The Concubine's Secret (53 page)

The man puffed out his weedy chest. ‘Comrade, there’s a stain on the floor outside your room. Please clean it up.’

Lydia blinked as though she hadn’t heard properly, then let out a gasp and pushed past, rushing to her door.

The man bit his lip, annoyed. ‘It looks like blood,’ he shouted after her.

Alexei followed. It
was
blood. And in the room there was more. The big woman, Elena, was standing by the bed. She lifted her head to see who had burst in without knocking, her pale eyes hard and angry. Beside him Lydia was quivering like a small animal, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

‘Liev,’ she whispered. ‘Liev.’

On the bed sprawled the big man. His barrel chest was naked and exposed, except for a bandage which looked as though a large crimson dinner plate had been placed on top of it. A vivid strident red. Every inch of his skin was covered in blood, sweat or bruises, while his one black eye had sunk into an equally blackened socket. But his mouth, though split and scabbed, was twisted into a lopsided attempt at a grin.

‘ Lydia,’ he bellowed.

She flew across the room. Smears of blood rubbed off on her as she leaned over and kissed his hairy cheek, wrapping her arms around his bull neck.

‘You’re not dead,’ she said. It was an accusation.

‘
Nyet
. I thought about it. But changed my mind.’

‘I’m glad.’ She was beaming at him, her hands gripping chunks of his beard. ‘I thought you were dead, you big idiot.’

Alexei wondered if she’d act with quite that desperate energy if he came back from the dead one day. He doubted it.

‘They threw you out, did they?’ she laughed. ‘Didn’t want your smelly carcass in their prison?’

The Cossack grunted.

She patted the bandage on his granite chest. ‘Making a bit of a fuss over nothing as usual, aren’t you?’

He grunted again and from somewhere under the bandage rose a bubbling sound. It might have been a laugh.

‘Shut up,’ Elena snapped. ‘Don’t talk, Popkov.’

She was standing in the same spot, staring at Lydia with barely controlled anger. In one hand she held a white enamel basin piled high with scarlet swabs of cotton and stained bandages. In the other, which was turned palm up, lay a blood-streaked rifle bullet.

‘Did you take it out of him?’ Alexei asked.

‘Someone had to.’

‘Anaesthetic?’

She glanced at the empty vodka bottle on the floor and gave it a kick that sent it spinning under the bed.

‘Elena,’ Lydia said, her voice thick with unshed tears. ‘Thank you.’

‘I didn’t do it for you, girl.’

‘I know.’

‘I didn’t think you’d be back here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because without the Cossack, there is nothing here for you to come back for.’

‘There’s you. And Edik with his dog.’ Her tone was bemused.

‘Like I said. Nothing for you to come back for.’

‘Elena,’ Lydia said solemnly, ‘I thought you and I were friends.’

‘Then you thought wrong.’

The woman dumped the bullet on Liev’s chest where it sat like a miniature gravestone on top of the bandage. A heavy stillness settled in the metallic-tasting air.

‘ Lydia,’ Alexei said quickly, ‘come with me. We’ll buy medicines for him.’ He wanted her out of this room.

She didn’t move. Her huge eyes were lost in shadows but her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the Russian woman.

‘Why did I think wrong, Elena?’

The woman’s expression softened. But that made it worse, as if she saw no hope for the young girl in front of her.

‘Because,’ Elena said, ‘you damage everything you touch.’

Lydia rang the doorbell this time. She closed her eyes while she waited, to shut herself off from this moment as if it could belong to someone else. She had rattled halfway across Moscow in the trams as the bleached and pungent city air at last grew dark, and a moon as yellow as a melon skimmed up into the evening sky.

She’d watched a lamplighter pedal down the street whistling, with his long wooden pole over his shoulder, stop under a streetlamp and, without dismounting, turn its gas jet on with the tip of his pole. She wished she was him. She’d seen how the conductor on the tram, a woman with tired eyes, had handed out tickets with due attention to each passenger. Lydia had wanted to be her. Or the girl with the baby with the birthmark. Or the couple in the street with their arms looped together.

Anybody but herself.

The door opened. ‘Ah, Lydia. How charming of you to call.’

‘Good evening, Dmitri.’

‘I can’t say I wasn’t expecting you. You see how much faith I have in your word.’

He was wearing a silk maroon robe over black trousers and a smile so courteous that for one thin sliver of time she let it give her hope. He threw back the door and she walked into the hallway. Music was drifting out from one of the rooms and she recognised it at once. Her mother used to play the piece, one of Chopin’s Nocturnes.

‘You’re looking tired, Lydia, distinctly pale. Let me pour you a glass of wine. You’ll feel better.’ He held out his hands to help her off with her coat.

She didn’t move, just stood there in his warm apartment with her hat and coat firmly in place. She tried to find him behind his smile but he was too well hidden.

‘Dmitri, don’t do this.’

His grey eyes widened. ‘My dearest Lydia, you surprise me. We made a deal.’

‘I know.’

‘Your Cossack is back home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not even dead.’

‘No.’

‘So,’ he spread his hands as if confused, ‘what’s the problem?’

‘I don’t want to do this.’

He gave her a slow, sad look and gently removed her hat, so that her flaming hair tumbled over her shoulders.

‘I really don’t think,’ he said softly, ‘that what you want is relevant. We agreed. A bargain is a bargain. I have fulfilled my half of it and now it’s time for yours.’ His voice was sounding different, as though his mouth were dry and his tongue heavy.

‘Dmitri, please. You are a decent man and we can still be friends despite-’

‘Friends! I don’t want to be friends!’

Anger flared for a second and he bared his teeth at her. And then it was gone, smothered by an attentive smile. That was when she knew nothing would change his mind and that was when she started to hate him. She glanced behind her at the door.

His hand closed over her wrist. ‘No, my little Lydia, nyet.’ He spoke soothingly, the way he would to a nervous colt. ‘Don’t think of leaving. And don’t glare at me like that. Such contempt.’ He laughed and the sound of it made her skin crawl. ‘If you try to leave, my dear, I shall have Comrade Popkov rearrested.’ His eyes grew brittle as glass. ‘Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Now we understand each other, let me take your coat.’

She didn’t move but he carefully unbuttoned it for her and started to slide it from her stiff shoulders.

‘Dmitri,’ she said without looking at him, ‘what is to stop you threatening to arrest Popkov in the future every time you want me to come over here?’

He beamed at her, delighted. ‘Ah, now I see we really do understand each other.’

‘Answer me. What is to stop you?’

‘Nothing.
Nichevo.
Absolutely nothing.’

The room with the music turned out to be his study. It was intimate, despite the hard lines of the desk and the shelves of leather-bound books. Well chosen for seduction, it seemed to Lydia. Soft lighting, a gramophone playing, the rich colours of an Afghan rug on the floor, a pot of coffee and a bottle of burgundy on a table next to a chaise longue. It was the chaise longue that caught her eyes, with its elegant curves and dense green velvet. Silk cushions of amber and russet, as inviting as a forest floor in springtime.

‘Wine?’ he offered.

‘No.’

‘Do sit down.’

She remained standing.

He removed the gramophone needle from the record, poured out two glasses of wine and paused for a moment with one in each hand while he inspected her, head cocked to one side. He seemed to like what he saw. She wanted to slap the smile off his face. The room was over-hot. Or was it her? The aroma of coffee seemed to clog up her lungs and she felt suddenly sick.
I can handle him
, she’d boasted to Elena. How naive could she be? She’d stupidly believed she could flutter her eyelids and toss her hair at this man, extract what she wanted from him and escape without having to pay the price. That man eats girls like you for breakfast, Elena had warned. She should have listened to her.

Yet without Dmitri’s help Popkov would still be in prison or, worse, dead. Dmitri had waited with the patience of a spider until she blundered into his web and she had no right to feel surprised when the sticky threads tightened around her.

‘Here, this will calm you down.’ He proffered a glass.

‘Do I need calming?’

Again he inspected her. ‘I rather think you do.’

She took the wine and drank it down in one go. He approached, standing close enough for her to smell the pomade on his hair, and the lines of his face seemed to harden as he bent his head and kissed her lips. She could taste whisky on him. So he’d started without her. She let his lips linger on hers but made no response.

‘ Lydia,’ he murmured, ‘so cold? So stony?’ He ran a hand up her throat and into her hair, then dropped it down to her breast. ‘Loosen up, my sweet angel.’

She stepped back from him, replaced her glass on the table and turned to face him. They had laughed together, danced together, surely he wouldn’t force her. ‘Dmitri, release me from this bargain. I’m begging you.’ She dropped to her knees in front of him. ‘Please.’

He smiled slowly and for a moment she thought he was going to agree, but instead he unbuttoned his flies and reached for her head.

‘You disgust me, comrade,’ she said coldly and rose to her feet. ‘So let’s get it over with.’

With no hesitation she undid her blouse buttons, stepped out of her skirt and removed her underwear. In the time it took for Dmitri to realise she was doing his job for him, Lydia stood stark naked in the study.

His gaze roamed over her body. Her face burned but her eyes remained fixed on his, as if by willpower alone she could force him back from the brink and make this enough. This display for him. She couldn’t believe now that she’d been blind enough to find him attractive. He yanked down his trousers and kicked them away, moving closer to her. He touched the smooth milky skin of her stomach, her thigh, the fiery curls in between. He was breathing hard.

‘Why me, Dmitri? You could have a thousand others who are willing, so why me?’

He started to move slowly around her, trailing his fingers over her buttocks, along her spine, feeling the bone of her hip, the silky cushion of her breast.

‘Because you are a rare creature, Lydia Ivanova.’

‘There are many more beautiful. Including your own wife.’

Still he circled her, again and again as if he were spinning his web. ‘The world is full of ordinary people, Lydia. You are not one of them.’

She drew a breath and said softly, ‘Then don’t crush me. Let me go.’

In answer he reached for her, his hands rough on her shoulders, gripping her hard. ‘Don’t be foolish,’ he whispered, as his lips came down fiercely on hers.

She didn’t fight him. But she remained rigid and unyielding until he abruptly tired of the game, threw off his robe so that he was totally naked and pushed her impatiently on to the chaise longue. He was strong and held her down, but as he pressed himself on top she squirmed her hips away. With no warning he pulled back and slapped her face.

‘No, Dmitri, don’t-’

He slapped her again, harder. She tasted blood on her teeth.

‘Fuck you,’ she yelled.

The hand was coming again. ‘Don’t you-’

The study door crashed open. Dmitri didn’t even look round. ‘Get out, Antonina,’ he growled and smacked Lydia in the mouth.

‘Let her go,’ Antonina said.

Lydia couldn’t see her because Dmitri’s body was blocking everything from view, but she could see his eyes clearly. They were no longer grey and controlled.

‘Piss off, Antonina,’ he shouted. ‘I’m busy.’

Abruptly Lydia felt his whole body give a sudden jerk, as though her flailing knee had caught his groin. Only when he slumped down on her with a groan, clutching the back of his head, did it occur to her that Antonina had hit him with something. His full weight was crushing her. She could barely breathe so grabbed a fistful of his red hair and yanked up his head, freeing her airways. His eyes were black with rage and she could feel the heat of it scorch her face. A fine thread of red was trickling from his ear down to her lips and she spat it back at him. Over his shoulder she could now make out Antonina, wide-eyed as a deer, a huge studded Bible clutched in her hands.

‘You stupid fucking bitch,’ Dmitri roared at her and dragged himself off the chaise longue, one hand still gripping his head.

Antonina backed off fast.

Lydia leapt to her feet and seized his arm from behind. He turned, swinging a fist at her, but she was too quick and he missed.

‘Dmitri, don’t-’

‘Shut your mouth.’

‘Leave your wife alone.’

But he lunged for Antonina once more and this time his fist connected with the side of her head. The crack of it was loud in the room and she went sprawling backwards on to the desk. Her fingers released the Bible and her mouth hung open in a scream that produced no sound.

‘I’m going to teach you, you stupid faithless bitch.’

He hit her again full in the face, just as Lydia slammed a punch into his kidneys. He grunted with pain, cursing, but seized Antonina’s slender neck, squeezing it brutally between his strong hands. Lydia hooked an arm around his throat to twist him off, but she was too late. In panic Antonina lifted a dagger-shaped paperknife from beside her head and rammed it with all her strength into her husband. It slid neatly up to the hilt between his ribs.