The Russian Concubine Part 58

Ten thousand dollars would buy anything. Everything. Pa.s.sports. Visas. Pianos. First-cla.s.s boat tickets. She could take her mother to England and flee. Oxford University, just as her mother wanted. It was all there, in Mason's hand. All she had to do was say yes. And she could take Chang An Lo to safety with her.

But would he come? Leave China?

Mason's lips pulled into a thin line. It was meant as a smile. 'Agreed?'

She opened her mouth to say yes.

'No.'

'Don't be a b.l.o.o.d.y stupid fool. This is your chance.'

'But you'd have the photographs.'

'I'd destroy them, I promise.'

'No.'

'Why?'

She opened her hands to the sky, letting the money go. 'Because you are sc.u.m. I don't trust you. As long as I hang on to those negatives, I can be certain you will never lay a finger on Polly again. Or your wife. Or my mother. Do you understand me?'

He scowled, turned away. She watched the money return to the wallet. Her throat hurt.

'Don't come near my mother anymore.'

'Go to h.e.l.l, b.i.t.c.h.'

He walked to the car, his head sunk on his chest, and lashed out at one of the tyres with a brutal kick.

'Mr Mason.'

He didn't look at her.

'Mr Mason, leave Theo Willoughby alone too.'

Mason made a harsh sound that sent a shiver down her spine. 'Don't you worry about him,' he retorted. 'Feng and his son between them will look after Willoughby.' His eyes crept back to hers, and the expression in them made her skin crawl. 'Just like they'll look after you.'

'What do you mean?'

'Now they know who took care of the Communist.'

'What Communist?'

'Don't play innocent. The one they're after. The one you nursed.'

Lydia felt ice spike her veins. 'That's a lie.'

'No. Polly told me.'

'Polly?'

'Oh yes. Your loyal little friend. Still want to protect her, do you? Yes, she told me and I told them. Right now they're probably at your house.' He laughed outright. 'You didn't really think I'd give a b.i.t.c.h like you ten thousand dollars, did you? You and your whoring mother can . . .'

But Lydia was already running.

She burst into her house.

'Mama,' she shouted. 'Mama.'

No reply.

The houseboy - what was his name? Deng? - she called out for him. He came running.

'Yes, Missy Leeja?'

'My mother, where is she?'

'I not know.'

She pounced on him and shook his bony shoulders. 'Is she here?'

'No, she out.'

'So early?'

'She go with Master. In car.'

'Just the two of them?'

His bright eyes were nervous of her as he held up two fingers. 'Master and Missy.'

She released him and he scuttled away, hunched like a beetle. Her tongue licked her dry lips. She'd panicked for nothing. But that didn't mean the danger wasn't there. It was. She walked into the drawing room and stared out the French windows. How the h.e.l.l do you fight back when you can't see your enemy? She leaned her forehead against the icy pane of gla.s.s and thought about that. Something broke loose inside her. Everything felt too heavy. Too big.

Her gaze was drawn to the shed, and because it was the nearest she could get to Chang An Lo right now, she opened the gla.s.s door and walked down toward it. The air was cold and crisp in her lungs and her head began to clear. She became aware of a crunching noise. A rat was gnawing at one of the wooden planks at the bottom of the shed. Her pulse picked up. What was it after?

'Scoot,' she shouted and the creature fled.

The padlock was still locked but the bolt attached to it hung uselessly on the door, the screws prised out. She gave a faint moan. Her hand reached out and touched the door. The wood was warm in the sun. Adrenaline hit her system. She pushed. The door swung open. She screamed.

Blood. So much of it. Red. Sticky. Everywhere. Walls. Ceiling. Floor. On the wire of the hutch and on the sacks. As if someone had painted with blood. The raw stench of it mixed with the stink of faeces but Lydia didn't notice the smell.

'Sun Yat-sen,' she screamed.

The rabbit was lying in the middle of a pool of blood on the floor, his white fur caked with bright crimson. Even his big yellow teeth were red. Lydia knelt beside him, careless of her school uniform, and tears poured down her cheeks.

'Sun Yat-sen,' she whispered and lifted him into her arms.

He was still warm. Still alive. But barely. One leg twitched and a strange strangled screech whistled from his small pulsing body. His ears had been hacked off and rammed into his mouth, and his throat was cut. She pulled out the long, soft ears. Held him close. Rocked him and crooned to him. Until the final spasm stiffened his spine. His bloodshot eyes started to glaze.

Her head lowered over him, sobs raked her body. The blow, when it came, wiped out her misery. Darkness took over.

51.

Chang An Lo opened his eyes. Something was wrong. He could feel it. Tight in his bowels like wire.

He lay very still, listening.

But the squawking children's voices as they played in the courtyard masked all other noises, and a soldier's boot on the stair would pa.s.s unnoticed. Silently he rolled out of bed. From under the pillow he took the curl of copper hair and from beneath the mattress he drew the knife.

He stood behind the door. The smell of blood in his nostrils.

Li Mei showed no surprise. Her almond-shaped eyes looked at the blade in his hand but her face remained calm.

'What is it?' she asked as she placed the tray she was carrying on a delicate chiffonier of honey-coloured wood.

'A cold wind in my mind.'

'All is safe. Tiyo Willbee is an honourable man. You can trust him.'

Chang said nothing. He watched her pour hot water from a teapot with a bamboo handle into a bowl of dried herbs. He noticed she always did it in front of him, and he knew she was showing him that she added nothing extra. He need not fear poisons. He respected her for that. She cared for him well, coolly and calmly, with an observant eye, but he longed for the pa.s.sion of Lydia's nursing, her determination to s.n.a.t.c.h him from the jaws of the G.o.ds and to breathe fire into his blood once more. He missed that.

'Any news?' he asked softly.

'The grey bellies are in the harbour, I'm told, hundreds of caps bearing the Kuomintang sun. They are searching ships.'

'For Foreign Mud?'

'Who knows why?' She handed him the bowl and he bowed his thanks. Her hair was scented with cinnamon. 'People say - but what do people know? - that Communists are being smuggled south by ship to Canton and to Mao Tse-tung's camps. The sound of guns is in the air today.'

'Thank you, Li Mei.'

She bowed. 'I am honoured, Chang An Lo.' With a rustle of Shantung silk she left the room.

The smell of blood. It was strong in his nostrils.

'She hasn't come.'

'No, Chang, I'm afraid she's not at school today.'

'Is that not strange?'

'No, not really at this time of year. This is always the worst term for sickness and influenza at my school. Well, any school actually.'

'Yesterday she was well.'

'Don't fret, I'm sure she's fine. To be honest I suspect that blighter Alfred has shut her up at home to keep her away from you. You can't blame him really, old chap. She's still young.'

'I don't blame him. He is her father now.'

'Exactly.'

'She needs guarding.'

'Quite so.'

'But not by him.'

Lydia's leg hurt. Her head throbbed.

But when she forced her eyelids up, the blackness beyond them was as dense as inside her mind. She tried them open and tried them shut. Nothing changed. She moved an arm and felt her elbow crunch against something hard. She touched her hip and thigh. She was naked. Shivering.

That's what decided it.

It was a nightmare. She was in one of those terrifying caught-in-a-trap nightmares. No clothes. Everyone staring. A splinter of h.e.l.l. Stuck in her mind.

She closed her eyes and spiralled back down into nothingness, knowing she would soon wake in her own bed.

Strange about the blackness though.

52.