The Russian Concubine Part 52

'No, I'm not. It would be perfect. And I'd help you.'

'What do you know about babies?'

'Nothing, but I'd learn. Oh please, Mama, say yes. Tell Alfred. Yes. And he'd pay for an amah amah to do all the mucky work, so it wouldn't be too hard on you and I'd sing to him, or to her, the way you used to when . . .' to do all the mucky work, so it wouldn't be too hard on you and I'd sing to him, or to her, the way you used to when . . .'

'Stop. Stop right now, little one.' Valentina chafed Lydia's hand between her own and said with an odd little grimace, 'I had no idea. That you would react like this. Are you so lonely?'

'No. But it would be . . . special. A brother or sister to love.'

'As good as your filthy rabbit, you mean?'

Lydia grinned at her. 'Not quite. But nearly.'

'G.o.d preserve me.'

They laughed together and for a moment Lydia thought seriously of telling her the truth about the shed. But with a sudden switch of mood her mother's eyes widened in horror. She jumped to her feet and faced Lydia with hands on hips.

'It's not that Serov boy, is it?'

'What?'

'Sweet Christ, I saw him drive away as we arrived home yesterday. Tell me he's not the one who has got you wagging your tail like a b.i.t.c.h in heat.'

'Mama! Don't be . . .'

'Tell me.' Valentina seized Lydia's wrist and yanked her to her feet. 'Not him. You stay away from him.'

'No, of course it's not him.' She s.n.a.t.c.hed back her wrist and rubbed it. 'I can't stand Alexei Serov.'

Valentina narrowed her eyes again and glared at Lydia. 'Oh, dochenka. dochenka. G.o.d strike your tongue black. How do I know when to believe you? You are such a good liar.' G.o.d strike your tongue black. How do I know when to believe you? You are such a good liar.'

The doorbell rang.

Too many voices. That's what alarmed Lydia. This couldn't be a visit by one of Alfred's friends because they would all expect him to be still on his honeymoon. No, this was something else. Something worse. Silently she moved out onto the landing and peered over the polished banister rail to stare down into the hall. That's when her lungs seemed to collapse inside her. This wasn't just worse. This was as bad as it could get. The narrow s.p.a.ce was full of uniforms.

'I'm sorry, Mr Parker,' the English policeman with the pips on his shoulder was saying, 'I do understand your objections but I'm afraid we have authority to search your premises.' He held out a piece of paper to Alfred.

Alfred took the doc.u.ment but didn't even glance at it.

'This is a d.a.m.ned disgrace,' he complained sternly.

Lydia slipped down the stairs. Panic made her fast but it was impossible to sneak past them. Valentina was standing just behind Alfred and grabbed at her daughter's arm.

'Oh, Lydochka, what excitement! A whole pack of them. Like wolves.'

There were four English police officers filling up the hall, burly figures with polite manners but hard eyes, and snowflakes melting on their dark-blue shoulders. But it was what was outside that frightened Lydia. Five soldiers. Grey uniforms. The Kuomintang sun on their caps. Chinese troops. Waiting patiently out in the snow with cold, impa.s.sive faces.

Voices blurred. She had to get out. Now. Right now.

'Mama, what are they searching for?'

'A Communist, it would seem. A Chinese troublemaker.

Some malicious creature has made up a story that's he's in hiding here. In our house, for G.o.d's sake. As if we wouldn't notice. Isn't that utterly absurd?' She started to laugh but as she looked at her daughter's expression, it died in her throat. She pulled Lydia to the back of the hall. 'No,' she breathed. 'No.'

'Mama,' Lydia whispered with an urgent squeeze of her mother's hand, 'you must make Alfred keep them here. Longer. I need time.' She squeezed again, hard. 'Do you understand?'

Valentina's face was as white as the snow on the doorstep, but she stepped closer to her husband again and slipped an arm around his waist. 'Angel,' she purred, 'why don't you invite these smart officers to come into the . . . ,' she glanced at the drawing-room door but to Lydia's relief seemed to recollect what the French windows looked out on, ' . . . into the dining room for a drink and we can discuss this situation prop-'

'No, my dear.' Alfred's mouth was drawn in a straight angry line. 'Let them get this intrusion over and done with.'

'Thank you, sir,' the officer said formally. 'We will disturb you as little as possible.'

'No, Alfred, darling. I think this is . . . unacceptable.'

Something in her voice made him look at her. Even through her panic Lydia was impressed. He saw what was in his wife's eyes, frowned, and touched his spectacles as if about to clean them, but didn't. Instead he cast a quick glance at Lydia, and then did no more than cover the moment with a cough and turn back to the dark uniforms.

'On second thought, I think my wife is right. How dare you come barging into my home for no reason? This needs more discussion. '

'Sir, I have already given you the reason. We are cooperating with our Chinese colleagues, as it is out of their jurisdiction here in the International Settlement. There really is nothing further to discuss.'

Alfred drew himself up, stiff as a board. 'I must dispute that. And I will take it up in my next report for the Daily Herald. Daily Herald.' He waved a hand in Lydia's direction. 'Leave us, Lydia.' To the officer he said loftily, 'I don't want my daughter involved in this . . . fiasco.'

Mentally Lydia pulled out every single pin she'd stuck into the A on the sheet of paper last night. Without a word she left the hall.

'The soldiers. They're here. Quick.'

But he was already moving. He had risen instantly from the blankets but swayed on his feet, fighting for balance. His dark eyes blinked hard.

For one brief second she reached out and kissed him. 'That's for strength.' She smiled.

'You are my strength,' he said, then seized his jacket. He was otherwise fully dressed, even wearing his boots. Prepared for this moment.

She scooped up the satchel that she had packed with his medicines last night and put an arm around his waist. 'Let's go.'

'No.' The fever had dulled his eyes but not his brain. 'Cover our tracks.' He gestured at the blankets.

Quickly she grabbed them, stuffed them with the hot-water bottle into one of the dusty sacks against the wall, and then piled a heap of dirty straw from the rabbit hutch on top of it. To discourage probing fingers.

'Thank you, xie xie xie xie, Sun Yat-sen,' Chang said solemnly.

Lydia would have laughed, but she'd forgotten how.

The snow saved them. It came spinning down in big floating flakes that blotted out the world. Pavements grew treacherous and sounds were m.u.f.fled as cars and people faded out of focus into the swirling white world. Out through the garden door with the broken latch. On to the main road. They ran.

How Chang An Lo did it, she'd never know. The cold cut into her face. She was wearing no coat, just a thick wool sweater, but that was the least of her worries. The Kuomintang troops were at the house and once they found it empty, what then? They'd come looking. She kept glancing back over her shoulder but could make out no figures behind, and she held tight to the conviction that if she couldn't see them, they couldn't see her. Or could they? The snow turned the air into dense white sheets that blocked out any vision more than a few yards and it made everyone hurry, heads down, no interest in an odd pair rushing over icy pavement.

She had to think. Make her mind work for both of them.

Where to go?

Their feet pounded the pavement in fast rhythm together. Her heart kept pace. Her arm around his waist held him firmly against her side and she could feel him trying not to put weight on her, but once he stumbled. His damaged hand hit the ground hard but he said nothing, just hauled himself up and back to the running. The more they ran, locked in chaotic flight, the more she loved him. His will was so strong. And there was a calmness at the centre of him that controlled the pain and exhaustion. Only the muscle that flickered in his jaw betrayed him.

Think. But it was hard when everything was slipping and sliding inside her.

She ducked down Laburnum Road to their left. Then right and immediately right again, zigzagging to confuse pursuit. Her breath came in quick, sharp gasps. As she drew Chang An Lo across the road, they were almost run down by a bicycle suddenly swooping out of the gloom, skidding in the snow, and it set her pulse pounding faster to realize how near the soldiers could be without her even knowing.

She could think of nowhere safe except the docks. Tan Wah's old hovel, if it was still there. Liev Popkov had destroyed its roof but it was better than nothing, anything was better than nothing. But it was a long way. Chang was weakening, his feet stuttering as if trying to give up on him.

'The quayside,' she muttered, her breath flaring out in front of her in the icy air.

He nodded. Snowflakes were caught in his eyelashes.

'Can you make it?'

He nodded again. No waste of breath.

She slowed their pace to a hurried walk. She wasn't going to have him drop dead on her. Headed downhill. All they had to do now was cross the big junction of Prince Street and Fleet Road, then keep going straight down to the docks, but as they approached the crossroads she saw two policemen standing on the corner right in front of her. One was in British uniform; the other she recognised as French. They were huddled in their navy capes, heads close together.

Without breaking stride she steered herself and Chang through the crawling traffic across to the other side of the road, away from the uniforms, and thought she had got away with it. But the British one's head came up. He stared straight at her. At Chang. Said something to his colleague. Both immediately strode in her direction, carving a path through the sheet of white air. She couldn't run. Not with Chang An Lo. Instead she tried to come up with a good reason why a white girl would be stumbling along with a Chinese draped around her shoulders in a snowstorm.

She couldn't.

The police figures were closer, held up by a small burst of traffic, all shrouded in white. Death robes. A native man pushing a wheelbarrow with a child sitting in it swore at the car in front, which had slowed for the junction. It revved its engine ready to accelerate away, and the noise made Lydia glance across at the driver. She could barely see him through the sweep of snow-laden windshield wipers, but she saw enough. Instantly she stepped out onto the road, dragging Chang with her.

She tapped at the sedan's window. 'Mr Theo, it's me.'

The window rolled down and Mr Theo's grey eyes peered at her, narrowed against the cold wind. 'Good G.o.d, what are you doing out in this?' His gaze shifted to Chang An Lo. 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.'

The policemen were almost at the car.

'I . . .' Her dry mouth tripped her up. She tried again. 'I need a ride.'

She saw his eyes notice the two uniformed figures now approaching the rear of the car. Beside her Chang An Lo's breathing came in convulsive gasps.

'Not on the run, are you?'

'No, Mr Theo,' she said quickly. 'Of course not.'

He knew she was lying. She could see it.

'Get in,' he said.

46.

Well, this was an interesting turnaround.

Theo was leaning against the doorframe of his guest bedroom and despite the sick headache that was a permanent fixture these days, he was smiling.

Po Chu was going to love him.

On the bed lay the young Chinese. h.e.l.l's fire. What a state the fellow was in. Looked terrible. Don't die. Don't you dare die. I need you alive. Don't die. Don't you dare die. I need you alive.

The Russian girl was sitting beside the bed on a chair that was well over four hundred years old, not that she had eyes to appreciate its beauty right now. She was holding one of his mangled hands in hers and talking to him in a low urgent voice, the words too soft for Theo to hear. But that didn't matter.

Lydia Ivanova, you have brought me a prize indeed.

Theo drove her home. He'd almost had to cart her bodily out of the sickroom, she was so loath to leave, but Theo was having none of it. There was Alfred to face, so she had to go home and sort that out first. Anyway there was something so intense about the way she tended the Chinese young man that Theo was nervous that she was about to leap into bed with him, fever or no fever. What would Alfred say to that?

He left Li Mei bathing the patient's brow with herbs and potions from the h.o.a.rd in the satchel and promised Lydia she could return when her mother and Alfred said she was allowed to. Not before.

She had almost spat at him with fury but fortunately had more sense and finally succ.u.mbed with ill grace. Her eyes watched Li Mei with naked suspicion, but in the end she had accepted that her Chang An Lo was in safe hands. No police.

'I give you my word on it,' Theo said. 'As an English gentleman. Li Mei will take good care of him while you're gone.'

For a moment then, he thought she would bite.

To say Valentina Ivanova Parker was angry was an understatement. Theo was shocked. Never had he heard a woman use such language, and quite obviously neither had Alfred. She poured torrents of Russian and English abuse on her daughter's head. But the girl stood there and took it. She didn't cry and she didn't run. Her hands rubbed the sides of her damp skirt and sometimes her gaze lowered to her wet shoes but most of the time she looked her mother in the eye and said nothing.

By contrast Alfred's displeasure was muted. But he was British. Not like these crazy Russians. Theo attempted to leave but Alfred stopped him.

'Hang on a sec, old chap, if you don't mind. I want to hear the details of what happened, but first I must deal with Lydia.'