Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

Or was it fear? It surprised him that he hadn’t thought of that before. Was his sister frightened? He felt an odd rush of tenderness towards her despite her withdrawn manner, because he knew fear was something Lydia would never admit to. She’d rather bite her tongue off first.

‘Lydia,’ he said in an attempt to draw her out of her isolation, ‘the truck took the prisoners to the hangars early this morning. It hasn’t returned yet, so we believe Jens is actually there right now.’

She dragged her face from the window and frowned at Maksim. ‘Did your vory men follow it?’

‘ Da, of course.’

‘What if they were spotted?’

‘Hah! They were not spotted.’

‘But if they were, there will be soldiers and police waiting for us.’

He laughed, a rich amused sound that warmed the chill interior of the car. ‘My men are vory . Thieves. Harder to trace than shadows in snow. You understand?’

She nodded. But Alexei was not sure she did. She didn’t realise exactly how these men functioned or that they were outside the normal margins of society. To her they were just criminals. It was clear she didn’t trust them and he was surprised she hadn’t insisted on dragging that oaf Popkov along too. When it came to watching her back, that filthy Cossack was the one she relied on, God only knows why.

‘No action today,’ he reminded her. He was wary of what she might do. ‘We’re going out there to observe. Nothing more.’

‘I know.’

‘Just don’t expect too much.’

‘I expect nothing.’

‘That’s a good place to start,’ Maksim chuckled.

She turned her attention back to the window. They had left the city streets behind, passing the foul-smelling Red Hercules rubber factory some time back, and were driving north of Moscow. Huddles of wooden izbas, peasant cottages with a cow tethered at the front and dense rows of vegetables at the rear, popped up at intervals and broke the monotony of the flat and featureless landscape. The road ran straight as a prison bar across it. At one point a group of women were washing their bed sheets in the river and looked up with a moment’s interest. Otherwise there was nothing, not even other traffic, just the spiny edge of the pine forest blocking out the horizon on both sides.

The car stopped.

‘Out,’ Igor ordered.

They all climbed out into the empty windswept landscape except the driver, and the car swerved off the deserted road on to a patch of rough ground, where he promptly began to remove a wheel.

‘Now what?’ Maksim demanded.

‘Over there.’ Alexei indicated a darker shadow tucked among the trees. It was a small, covered army truck.

This was a point where the pines looped close to the road and a single-track dirt trail cut through the tall willowy trunks. The track was obviously well used and heavy wheels had gouged deep ruts into its frozen surface.

Maksim’s eyes narrowed into slits. ‘This is as far as I go.’

Alexei nodded and draped a rug over the older man’s shoulders, then climbed into the Soviet army vehicle he had stolen the previous night. He tried the engine and it started first time. Satisfied, he gunned it to full throttle.

‘You can wait here if you prefer,’ he called out to Lydia.

‘No.’

‘Then get in.’

She scrambled up beside him on the front bench and Igor jumped up after her. Alexei kicked the truck into gear.

‘Relax, Lydia, enjoy the ride.’ He gripped the steering wheel as it almost jolted out of his hands and the truck bounced its way across a narrow ditch, making Igor grunt.

‘Don’t they have guards on patrol?’ Lydia demanded. ‘Snipers in the trees?’

‘Of course. That’s why we’re in an army truck. No one will take any notice of it.’

‘And what happens when we get there?’

‘We’re not driving up to the front door and knocking on it politely, if that’s what you mean. Don’t worry.’

‘I am worried.’

Alexei glanced at his sister’s face. This wasn’t the Lydia he’d travelled halfway across Russia with. That Lydia would have been brimming with excitement.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked quietly.

‘ Chyort! What do you think is the matter with me?’ She blinked hard and stared ahead through the windscreen. ‘It’s this insane driving.’

‘You said you wanted to see the layout of where Jens Friis is working?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then hold on tight.’

At that moment he swung the heavy wheel, both arms working hard, and abandoned the gravelled track.

‘This way,’ Igor indicated off to the right.

The side window was caught by a low branch and Lydia flinched at the crack it made. She was jumpy as hell. For half a mile Alexei concentrated on nothing but wrestling the damn truck through the trees, avoiding gulleys and mounds of packed snow that formed traps which wouldn’t melt till spring.

‘What’s the matter, Lydia?’ he asked again when he struck a stretch where the terrain grew smoother.

Her hands were huddled like little corpses in her lap, unmoving and stiff. ‘Let’s focus on our father,’ she murmured in a low voice. ‘And this crazy ride.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It is.’

‘Are you all right? Has something happened?’

‘I’m fine.’

One of her gloved hands crept off her lap and settled in the valley between his thigh and hers. It curled up there as if needing warmth. He stamped on the brake pedal to avoid a jagged stump and jinked the truck so its wheels slid into a sideways skid. One wing brushed along the length of a bough that was draped in icicles and gave off a noise like the rattle of buckshot.

‘Alexei, do you have any idea where the hell we’re going?’

For a split second their eyes met and he knew she wasn’t talking about the forest.

‘How about to the top of the tree?’

She smiled.

He looked away quickly and just missed crunching into a blackened pine trunk.

‘Is this it?’

‘Yes. This is as far as we go, the rest is on foot.’ Alexei was pushing to move on fast.

They clambered out of the truck, the air bone-white with a mist that twisted in and out of the trees like beckoning fingers. Igor threw a canvas pack on his back.

‘It’s just up ahead,’ he said.

They moved off in single file, keeping close to the dark trunks. In this mist it would be easy to lose touch. The remnants of the snow were heaped into hunched shapes by the wind, and underfoot the cracking of brittle pine needles betrayed their movements. Alexei slipped the gun out of his pocket.

‘Sentries?’ Lydia whispered.

He nodded. ‘They patrol the forest in pairs. But the guards are cold and bored and after months of tedium they expect to find nothing, so they pay scant attention to what is in the forest. They spend more time patrolling the complex itself.’

‘Alexei, why did Maksim come? It’s a bitterly cold day and he looks ill. Even back there in the car it could be dangerous for him if he’s found and questioned. It wasn’t necessary.’

‘Yes, it was. To remind his vory who is their pakhan.’

‘To remind the thieves? Or to remind you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

It wasn’t a question he chose to answer. Instead he silenced her by placing a finger to his lips, so that they crept forward more cautiously, Lydia right on his heel. Igor watched the rear. The forest ended abruptly, switching within the space of ten paces from its own private twilight to an open expanse of slippery white sky. An area the size of a village had been flattened within the heart of the forest; an efficient clearing of timber had carved out a rectangle which was hidden from view by a brick wall erected around its perimeter. Ten metres high and topped with razor wire, while around its base more strands coiled like a sleeping, spiny serpent.