The Concubine's Secret (49 page)

In his coat Alexei looked more like his old self. She was pleased to see it was the one with the tear in the collar, the one against which she’d slept on the train with her head rolling around on its itchy shoulder. At least Maksim Voshchinsky had not replaced that. Not yet. Outside the street was almost deserted, instead of the usual bustle and rush of workers, and the chill air smelled of burned rubber. It settled like stinging black bees in the nostrils.

Alexei frowned. ‘Damn it, another factory burned down. Poor bloody fools. That means jobs gone. No jobs means no food and this winter is far from over yet. It’s the second fire this month. Industrial fires happen all the time because of lack of safety regulations. Just carelessness. The workers smoke cigarettes where they shouldn’t, hanging round chemicals and gas cylinders. No one stops them.’

‘What about the unions? Don’t they enforce rules?’

‘They try but no one takes a blind bit of notice. It’s the old working habits. They die hard.’

‘Unlike old family habits, it seems.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that you seem to have forgotten we’re brother and sister.’

‘That’s absurd.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Please, Alexei, don’t forget about Jens too.’

He seized her arm, drew her across the road to a baker’s shop and made her look at the queue outside. A line of women with gaunt faces and old men with eyes hard as iron. He headed to the front of the queue and into the shop. Through the window Lydia watched the woman behind the counter smile at him, a cautious twitch of the mouth, remove a grey paper bag from a back shelf and present it to Alexei. There was no exchange of kopecks.

Alexei rejoined Lydia on the pavement. With a solemn face he removed two
pirozhki
from the bag and presented her with one.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is why your implications are absurd.’ She could hear the quiver of anger in his words.

‘The advantages of a
vor?’

‘Exactly.’

He was breathing hard. Lydia wanted to throw the
pirozhok
on the ground and tread on it. She was the first to look away.

‘Alexei, there are disadvantages as well as advantages. Don’t forget that.’

To her surprise Alexei laughed. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close, steering her past the dismal queue. She slipped the
pirozhok
into the hand of a pockmarked child hiding in its mother’s skirts and concentrated on enjoying the unexpected warmth of her brother’s attention.

‘Now what is it,’ he asked as he marched her to the corner of the street, ‘that you wanted to say to me in private?’

‘Don’t trust Maksim.’

He stopped. Faced her. The anger there once more at the back of his eyes.

‘Be careful,’ she added. ‘I don’t want you to be…’

The word wouldn’t come.

‘You don’t want me to be what?’ he demanded.

‘To be… damaged.’

She didn’t look at him. The silence that ballooned between them was pricked by the sound of a cart rumbling past. Alexei kissed Lydia ’s cheek, a quick touch of his lips to her cold skin and then away, as though ashamed of the gesture. When she looked up he was off striding back down the street, arms swinging as if they would drive him even faster away from her.

Without turning round he shouted, ‘No more letters, Lydia.’

Damn you, Alexei Serov. Damn you to hell.

Elena was in a bad mood when Popkov came home with a nasty gash on his cheek and one leg of his trousers slashed up to the knee. A bruise the colour of split damsons had hatched along the length of his shin. He slunk into the room, making low rumbling noises, and collapsed face down on his bed, inert.

Lydia leapt past the dividing curtain and perched on the edge of the quilt, gently patting his back.

‘Liev,’ she murmured, ‘are you all right?’

No answer. Just the rumbling sound seeping out of him. Elena rose from where she was sewing in the chair and came over to examine him. A quick firm finger to the pulse below his ear and a slap on the back of his head.

‘He’s drunk,’ she grumbled. ‘Drunk and bested in a fight. Stupid fool. If he’s going to fight a gang of dolts, I’ve told him again and again to make sure it’s a number he can flatten.’ She slapped him again, on his buttocks this time, and returned her bulk to the chair where she scowled at the needle in her hand and jabbed it into the fabric as though it were somebody’s eyes.

Lydia waited for peace to settle, then fetched a bowl of cold water and bathed Liev’s cheek as best she could without moving him. The white enamel bowl turned pink. Did he need stitches? She wasn’t sure. The gash was deep. It reminded her of when she’d sewn up Chang’s foot by the river in Junchow, and suddenly the ache for him that was always there hit so sharply that her hand shook and she spilled crimson liquid over Liev’s broad back.

‘You trying to drown me, girl?’

The water flowed down to his neck and under his ear.

‘Yes, but I’m not doing a very good job of it.’

‘Men bigger than you have failed.’

‘Don’t talk. It makes it bleed worse.’

‘Shit!’ he grumbled as the pain sharpened.

Lydia held a cloth pressed hard to his cheek and sat beside him as time trickled past in silence. The rumbling had drifted off somewhere until it was no more than a cat’s purr, but his breathing was laboured. When abruptly all noise ceased, Lydia leaned close, heart thumping, listening hard. She prodded him in the ribs. Nothing happened. She jabbed an elbow into the ridge of his neck and only breathed herself when he jerked back to life. He slammed a hand out at her in a reflex action that nearly knocked her head off and the rumbling started up again at a lower volume.

‘Feel like talking?’ she whispered, afraid he’d die in his sleep.

‘Hah!’

‘I bet the others are in worse shape. The ones who did this to you.’

‘Hah!’

‘What was the fight about?’

‘The bastard motherfuckers.’

‘What did they do?’

‘They were waiting outside.’

‘Outside where?’

‘Outside that place of yours.’

Her heart stopped. She leaned down and whispered in his ear, ‘The one in Raikov Ulitsa?’

‘
Da.’

Suddenly she was cold, her teeth chattering.

‘How did they know? Chang and I are so careful. We double back again and again, so no one can follow.’

‘Hah!’

‘How many of them?’

‘
Chetiri. Four.’

‘But now they’ll inform on us and-’

‘
Nyet
.’ He twisted his head round and the black eyepatch was wrenched upward, revealing the deformed empty socket. ‘
Nyet
, little Lydia, they’re dead.’ A crooked grimace stretched his cheek and set the blood oozing once more. ‘So smile,’ he growled, ‘because you and me, Lydia, we’re alive.’

She rested her cheek on his, the stink of him warm and familiar, the feel of his shoulder like a sun-baked rock next to hers.

‘The trouble with you, Liev Popkov, is that you’re just too nice to people. Try being tougher next time.’

He chuckled, his ribcage rattling like iron bars. ‘I need a drink.’

Lydia sat up. ‘I’m going out to buy you the biggest bloody bottle of vodka in the whole of Moscow.’

He grinned at her. One of his teeth was missing.

‘Elena,’ Lydia said, ‘get over here, please. Keep him warm. Watch him while I’m gone.’

The woman put down her needle and gave Lydia a long look. In that single moment Lydia felt Elena take a step back from her, as clearly as if she’d picked up the scissors on her lap and snipped at the thread that held them together. Their friendship had suddenly come unravelled in some way and yet Lydia could-n’t be angry. She knew it was her own fault. She trailed danger around with her the way other girls trailed ribbons. She watched sadly as the woman left her chair and clambered fully dressed on to the bed, where she wrapped herself around the big man, one arm tight around his neck, almost throttling him. Within seconds he was snoring.

As Lydia pulled on her coat, Elena tucked her face into his greasy black hair and muttered, ‘One of these days, Lydia Ivanova, you’ll be the death of him.’

Edik was out stalking. Lydia spotted his prey immediately, a man carrying parcels. He had just emerged from a tobacconist store where smoking pipes of all shapes and sizes were displayed in the window, and he was far too preoccupied with relighting the fat cigar he was rolling between his equally fat lips to notice the skinny bag of bones tagging along behind him.

Lydia touched the boy’s shoulder. ‘Bite me and I’ll keep Misty’s chunk of
kolbasa
sausage for myself.’

Edik stopped and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Piss off, I’m working. ’

‘Don’t let me stop you.’

He regarded her with suspicion, recalling the time she’d made him replace his spoils in the pocket he’d stolen it from. With a shrug he darted forward, tucking in behind two women busy discussing the merits of their hats. Lydia admired the way he glided up to people and hovered briefly at their elbows, close enough so that he looked to others as though he might be with them, but not close enough to cause alarm. Lone youths were always suspect.

‘Mind if I tag along?’ she asked.

‘You’ll get me spotted.’

‘No, I won’t. I’ll give you cover.’

He thought for two seconds, saw the sense of it and let her come alongside.

‘I have a job for you,’ she murmured under her breath.

‘Another letter?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

The speed of the
no
rattled her. ‘I thought-’

‘No. No more letters.’

‘Is this about wanting more money? Because-’

His blue eyes skimmed her face scornfully. ‘Of course not. I just can’t do it any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t. That’s all.’

‘Frightened of the prison?’

He didn’t even deign to answer that one. They had worked their way nearer to the man with the cigar and the parcels, and Edik was up on his toes, hands loose at his sides, ready.

‘I’ll get you a good snatch,’ Lydia promised, ‘if you’ll deliver one more letter.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Watch me.’

Lydia moved in close. She swung to one side of the man, the boy to the other. As if hurrying past the unsuspecting mark, she banged her hip on his bundle of parcels, winced, stumbled and clutched at him for support. Instantly the man was all solicitude. She smiled her most charming smile, thanked him and moved on rapidly. By the time Edik caught up with her in the next side street, he was laughing.

‘You’re good. For a girl.’

‘You’re not bad yourself. For a kid. What did you get?’

He held out a heavy silver cigar case inlaid with diagonal stripes of jet. ‘It’ll do, I suppose.’ He said it in an offhand manner but both knew it was a valuable snatch. ‘You?’

She hoisted a calfskin wallet from her pocket. It felt well stocked. She tossed it to him.’

‘Mine?’

‘I promised, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘Now the letter.’ On her palm lay the square metal folder. She proffered it to him.

‘No.’ The sallow cheeks flushed a dull pink and made him look very young.

‘Edik! What the…?’ And that was when it dawned on her.
Chyort!
She should have seen it coming. ‘It’s the
vory v zakone
, isn’t it? They’ve ordered you to stop.’

He nodded, angry and ashamed.

Then something else clicked into place. ‘Misty? Where’s Misty?’

He looked away. Wouldn’t let her see his face. His fingers were counting out the rouble notes in the wallet but his whole body drooped with an inner misery that seeped out at the mention of the pup’s name.

‘They’ve got her, haven’t they?’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘The
vory
have taken your dog to make sure you obey.’

Edik stuffed the wallet into his oversized pocket. ‘Bastards,’ he whispered.

‘
Bastards
,’ Lydia echoed.

But she knew it was Alexei. Controlling her the only way he knew how.

‘
Bastard
,’ she said again and squeezed the boy’s arm. ‘I’ll get her back for you, don’t worry.’

Edik kicked out at a mound of ice that shattered in the sunshine, creating a thousand shimmering rainbows. ‘I’ll kill them if they hurt her.’

Lydia slipped the metal folder into her pocket next to where the cigar man’s gold watch was ticking discreetly, and she started to run, slipping and sliding on the snow.

‘Kuan.’

The Chinese girl looked surprised at first, then nervous. She was coming down the wide steps of the Hotel Triumfal and hadn’t noticed the slight figure in the shadows across the road. It was her habit to walk in the park opposite the hotel before it grew dark. She hesitated.

‘Kuan,’ Lydia called again.

She was thankful when the Chinese girl moved towards her. She didn’t want to have to chase her up the steps of the hotel. The blue coat and the bulky hat with its ugly grey rabbit-fur trimming made Kuan satisfyingly shapeless, not a figure of allure for her fellow delegates. Nevertheless Lydia ’s palms were sweating. There was something about the Chinese girl’s smooth face, something you wouldn’t want to cross. Determination was chiselled into its features, commitment luminous in the eyes. Chang would admire it.

Kuan placed her small palms together and bowed politely over them. Lydia ignored the courtesy.

‘Kuan,’ she said, her voice bordering on rude. ‘Will you please tell Chang An Lo that my aunt is ill, so I must leave.’ It was the wording they had agreed on should she ever need to warn him to stay away.

The girl studied her, black eyes carefully expressionless. Lydia wondered how much Russian she understood.