some old tsarist countess as a bribe. To let her husband live. In the camp, I mean. Some old White Russian general with a big moustache and proud eyes, but too weak to work in the mines or forests any more.’ She turned her head and spat in the gutter. ‘That’s what I fear.’

‘Antonina, why are you telling me all this?’

‘Because I want you to trust me.’

‘Why on earth would you care whether or not I trust you?’

The woman’s gloves started to fret against each other, making a soft fluttering sound like birds’ wings. ‘If I tell you that your father leaves the guarded prison every few days and travels through the streets of Moscow in the back of a truck, taken to work in a less well-guarded place… will you trust me then?’

Lydia put out a hand and gently held the nervous gloves, preventing their movement. ‘What is it you want, Antonina? Tell me.’

‘I want to know where your brother Alexei is.’

‘He’s gone missing again.’

‘What?’

‘We don’t know where he is.’

‘
Chyort!
’ Antonina’s face was stricken with dismay. ‘ Lydia, you lost him once already. What’s the matter with you? Can’t you keep anyone safe? You seem to lose everyone, even your own father. For heaven’s sake, I-’ She shook her dark hair so that it swung around her like a cloud of unhappiness, and strode on along the pavement.

Lydia wasn’t certain what made her do what she did next. Was it anger? Despair? Guilt? She wasn’t sure. All three churned inside her. Or just that she was stung by Antonina’s rebuke and needed to strike back? Whichever it was, she didn’t care. But when she hurried to catch up with her companion, brushing her arm to turn her round, it took less than a second to slide the bracelet from the fur pocket into her own.