Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

‘Alexei, do something about your sister!’

‘Let her come.’

‘Remember what I told you, Alexei. A vor has no family except the vory v zakone.’

‘I remember, pakhan . But let her come.’

So now she was hunched beside him on the green leather seat, her face glued to the side window, watching as intently as a cat watches a butterfly. Her fingers tapped the glass in rapid disjointed movements.

It took an hour. They drove past the prison four times but spread out at fifteen-minute intervals, so as not to arouse suspicion. After the shock of the first time Alexei found it easier, the thought of his father inside there. He knew what to expect. Massive grey walls. Barbed wire on top. Metal doors large enough to swallow a truck. Bars on the windows. On the street armed guards with dogs. All protecting the three-storey building behind.

Not good.

‘Are you certain, Lydia? That this is where Jens is being held?’

She nodded. Ever since the car had started to whisk them north and out towards the grander houses, with the horseshoe of factories and warehouses that had sprung up around them, his sister had barely spoken. Maksim leaned back in the seat and lit a cigar, satisfied that the girl was overawed. Alexei was not so sure.

The driver was unknown to him, someone who drove in silence and acknowledged instructions with a subdued ‘Da, pakhan.’ The back of his neck was blue where the tip of a tattooed sword blade emerged from his collar and ran up into his hairline. After the fourth pass in front of the prison they took no more chances and turned the car south.

‘So?’ Alexei asked Maksim. ‘What about the truck which we’re told takes the prisoners out to their project centre?’

‘Don’t worry, my son. The place will be watched by our people now. We will trace it wherever it goes.’ He thumped a fist down on Alexei’s knee. ‘Trust me. The OGPU bastard secret police will be like a dog with a bone, unaware of the fleas jumping on their backs. You shall soon know.’

‘ Spasibo, father.’

Beside him Lydia stirred. Her eyes stared at her brother’s face. He gazed straight ahead through the windscreen, cutting her out. As they travelled back towards the city, skirting Izmailovski Park, the streets grew broader and a forest of concrete monster apartment blocks for communal living shot up around them.

‘We could do more.’

‘What do you mean, little girl?’ Maksim gave Lydia a patronising smile.

Alexei could see how much it annoyed her but she kept herself in check.

‘I mean we should try to get someone inside the prison.’ The men all looked at her with disgust.

‘You’ve seen it,’ Alexei pointed out patiently. ‘It’s too well guarded.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Please, Lydia, don’t-’

‘Other people must go in and out,’ she continued reasonably. ‘Coalmen, butchers, bakers, secretaries, vets, window cleaners, cooks-’

‘All right, that’s enough.’

‘Couldn’t we pass a note to Jens through one of the civilian workers?’

Maksim wound down the window as though to clear the air of her words, and tossed out the remains of his cigar along with them.

‘Shut her up, Alexei. What she says is impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘ Lydia, please, just listen for a second,’ Alexei cut in. ‘What you suggest is far too dangerous. Impossible to do without raising suspicion – and maybe losing everything by alerting OGPU to what we’re doing. People talk. You know that. If you start asking workers to pass notes, they would tell someone who would tell someone else who would inform the police to gain favour with them. Whispers flare quickly here. It would put not just us in danger, but also Jens himself.’

‘No, I don’t agree because-’

‘Forget it, Lydia.’

‘But-’

‘No.’

Alexei saw her dart a glance across at Maksim but she found no ally there. His fleshy face was looking puffy, veins running like crimson threads over his cheeks, but his expression was intractable. Alexei noticed a whiteness around his lips and felt a flash of concern.

‘Home,’ Maksim ordered the driver.

Lydia leaned forward, reaching out across Alexei, and touched his fur-coated arm. ‘Please, pakhan.’

‘ Nyet. Alexei is right. Only a fool would take that risk. Leave it to us.’

Alexei felt her shiver as she retreated into her corner. But at the first road junction, when the car slowed to a halt to allow a tram to pass, she pushed down the chrome handle, swung the door open and slipped out of the car. She didn’t say goodbye. Or thank you, pakhan. That annoyed Alexei.

Mirrored tiles. Silk robe. The fragrance of Parisian perfume. A peacock’s tail feather heavy with steam. Alexei sank into the bath and struggled not to close his eyes. Behind his eyelids lay worlds that frightened him and he was not used to being frightened.

A soft white-gloved hand stroked his damp forehead and trailed through his hair.

‘I missed you,’ Antonina murmured and gently tipped the silver edge of a champagne glass to his lips.

Her slender figure was perched on the side of the bath, naked except for the gloves that reached her elbows. The length of her dark hair hung down her back like a glossy curtain shimmering with moisture, and her face was washed free of make-up and lipstick, the way he liked her best. They were alone in the Malofeyev apartment. It was a risk, they both knew it, but neither cared right now. Alexei swallowed the chill liquid but it was not to his taste, and he wished for a shot of Maksim’s French brandy.

‘That was a strange little scene over coffee this morning,’ Antonina murmured and dipped her tongue in the champagne bubbles.

‘Whose bright idea was it to get us together in the first place?’

‘Dmitri’s, of course. When I mentioned that Lydia was coming here with you, he insisted on staging a cosy little four-some instead and chose a suitably grand setting. He likes to remind everyone who is the one with the power at his fingertips.’

Alexei raised one dark eyebrow. ‘Maybe he was just planning on keeping me out of his apartment.’

She sipped her champagne. ‘Well, he didn’t succeed, did he?’

‘Is that why I’m here? To annoy Dmitri?’

The shadows under her eyes darkened as she leaned forward and trailed her tongue down the side of his cheek, forming a line through the beads of steam. ‘You’re here because I want you here.’

He regarded her face intently. What was it about this woman that drew him? Not her handsome looks or her elegance or even her position among the elite of Communist society. All those things got in the way. It was something about her vulnerability under all that polish, something that crept under his skin and lodged there like a burr which he couldn’t shift. Didn’t want to shift. He sat up suddenly with a whoosh of water, twined an arm round her naked waist and tumbled her down into the bubbles on top of him.

She squealed and scooped water into the champagne glass to pour over his head.

‘You’ll drown me,’ she laughed.

Very deliberately he lifted one of the white gloves, dripping with scented bubbles, and kissed the delicate skin in the crook of her elbow.

‘I’m going to teach you to swim,’ he said, and started to peel down the sodden fabric. Inch by inch the damaged skin came into view.

They walked side by side. Together but not touching. Heads ducked against the wind. Chang was tense, Lydia could sense it in the way he placed each foot on the ground, like a cat taking care on ice, and in the hand hovering close to his thigh where she knew a knife was strapped. Yet when she glanced across at his face it looked calm, his eyes focused.